MIKE OLDFIELD - Tubular Bells 2003
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Free Music Notes for Tubular Bells 2003
Free Music Review: It's Okay,
Hit: 4 Stars
I think that this Mike Oldfield's CD is okay, but it looks like he repaeted his work form 30 years.I think it's not bad because I love Tubular Bells (the first one) I recommend also Mike Oldfield's TR3S LUNAS (a kind of music what I like) Voyager isn't bad too.
Free Music Review: Tubular Bells 2003 - do not treat it like a brand new album!
Hit: 3 Stars
Well it is very hard to judge TB 2003. I must say after comparing TB from 1973 with a new version that i prefer Older one. Why? it was spontanic. It was romantic, Melancholic and full of heart. Mike was using only few guitars (for those who do not know it was Fender telecaster, Fender precision bass and one acoustic and classical guitar) and not so many instruments as you may though. Mandolins and some of other sounds were created using Electric guitar mixed and changed in studio to sound like, let's say, bagpipes. In 1973 mike was not a superstar and a well known genius player. He was just lucky guy with a huge talent who had an opportunity to record in a professional Studio his own ideas and melodies. It was all very spontanic...In seventies his music was full of passion and very personal ("ommadawn", "Hergest ridge"), while when he joined more mainstream style of music ("Moonlight shadow") he became a superstar with a lot of money, but with no really original concepts for his new records. yes i agree, "Five miles out" or "Islands" are a brilliant works too, but looking back to seventies it was nothing compared to emotional bombs that "Ommadawn" and other albums were. The music slowly was loosing it's soul. With "Amarok" he proved that he can still compose such a genius music like TB, but later he mostly made mechanic (in real sense - all of his new works were made with computers and synths) works and he lost many of his splendor and talet that he had before.I am afraid about Mike's.future "guitars" and "millenium bell" were simply some wierd mistakes and they contained only a small shadow of some of his older works. Ok, even compare it to "songs of thr Distant earth" (his best from new period) and see how piontless he had gone. "tres lunas" was not his real studio album. It contained a music to a computer game - to computer game it was originaly composed, and in a computer game it sounds the best. those cyberspace stuff just don't work now.
TB 2003 is Very good album.Very good! But only if you forgot that he recorded the same thirty years ago.
i felt satisfied when i heard the BASS along with main piano motive in first miute.in 1973 it sounded thiny and quiet, now it blows of your subwoofer. the sound is crystal clear and without any noises. But with those changes, the magic of original Tubular bells had vanished. In some parts you could heard Mike's fingers sliding on his guitar, now it is all so crystal-clear perfect, without any sound flaws.
I heard that he is planing to Re-record "OMMADAWN" and "HErgest ridge. for music - 4 STARS
for idea - 2 STARS
for all - 3,5 STARS...
Free Music Review: What if you had heard this one first?
Hit: 3 Stars
I'm like the majority of reviewers here: I listened to the original Tubular Bells over and over as a teenager in the 1970s. You can't expect someone who imprinted so deeply on the original to hear this one with fresh ears. I bought Tubular Bells 2003 because Oldfield has said it is how he had always intended the piece to sound. I think he deserves respect and so anyone for whom the original was formative ought to give this one a listen.
How many times is a master allowed to conduct, or revise, one of his own works? Think of classical composers before recording technology. Think of rock bands on tour. People here have complained that there were at least five versions in thirty years. That's once every six years. Why is it annoying? Yes, it's unusual for a "rock album." Tubular Bells is an unusual piece. How many recordings of the Grateful Dead's "Truckin'" are there? How many times the price of the original vinyl you bought did the value of TB turn out to be? Back then I was poor, now I'm...less poor. I really don't mind buying this CD just to check it out. I don't even mind if Richard Branson gets a cut.
I would be most interested in the views of teenagers who heard and fell in love with this version, and then finally went back and compared the original.
But...I admit TB 2003 is just too shiny and voluptuous for me. The bass is very basey. The guitars are more like guitars. All those...instruments! There's often a lot of high fizzy sound-- the original had a lot of Farfisa organ, but this one sort of brings it out for you to, er, appreciate and keep appreciating. Oldfield uses a lot of constant sounds to create atmosphere. Here they seem less subliminal. The old piece is like a banquet of Indian curry dishes. This one is like a meal at a fancy restaurant where every dish is carefully presented on a big plate, in a puddle of purple sauce, decorated with parsely and sculptured bits of carrot.
One minor thing--it can be very disturbing to have this in your iPod on shuffle-all-my-music, and have one of the sections of Tubular Bells play and then suddenly end before the first note of the next section!
It may be that the piece that everyone loved in 1974 was not the piece Oldfield intended, but more of an accident of tape hiss, fatigue, distortion, lack of money and lack of time. Or maybe most music shouldn't sound exactly the way the composer intended, and modern tech tempts musicians down a garden path of control and perfectionism. My TB-ROM was burnt long ago. But it would be interesting to hear Tubular Bells 2003 get a fair trial.
Free Music Review: It is Tubular Bells...but it isn't.
Hit: 3 Stars
I'm a huge fan of Mike Olfield's epic albums (TB1, Hergest Ridge, and Ommadawn pt.1), less fond of Incantations (80 minutes of recording containing about 30 minutes of music) and care nothing for his subsequent works. It seems that whenever he "revisits" old recordings, he feels the need to change and rework. First there was the <terrible> remix of Hergest Ridge for the CD release, which he has vehemently stood by as <the> version. (I keep an mp3 version of the analog version - even with the supresssed dynamic range of the analog medium, it's a far superior mix.) Then came TB2, which was flat and uninspired. Now there's TB3. I've read about this 'note-for-note' re-make, a 'bar-for-bar' polish and modernization of the old classic.
Objectively, it's not 'note-for-note', there being noticeable differences in mix, instruments, and, well, NOTES. More clever string bends and key trills than the original.
Subjectively, there's almost a sense of mockery of the original material. The bends and trills I mentioned before have an air of superiority, like someone trying to 'out-virtuoso' the original artist. I have read that TB2 was almost a playful put-down, a gentle ribbing of TB1's seriousness. TB3 certainly sounds like it.
Free Music Review: An interesting cover of the original...
Hit: 3 Stars
My wife, daughter and I listened very carefully to the original and this re-recording this weekend. With the 2003 version, the sound engineering is much better, and all the instruments sound much more vivid. Too much more vivid, as a matter of fact. If you took all the sliders on a 10-channel graphic equalizer, and slid them all to the top, the orignal might sound somewhat like this. The ominous, subtle bass-line of the original is so in-your-face that it actually obscures some of the other instruments.Imagine a very complex paint-by-numbers of a masterpiece painting. Everything very precise, all the colors exactly so. Yet, the brush-strokes of the master painter wouldn't be there, and neither would delicate, moving blends of color. Tubular Bells 2003 is exactly like that. It sounds better technically, but the passion, vision and sublety are missing. Our 10-year-old enjoys them both, but likes the first better because it "puts pictures in my head, and the new one doesn't." Smart kid.