Mike Oldfield - Amarok
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.44 You Save: $8.54 (66%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for Amarok
Free Music Review: Amarok = Masterpiece
Hit: 5 Stars
As I remember, I bought this cd album in the summer of 1990. Since I'm a HUGE Mike Oldfield fan I had been anticipating for this album for a long time. However, I was into his more 'pop' or vocal projects such as Crisis, Discovery, Five miles out, or Islands. The very first time I put it on and heard that harsh and violent beginning I started feeling confused, uncomfortable, actually scared of what I was listening to. To cut a long story short, I popped it out and went to take a swim in the sea!
Every single time I tried to listen to it I invariably hesitated in the end, and, eventually, I would instead put on a Madonna album or Islands. That was actually the end of my costant attempts to make up with Amarok....At least, that's what I thought...
Christmas 1991: After being silly bored with listening to Vogue. Sadeness and to a lot of Sade and since I couldn't find anything else to play I thought...what the hell...why not?
This is when my life started changing . I was instantly put into a trance from which I could not escape. At least, not untill the cd text showed 60:02 min/sec. which marked the end of that daydream.
Now, Every single time I listen to Amarok, again and again, I find it more breathtaking, more divine.
Give your self the chance to experience this. I did. It may have took a bit longer than it should, but eventually I did....
Free Music Review: Dynamic soundscape and beautiful melodies
Hit: 5 Stars
Mike Oldfield's masterpiece was never a hit. No one I know has ever heard it. This is probably due to a cheesy cover and the harsh beginning of the CD, but don't let that scare you, there's more yet to come.This record has very haunting melodies, and Mike's passion for layering guitars: 6-string, 12-string, any-string on top of each other is just great. Some passages make my hair stand straight up.
It's also a production gem. Some parts are really low and mellow, only to be interrupted by a orchestra hit, keeping you alert throughout the record. Some parts are grand and has a lot of sound, without sounding too much.
There's only one track on the CD. Mike's craftmanship with weaving melodies, using well put pauses and previously used chords holds the track together.
So, if you like to whistle along to beautiful melodies, get scared off the chair and experience music made out of traditional guitars as well as strange instruments as Northumbrian Smallpipes, buy this record.
Free Music Review: Mike Oldfield is the Man of Melodies again.
Hit: 5 Stars
Mike is free to do whatever he wants. And he does. This album is funny, challenging, insulting, gorgeous, crazy and violent. Many artists have used noises, sounds, exotic instruments and arrangements in the past. But Mike Oldfield isn't using these as the main feature of the album. The music is brilliantly written, with defiantly simple, but utterly gorgeous melodies in every place. It is rich and touching, emotionally resonant, and it is able to deflate itself at strategic moments with Margaret Thatcher immitations, dissonant bits and messages in Morse code. The music is sincere and genuine, and highly replayable. There are many ways to listen to this music, and every single one of them is highly rewarding. Truly a masterpiece: an untrivial, gorgeous album that challenges insults and mocks its listeners. It could be Oldfield's own "Trout Mask Replica", in fact, and is every bit as amazing as Captain Beefheart's tour-de-force, if not even more.Free Music Review: One Of Oldfield's Best From A Late Point In His Career
Hit: 5 Stars
Also known as "Ommadawn Part 2", "Amarok" takes a lot of melodic, harmonic and instrumental cues from its predecessor, while at the same time adding and updating the overall sound. The album doesn't flow quite as smoothly as "Ommadawn", but that isn't a bad thing--all kinds of charming breaks, like the sound of him brushing his teeth or that of a Margaret Thatcher impersonator, come in to keep you on your toes. But basically, the music here is like than on "Ommadawn", (chanted vocals, trebly electric guitar, Irish folk interludes and all), so if you liked that one, "Amarok" is a must have. Disregard the guy below who says this is "boring mood music"; obviously some people have shorter attention spans than others, and if anything, "Amarok" is designed to wake you from your slumber. Perhaps he was expecting Metallica, an infinitely more boring and repetitive group...Free Music Review: It's time to declare this one a masterpiece
Hit: 5 Stars
I don't really like the Maggie Thatcher impression. The punishing audio stabs out of nowhere near the beginning are really cruel. The whole thing is incredibly lopsided and messy. And yet, I never stop playing this. It's Mike's most difficult work, brash, mad, loopy, silly. And then there's that ending. That last sixty seconds. I am here to tell you that those final moments are the most joyous, heartbreaking, life-enhancing, thrilling minute of music ever created by human endeavor. And you HAVE to reach it by way of the previous 59 minutes for it to really pay off. It's brilliant. I never thought Mike would top Ommadawn, but this one does it. It may not be a hit now, but in a hundred years, people are going to start catching on.