Mike Oldfield - Light & Shade
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Free Music Notes for Light & Shade
Free Music Review: THIS IS NOT GOOD (FJB/O!-music 2006)
Hit: 1 Stars
After the sell out of Tubular Bells (I liked Tubular Bells II, but after part III - VI1/2 I started to doubt the motives and inspiration of Oldfield), I lost my interest in Mike Oldfield. But than Kate Bush came with a pretty good album and Chris Rea showed that doing something 11 times, can work.
I bought Light & Shade. Intro's don't say a lot with the music of Oldfield, so the music you can hear on Amazon will only give a hint. I wish I had taken that hint seriously.
The David Haldeman review says it all. I also grew up with the majestic and enchanting atmosphere of Mike Oldfield. And I still love the unique sound his guitars make. But like most older artists he hasn't got the freshness to do something unexpected or for that matter something unexpectatly good.
The biggest complaint I have about this album is that it lacks every form of depth. For a great deal it's the fault of the compositions but I find that the beats and technique that is used sound hopelessly dated. They just have no atmosphere at all.
I would suggest Oldfield buying some albums of the modern Scandinavian jazz-scene, for instance Nils Petter Molvaer, to listen to how beats can sound nowadays. I'm not saying Oldfield should go out to make jazz-records (altough that would be something unexpected)but maybe he and some readers of this review could take a listen to the Electrique Noir album of Eivind Aarset to hear already has been accomplished in the combination folk and beats (and in this case jazz). Maybe Oldfield could give Aarset a ring to save his career. This would only be a risk for the art of Aarset.
Free Music Review: The Light and Dark makeup - Another sad story of a talented composer and multi-instrumentalist
Hit: 1 Stars
This recording simply leaves me breath- and speechless, although not a bit surprised. After a deep musical Crises between the late seventies and the beginning of the nineties, Mike Oldfield now reveals another, probably more severe Crises, ready to share it with us, the listeners.
No doubt, after a few times of listening, one probably might get used to this expression of boredom and see the Light-side as Tres Lunas or Guitars Part II (none of them favorites of mine) or even to be musical pieces in the light (or shadow) of The Songs of Distant Earth (probably Mike's masterpiece and source of inspiration regarding the becoming of Chillout music for a Chillout world).
The second part (the dark side) be rather left without comment, if it weren't for the guidelines of this review: It's all computerized music in a most uninspired and uninspiring way (some of the bits are even worth a rating below zero). Thus, the makeup has become more important than the music. Where are the visions that created Ommadawn, where is the dedication that lead to Incantations, where is the power that struggled to become Amarok?
Thanks to Peer 2 Peer networks I saved my money to spend it on more unknown, but certainly also more inspiring musical talents to support, as for example the artists publishing via Magnatune, www.magnatune.com. I invite you to spend your time and money there. (Is Amazon ready to accept this last paragraph of mine? Else please remove).
Now Mike, what can the listeners do for you?
Free Music Review: When did Picasso turn into Thomas Kincade?
Hit: 1 Stars
The decline of Oldfield's career in recent years has been downright painful, and I believe this is the end. I have grown up with Mike, being born in 1978 and having had Ommadawn, Hergest Ridge, and other albums interweaved with some of the most significant and touching times in my childhood and my life. It makes it all the more difficult, then, that he seems to be dying a slow musical death. He has completely immersed himself in his studio, churning out uninspired landscapes of preset synth backgrounds and aimless melodies. This musical draught has lasted for 10 years now, and it only gets worse.
What does the album sound like? Imagine a hotel lobby. Or a gift shop. The first disk, Light, is definitely the better of the two, having at least a few moments of decency (the oddly beautiful "The Gate," for example). Dark is completely terrible, being made up primarily of "techno" (I say that in quotation marks because he obviously has no idea what goes into making a genuinely good techno song). I can say little else, because the music is so bland and uncomplicated that it is impossible to analyze.
I am geniunely sad as I write this. How did this happen? How did one of the most talented and innovative artists of his day become a lazy hack? How did Picasso turn into Thomas Kincade? I find it impossible for him to reclaim his genius after this. His last truly good work was The Songs of Distant Earth, and that was 11 years ago. I'm tired of waiting. This is it. Goodnight Mike.
Free Music Review: by beaten path, unwillingly
Hit: 1 Stars
God and The Creator himself - both know that all bad words hurled at this shameful commercial/ambitious semi-clubby package are correct. All 5-star embelishments of the same are justified but from commercial/clubby position. But then, by same token, my own odd attempt at mixing samples, loops and Steinberg things into digital 24-bit master (if it were) might warrant 5 stars from an adhoc asylum patient panel, wouldn'it? Me, I'm as innocent to concoct kich as any clubber who is now into embracing this very product. So why not us the mob, indeed, why pick on Mike? The dramatic career and disography behind Oldfield only aggravate the treason commited, what with his vows to "serious" thought-provoking music and all. The right to condemn and rule out ANY machine-crafted erzats techno/new age/world musak like this was once granted exactly by Mike himself - as he vowed to "complement an electropop commercial release of his with real spirited album", virtually an artsitic protest or a personal spur, if you will. I'll be hardput to point at ANY such track, they are so really same and bland, differing but in the measure of beat and voicing and stellar keys and blah-blah. It was never blah-blah we heard in Incantations - it was ...well, the Universe whereas this here sounds like a demonstration of Universal Studios technologies before the dupes of the world.Free Music Review: Definitely not worth the listening.
Hit: 1 Stars
I'm spanish and I've been a fan of Mike for quite a long time. I can say that many of his albums are among my all time favourites. That's the only reason why I bought this CD's before reading any comment or listening to any song. I couldn't feel more sorry.
After listening's both CD's the only thing that comes to your mind is that Mr. Oldfield felt too lazy for eliminating the bad songs. But that's quite unfair, because someone may think that it means there are "good" songs. I could hardly say that. It is true that Mike Oldfield have become a techno lover in the last decade, but he managed to get a funny approach to this new sound. I'm not saying that he did a good job, but at least there were a few songs you could save ("To Be Free", "The Doge's Palace"...and not many more). In this last work he has lost everything worth your time and your money, making a repetitive and soul-less sound, maybe decent for a background sound, but it may cause you a headache if you pay attention to it.
Special mention deserves the techno version of some popular tunes, and a sense of Songs-of-distant-earth remix, but clearly not as good as the original album, that makes you wanna throw this CD somewhere very very far away.
This is my advice to Mike Oldfield: get your guitar again and sell the sound mixer. Thank you!