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Mike Oldfield - The Complete Mike Oldfield
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The Complete Mike Oldfield is a compilation album written and mostly performed
by Mike Oldfield. CD one is a collection of shorter pieces and CD two is
excerpts from Oldfield's longer pieces of music. Each of these two parts is then
subdivided again into two parts; The instrumental section, The Vocal section,
The Complex section and The Live section.

Some versions of the vinyl have less or different tracks; "The Instrumental
Section" is missing "In Dulci Jubilo" and "Portsmouth" leaving only nine tracks
on that first side. More, alternative pressings of the vinyl replaced "Mistake"
with 7" mix of "Pictures in the Dark".


CD1

THE INSTRUMENTAL SECTION
01. Arrival [0:02:47.50]
02. William Tell Overture [0:03:55.05]
03. Cuckoo Song [0:03:13.17]
04. In Dulci Jubilo [0:02:50.50]
05. Portsmouth [0:02:02.15]
06. Jungle Gardenia [0:02:37.40]
07. Guilty [0:04:04.35]
08. Blue Peter [0:02:07.65]
09. Waldberg (The Peak) [0:03:24.53]
10. Wonderful Land [0:03:39.12]
11. Étude (Theme From The Killing Fields) (Single Version) [0:03:07.40]
THE VOCAL SECTION
12. Moonlight Shadow [0:03:36.23]
Vocals - Maggie Reilly
13. Family Man [0:03:47.47]
Vocals - Maggie Reilly
14. Mistake [0:02:55.20]
Vocals - Maggie Reilly
15. Five Miles Out [0:04:19.00]
Vocals - Maggie Reilly/Mike Oldfield
16. Crime of Passion [0:03:37.70]
Vocals - Barry Palmer
17. To France [0:04:33.58]
Vocals - Maggie Reilly
18. Shadow On The Wall (12'' Version) [0:05:08.30]
Vocals - Roger Chapman

CD2

THE COMPLEX SECTION
01. Excerpt from Ommadawn [0:06:59.40]
02. Excerpt from Tubular Bells [0:07:59.60]
03. Excerpt from Hergest Ridge [0:04:20.37]
04. Excerpt from Incantations [0:04:41.30]
05. Excerpt from The Killing Fields (Evacuation) [0:04:11.43]
THE LIVE SECTION
06. Sheba (Live) [0:03:30.50]
07. Mirage (Live) [0:05:12.30]
08. Platinum (Live) [0:14:28.05]
09. Mount Teide (Live) [0:04:34.05]


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SOME SONGS REVIEWED
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ARRIVAL

"Arrival", which had working titles of "Fiol", "Ode to Dalecarlia" & "Arrival in
Dalecarlia", was the instrumental title track from Swedish pop group ABBA's
album of the same name. It was the second and last song from the group not to
contain lyrics, following "Intermezzo No.1" the previous year.

As with "Intermezzo No.1", the choral tune, heavily influenced by traditional
Swedish folk music, was written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. It was
recorded on 30 August 1976 at Stockholm's Metronome Studio.

In 1983, a different version of the song with lyrics, called "Belle", was sung
by Daniel Balavoine and Anni-Frid Lyngstad ("Frida") as part of the French
musical ABBAcadabra. Also in 1983, it was re-recorded with different lyrics, and
released as "Time" by B. A. Robertson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad.

The title of the album, Arrival, gave the instrumental its name, rather than
vice versa. It was also one of the last tracks to be recorded for the album
before its release on 11 October 1976.

in 1980 Mike Oldfield made a cover-version of the song, which is found on his
QE2 album. The artwork for Oldfield's single is a parody of ABBA's Arrival album
artwork depicting the artist in a Bell 47G helicopter.

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WILLIAM TELL OVERTURE

"William Tell Overture" is a single by musician Mike Oldfield, released in 1977.
It is a rendition of the William Tell Overture. However this version of the
William Tell Overture did not have much of an impact on the UK charts.[1] It is
the first of the two non-album singles released by Mike Oldfield in 1977.

The UK B side was "Argiers", which had previously been the European b-side for
an earlier Oldfield single "Portsmouth". "Argiers" had been recorded in January
1976 at Througham and features Leslie Penning on recorders. Some European
versions included the track "First Excursion" as the b-side, however in Brazil
the b-side was "Portsmouth".[2] The B-sides were taken from Oldfield's
Collaborative / Remix Box-set, Boxed.

The music video for The William Tell Overture is comprised of multiple
incarnations of Oldfield performing the song on different instruments. The
effect is as if a room full of Oldfields were playing together.

* When referring to his then most recent release, The William Tell Overture,
Oldfield called "It a real rouser".
* In an advert for the single, the tagline "It'll shake you to the core" was
used, referring to William Tell's apple incident.
o The full advert reads: "The new single from the more whimsical side of
Mike Oldfield. You clog-danced to 'In Dulci Jubilo'. You crashed through the
ceiling to 'Portsmouth'. Now hear William Tell Overture by Mike Oldfield. It'll
shake you to the core."

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CUCKOO SONG

It was originally written by Michael Praetorius (1571 – 1621) and was arranged
by Oldfield. The B side (Pipe Tune) is an original composition by Oldfield. The
single (in a plain white sleeve) was included as a free bonus when the double LP
Incantations was released in 1978. It is one of the many non-album singles which
Oldfield released in the 1970s. "Cuckoo Song" also features Les Penning.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IN DULCI JUBILO

Mike Oldfield's "In Dulci Jubilo" is an instrumental version of the traditional
Christmas carol "Good Christian Men Rejoice". The carol is traditionally sung to
a German tune of the same name as Oldfield's tune. Mike Oldfield had recorded
another version of this song as the B-side to his previous single, "Don
Alfonso", which did not chart, playing all instruments himself. Later, he felt a
better version could be done, and re-recorded it in October 1975 at the Manor,
but incorporating some of the previous version's backing tracks recorded
November 1974 at the Beacon, his home studio.

The new version features Leslie Penning on 2 recorders (probably treble and
sopranino) and kortholt, Mike Oldfield on acoustic and electric guitars, piano
and ARP string synthesiser, and William Murray on snare drum.[1] Oldfield's
decision to re-record the song proved to be a good move; it appeared in
Christmas season playlists on radio across Europe, charting at number 4 in the
UK,[2] and is one of his most re-issued short songs. It also charted at number 7
in the Irish Singles Chart and at number two on the Dutch Top 40.

The song's authorship shown in the track listing below is how it appears on a
recent compilation CD. Most editions from the 1970s and 1980s credit it to R. L.
Pearsall, arr. Oldfield. Bach and Pearsall both wrote arrangements of it, but
the song dates further back than either composer. Italian pressings of the
single from 1975 credit it to J. S. Bach.

"On Horseback" features Mike Oldfield on vocals, accompanied by a children's
chorus credited as the Penrhos kids. It previously appeared as an untitled song
at the end of Oldfield's 1975 album Ommadawn, banded separately but merely
listed as part of "Ommadawn part two" on the label. The album's liner notes
refer to it as "the horse song on side two". Virgin Records recognised this song
could also be a contender as a Christmas hit, and was already being played on
radio before it was issued as a single; therefore the UK single's label bore a
large "A" on each side to encourage radio play of both sides. A large "A" is
often used to mark promo records, and copies are often mis-identified as promos,
but all have this mark.

This record's success as a Christmas single encouraged Oldfield to issue a
similar instrumental piece, usually with recorder as the lead instrument, as a
single every year's Christmas season up to 1980.

A music video was made for this song, and can be found on the DVD, Elements -
The Best of Mike Oldfield. It is probably the only non-recent Mike Oldfield
video that is still shown occasionally on television. The video splits the
screen in up to 9 thumbnail frames, each showing Mike miming playing a different
instrument. Mike's face is not shown in frames where he is seen playing an
instrument he did not play on the record.

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PORTSMOUTH

In an attempt to repeat the success of his previous year's Christmas hit, "In
Dulci Jubilo", Mike recorded another traditional folk melody dating from 1701
(first known publication),[1][2] again using Leslie Penning on recorders. The
single was just as successful as its predecessor, charting at number 3 in the
UK,[3] and became his first non-album single to be issued in the USA. It also
charted at number 19 in Ireland. Mike Oldfield plays acoustic guitar, accordion,
mandolin, ARP string synthesiser, tambourine, kettle drum and bodhran (Irish
drum), and both Oldfield and Penning are credited with "feet".[4]

This song, plus two others chosen as the B-side in different countries, had been
released the month before as three of four new songs on the compilation album
Boxed. They were mixed and encoded for SQ quadraphonic sound, the only format
this album was issued in, and all issues of these songs in vinyl and tape
formats have the encoding, even if they only say "stereo" on the label, as do
all single releases.

"Argiers" is another traditional folk song, performed by Leslie Penning on
recorders and Mike Oldfield on acoustic guitar and ARP string synthesiser. An
unusual feature of this arrangement is that it is in a minor key, having been
converted from its original major key via diatonic transposition. "Portsmouth"
and "Argiers" were both recorded in January 1976 at Througham, Mike's new home
studio, shortly after he moved from his previous home in Hergest Ridge, which
was the location of his previous home studio, the Beacon.[4]

"Speak (Tho' You Only Say Farewell)" is an old show tune performed by David
Bedford on piano and vocals, and Mike Oldfield on vocals. It is similar in style
to Bedford's earlier work in the Coxhill-Bedford Duo with Lol Coxhill, and was
recorded at the Beacon in November 1974.

A music video was made for this song, and can be found on the DVD, Elements -
The Best of Mike Oldfield. Shot in Mike's Througham studio, it shows four female
folk dancers who dance around the studio, while Mike is seen playing various
instruments, but not the recorder, which he did not play on the record. As in
the video for Mike's previous single, "In Dulci Jubilo", the video emphasizes
that Mike plays all the instruments, even though this is not strictly true.

The song has become synonymous with English football club, Portsmouth F.C., who
sometimes play the tune before or after games at their home stadium, Fratton
Park. Notably it was played during their victorious FA Cup 2008 campaign,
including after the final game against Cardiff City on 17 May 2008 at Wembley.

The piece was also featured in the 1979 NASA documentary film by Tony Palmer,
The Space Movie.

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GUILTY

When Oldfield was in New York recording Platinum and "Guilty" he recorded a
disco arrangement of his first album, Tubular Bells.[1] A version of Free's "All
Right Now" was also recorded during these sessions.

It is notable for being Oldfield's first obvious attempt to capitalise on a
current musical trend, in this case disco/dance music.

The music video for "Guilty" is in a colourful cartoon style.

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BLUE PETER

The royalties from the single went to the Cambodia appeal launched by the
children's show.[1] It charted at number 19 in the UK Singles Chart.

Traditionally, the debut of a new version of the famous theme tune "Barnacle
Bill" is accompanied with an introduction by the presenters at the time
explaining the reasons behind the new rendition. Mike Oldfield's version had its
genesis in his appearance on the programme in 1979 to demonstrate how modern pop
music was created using multi-track recording techniques. The end result was
liked enough by both the viewers and programme producers to be retained as the
permanent theme, and Oldfield additionally recorded a new version of the
programme's closing music, which runs for just 20 seconds and has never been
commercially released.

It should be noted that the released version of the theme is actually a further
re-recording, which incorporates many subtle changes compared to the TV version,
in addition to eliminating the opening snare drum roll, extending the piece to a
more suitable duration for commercial release, and being mixed in stereo. The TV
version was mono-only (British television was not broadcasting in stereo at that
time) and has never been made available for sale.

The music video for "Blue Peter" shows Oldfield competing in a race with various
kinds of vehicles. The intro is filmed in black and white and begins with a
silent movie style title card 'Episode 4 "The Race"'; there is a second card
after a short sequence with Oldfield and another man, displaying 'Zhree, Two,
vun Actshun!' (meaning 'Three, Two, One, Action!'). The race then begins, three
of the competitors are Oldfield himself (filmed in different shots as a pilot,
pirate and a man with a moustache) and some are not. The vehicles include
hovercraft, a tricycle hang glider, a helicopter, a three wheeled ATV, a larger
ATV and a kite buggy. The end of the video appears to parody the His Master's
Voice logo with a gramophone and a dog (ie. Nipper).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WONDERFUL LAND

"Wonderful Land" is UK #1 single by The Shadows. The song was released on the
Atlantic Records label in the U.S., but did not reach the Billboard Top 100.
This single stayed more weeks at #1 in the UK than any other single during the
60's - including those by The Beatles.

Mike Oldfield covered "Wonderful Land" on his 1980 QE2 album. Oldfield's version
was also released as a single and as the B-side for his "Sheba" single; in some
countries, "Wonderful Land" was the a-side. The Shadows later covered one of
Oldfield's songs, "Moonlight Shadow".

Two guitarists, Hank Marvin (of The Shadows) and Mark Knopfler (of Dire Straits)
recorded a version of "Wonderful Land" in the 1990s, produced by Jeff Lynne.

Ask any British guitarist of a certain age who his most profound early influence
was, and chances are that he will answer the Shadows. Between 1960-1963, Cliff
Richard's sometime backing band dominated the U.K. chart with a succession of
dynamic guitar-led instrumentals, of which the magnificent "Wonderful Land" was
only one of the most memorable.

Mike Oldfield's rendition owes everything and nothing to that prototype. A duet
between effects-laden guitars, African percussion, and haunting electronics, it
captures every last nuance of the majesty that pervaded the Shadows' original --
but, in slowing the melody down to a fraction of its familiar pace, it imbibes
the piece with a haunting, anthemic quality that is almost painfully nostalgic.
Certainly it remains one of the most successful of all Shadows covers, all the
more so since Oldfield's affection for the piece is palpably balanced by the
almost parodic impact of the percussion.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ETUDE (THEME FROM THE KILLING FIELDS)

It is from the album The Killing Fields, the soundtrack album for the film of
the same name . It was reissued in 1990, when it was used in a commercial for
Nurofen. The 1990 release also featured a track called "Gakkaen" by The Ono
Gagaku Kai Society.

"Étude" is taken from the Francisco Tárrega piece "Recuerdos de la Alhambra".

The music video for "Étude" which appears on the Elements - The Best of Mike
Oldfield video shows a boy watching parts of The Killing Fields on a television
from a reel-to-reel tape machine and looking through photographs. The boy also
plays with a Fairlight CMI, which the soundtrack album was composed on.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MOONLIGHT SHADOW

"Moonlight Shadow" is a pop song written by British multi-instrumentalist Mike
Oldfield and released as a single in May 1983 and included on the album Crises
in the same year. The vocals were performed by the Scottish vocalist Maggie
Reilly, who had joined Mike Oldfield in 1980. It has been his most successful
single to date, with Tubular Bells being his most successful album worldwide. It
is said that the lyrics were a reference to the death of John Lennon.[1]

The single peaked at number 4 in the British charts, making it Oldfield's second
highest ranked single after "Portsmouth" which reached number 3 in 1976.
"Moonlight Shadow" was successful throughout Europe, It reached number 1 in
countries including Italy, Austria, Switzerland for four weeks and Norway for
six weeks. It spent four weeks at number 2 in Germany and also hit number 6 in
Australia. It was re-released as a maxi-CD single in 1993 to promote Oldfield's
Elements box set, charting at number 52.

A 12" single (later reissued on a 3" CD single) featured an extended version of
the song with an extra verse and the single B-side was "Rite of Man" which was a
rare instance of Oldfield singing lead vocal. The extended mix also appears on
his compilation album The Platinum Collection.

In 1991 the song was re-released in France and in 1993, it was featured on
promos for Elements in France and Spain.

Maggie Reilly sang "Moonlight Shadow" live when she toured with Oldfield in the
1980s. However since then, other singers have performed the song live with
Oldfield including, Anita Hegerland, Miriam Stockley and Rosa Cedrón.

The original cover art is an enlargement of the lower right corner of the Crises
album cover. This shows a man with his foot on a ledge with the sea and sky in
the background. The moon, the tower and its shadow from the album cover cannot
be seen on the single cover.

An early version of the song was entitled "Midnight Passion" with vocals by
British singer Hazel O'Connor.[2] Along with Maggie Reilly, a girlfriend of one
of the roadies when Oldfield was on tour, Oldfield used a rhyming dictionary and
recorded many of the lyrics word by word.[3] According to Oldfield, Virgin
Records were immediately happy with the song and wanted more pieces similar to
it.

Oldfield later sampled the drums from "Moonlight Shadow" for the song "Man in
the Rain" on his 1998 album, Tubular Bells III.

It was long believed that the lyrics are a reference to the murder of John
Lennon, although when asked about this in a 1995 interview, Oldfield responded:

[It's] not really [about Lennon]... well, perhaps, when I look back on it,
maybe it was. I actually arrived in New York that awful evening when he was shot
and I was staying at the Virgin Records house in Perry Street, which was just a
few blocks down the road from the Dakota Building where it happened, so it
probably sank into my subconscious. It was originally inspired by a film I loved
- Houdini, starring Tony Curtis, which was about attempts to contact Houdini
after he'd died, through spiritualism... it was originally a song influenced by
that, but a lot of other things must have crept in there without me realising
it.
—Mike Oldfield, Gareth Randall Interviews Mike Oldfield

The Lennon story may have arisen as a consequence of the content of the promo
video that accompanied the song, which juxtaposes footage of Oldfield and his
band playing the song with a loose storyline in which Oldfield plays a man who
gets killed in a pistol duel. It is worth noting that there are two versions of
the video, the full-length original, and a shorter one which omits a verse (the
reason for the shorter version being created is unknown), and the way both
versions are edited suggests that Oldfield's touring guitarist "Ant" performed
the second, overdriven half of the guitar solo, which is not the case.

Mike Oldfield's biggest U.K. hit since "Portsmouth" in 1976, "Moonlight Shadow"
was also the best track on 1983's Crises album, a set that saw a wholesale
revision of the Mike Oldfield Band, leave vocalist Maggie Riley, alone from the
outfit that had pushed its leader to such dynamic recent heights.

Best appreciated in the company of its haunting highwayman video, "Moonlight
Shadow" is a dramatic epic of love and death, driven by an Oldfield acoustic
guitar that echoes in delivery the faintly folky feel of the lyric. Widely
regarded to be a tribute to the recently murdered John Lennon, "Moonlight
Shadow" was described by Oldfield himself as having been inspired by the Tony
Curtis movie Houdini. Either way, it's a truly delightful pop song, bolstered by
one of Reilly's most magical vocal performances.

A decade after the fact, Oldfield admitted, "I was at somebody's birthday party
just after "Moonlight Shadow" had been a big bit, and of course they all thought
'wow, big hit, got to do them all exactly like that, then,' which was a
blinkered mentality, and unluckily I followed that advice and wrote a lot of
songs, most of which weren't very good."

"Crime of Passion" certainly falls into at least the first half of that equation
-- it is very similar to its storied predecessor although, mercifully, it isn't
as bad as some of its peers. Despite echoing "Moonlight Shadow" all the way down
to the chorus' repetition of its similarly syllabled title, and a defiant xerox
of a guitar solo, "Crime of Passion" is nevertheless a memorable number, offered
further notability via the deployment of ex- Family vocalist Roger Chapman on
the lead vocal.

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FAMILY MAN

According to an interview in 1998, Oldfield wrote all of the music for the
chorus, and verses were written by the other writers. Tim Cross has also claimed
to have written the majority of the lyrics for the song, and cited Rick Fenn as
the inspiration of the 'family man' mentioned in the song.

The American duo Hall & Oates covered Oldfield's song and it reached #6 on the
US Hot 100 in June 1983.

Of all the people to have composed a monster hit single for Hall & Oates, Mike
Oldfield is surely the most unlikely. But "Family Man," a number six hit for the
duo in 1982, wasn't simply an ideal number for them; it also ranks among the
most archetypal songs of the age, a sharp lyric married to a compulsive rhythm
and littered with the kind of sonic hooks around which the entire early decade
was constructed. Composed by the entire Mike Oldfield Band -- that is, Oldfield,
vocalist Maggie Riley, keyboard player Tim Cross, guitarist Rick Fenn, and
drummer Morris Pert -- the original version of "Family Man" is considerably more
aggressive in its composers' hands than the horribly emasculated take that the
Americans created. A pulsating rhythm is characterized by one of Oldfield's most
violent guitar solos, while Riley spits out the lyrics as if they were sour
autobiography. Nevertheless, as a commercial vindication of Oldfield's new
direction, there could be no stronger indicator that he was on the correct
track.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MISTAKE

It was not included on any Oldfield album in Europe until the compilation The
Complete Mike Oldfield in 1985; however, it was included as an extra track on
the North American release of the album Crises in 1983. Maggie Reilly performs
vocals on "Mistake"

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FIVE MILES OUT

The song (and the music video) make numerous references to flight. The video
which predominantly features the sky, a plane, a pilot, a woman in white and
Oldfield wearing a headset is available on the Elements - The Best of Mike
Oldfield video.

"Five Miles Out" is a song that has a complex structure despite its unusual
length. Lyrics are written about Oldfield's experience of a near-tragic flight.
Reilly sings with clean voice while Oldfield uses vocoder most of time himself.
The song features same guitar riff that appears in the beginning of "Taurus II"
and during the intro a keyboard quotes the opening motif to Tubular Bells a
trick he repeats in later pieces such as "Crises".

After Mike Oldfield had just finished forming a new band in 1982 with Maggie
Reilly as vocalist, Morris Pert playing percussion, Tim Cross behind the
keyboards, and Pierre Moerlen on drums, he released Five Miles Out, his seventh
release since the monumental Tubular Bells album. One of the tracks, "Family
Man," was reworked into a pop song by Hall & Oates a year later, and they took
it all the way to number six on the Billboard charts. But it's the title track
that seems to jut out from the rest of the album, sparked by Oldfield's
experiences as a bush pilot, and, in this particular case, an incident which
tossed his airplane around during a heavy thunderstorm while he was flying over
the Pyrenees in Spain.

It's clear that Oldfield has implemented more of a mainstream approach into the
album, but he still manages to include a vast array of instruments in keeping
with his reputation as an extremely creative musician. Opening with vocals that
seem like they're coming through a pilot's headset, it doesn't take long before
Reilly unleashes her gorgeous voice throughout the chorus, which actually gives
the impression that it's emanating from above the clouds. While the back rhythm
and drum parts are neat and tidy, the song is spontaneously injected with the
hauntingly beautiful sound of the uilleann pipes, which sound a little more
dynamic than bagpipes, and by Oldfield's tastefully wailing guitar segments.
Basked with Oldfield's eccentric rhythmic swivelling and effective bits of
synthesized gadgetry, "Five Miles Out" does succeed in depicting its intended
imagery without going overboard. Outside of his soundtrack work, many of
Oldfield's albums include more pop-oriented tracks throughout the rest of the
decade, but as "Five Miles Out" proves, he was careful never to stray too far
from his unconventional roots.


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CRIME OF PASSION

"Crime of Passion" is a single by musician Mike Oldfield, released in 1984 (see
1984 in music). The song features Barry Palmer performing vocals.

The front cover features a black and white photograph of Mike Oldfield's mother
Maureen, who died in January 1974, ten years before the release of this single.

The music video for "Crime of Passion" takes place in a surrealistic children's
play room featuring books, giant blocks (with letters on them), a girl on a
swing, a military drummer and a clown. In the video Oldfield performs in a
'mechanical' fashion with Ovation and Fender Stratocaster guitars, while Palmer
sits on a box and sings. The video is available on the Elements - The Best of
Mike Oldfield video.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TO FRANCE

Despite its number 15 placing on the U.K. charts, 1984's Discovery was passed
over for the most part. The album saw Mike Oldfield continuing with his string
of more commercially sounding albums, paying more attention to his guitar
playing and a little less to his instrumental eccentricities. One of the album's
tracks entitled "To France" made it to number 48 on the British singles chart,
which may not sound impressive for a pop artist but was quite satisfactory when
it came to Mike Oldfield's repertoire. Because the song is about Mary Queen of
Scots' exodus to France in the mid-1500s, most of the song's attention was
garnered in Europe, and once again it was Maggie Reilly's shimmering voice that
stole the show. "To France"'s sparkling chorus and pristine keyboard parts fall
just outside the song's moderate gallop, with Reilly and the accompanying
instruments adding some mild Celtic overtones to its melody. A master at the art
of imagery and ambience, Oldfield manages to convey Mary's desperation and haste
through the sprinkled string work and through the tune's wistful, almost
secretive feel. There isn't an overdose of synthesizer or other effectual add-
ons, which in turn makes the song sound pure and quite sincere. All of the
instruments are played by Oldfield, and Discovery marked the first time he
recorded an album outside of England, opting for a mountainside studio near Lake
Geneva in Switzerland. While most of the other tracks are typical Oldfield fair,
"To France" wonderfully stands out as the album's most alluring cut, due in part
to the "less is more" approach to music making, which is rare for Oldfield.

The music video that appears on the Elements - The Best of Mike Oldfield video
for "To France" is a mock-live performance of the song. Oldfield plays a Fender
Stratocaster in the video.

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SHADOW ON THE WALL

It is from the album Crises. Roger Chapman performs vocals on "Shadow on the
Wall".

The b-side is "Taurus 3", a short, fast paced guitar piece, which is notably
different from Oldfield's long multi-themed pieces, "Taurus" and "Taurus 2", on
QE2 and Five Miles Out respectively.

The music video for "Shadow on the Wall" is based around an interrogation scene.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PLATINUM

Mike Oldfield's fifth album was the first to positively state that his future no
longer revolved around LP-length rock symphonies. Platinum itself occupied just
one side of the album -- the remainder of the set was given over to the shorter,
separate pieces that presaged the albums that would follow.

The full "Platinum" suite was first conceived as the soundtrack to a 1977 Arts
Council movie entitled Reflections*; since that time, the piece had expanded
into a seamless blending of four movements, opening with the strident, guitar-
led assertion of "Airborne." "Platinum" itself followed, a slice of neo- disco
tomfoolery that rode hefty drums and a teasing guitar towards a gruff cry of
"take it away!" that led, in turn, into one of the most compulsively rocking
pieces of music in Oldfield's entire canon. The third movement, the aptly-titled
"Charleston," follows the floor-filling disco rhythms, overlaid first with
harshly honking brass, later with a chorus of ghostly cries and wails, before
the concluding "North Star/Platinum Finale" unleashes all of the musical magic
for which Oldfield is best renowned, an uplifting guitar line soaring over the
last embers of the earlier rhythms, building with imperceptible grace towards
peaks that Oldfield had not scaled since side one of Ommadawn. Certainly it is
one of his most breathtaking pieces of playing; equally importantly, it is also
one of his loveliest melodies.

An excellent live version of "Platinum" appears on the 1985 Complete Mike
Oldfield compilation.

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IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ (A REQUEST)
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It's usual to post comments only to complain about a torrent which doesn't work
in your configuration. It's normal, after a few hours/days downloading and
expecting a release, to feel deceived if it doesn't work properly, and
expressing this is legitimate.

I've often found one comment (negative) on a movie/CD downloaded by 2000+
people, and since that single negative feedback, people simply stop downloading
and therefore, sharing. But a few times it was due not to the torrent itself,
but to some issues on the downloader side (not updated codecs, misused
tools...), and that's unfair for the person who took the time to share it for
free.

IF YOU FIND THIS RELEASE DESERVES TO BE RECOMMENDED TO OTHERS, HELP BY DROPPING
A LINE AFTER YOU'VE CHECKED IT. This way, You'll help in keeping the torrent
alive, almost as much as keeping it in your HDD until a 1:1 ratio is
reached.

Thanks

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