Michael Gordon Oldfield (born May 15, 1953 in Reading, England) is a multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, working a style that blends rock or even progressive rock, ethnic or world music, and classical music.

History

Oldfield's parents were Maureen & Raymond Oldfield. His sister Sally and brother Terry are successful musicians in their own perfect & keep around appeared in many of his albums.

(1973-1991) Virgin years
Oldfield's best known act is Tubular Bells, an instrumental composition recorded inside 1972 and launched on May 25, 1973 as the maiden album of Richard Branson's Virgin Records label. A album wwhen innovative, as Oldfield played further than twenty different instruments in the multi-layered recording, & its style progressed day and night, covering numerous diverse music genre. A album quickly reached a top Ten inside UK album sales & stayed in the chart for 247 weeks. In the U.s., it received attention primarily by appearing in the soundtrack to The Exorcist. In the fall of 1974, the watch-higher LP, Hergest Ridge, was No I in the UK for tierce weeks prior to existence dethroned by Tubular Bells.

Prefer Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge took the form of the 2-movement implemental piece, this instance evoking scenes from either Oldfield's Herefordshire country retreat. This was followed inside 1975 with the pioneering world music piece Ommadawn, and 1978's Incantations which introduced more diverse choral performances from either Sally Oldfield, Maddy Prior and the Queen's College Girls Choir.

As much as a period of Incantations, Oldfield underwent a controversial self-assertiveness therapy course called Exegesis. There is no doubt following of this, a once reclusive musician staged a major European tour to promote the album, chronicled within his survive album Exposed, much of which was recorded at a National Exhibition Centre near Birmingham, the number one ever concert at that venue.

A early 1980s saw Oldfield make the transition to "mainstream" popular music, beginning using a inclusiin of shorter subservient tracks & contemporary cover song on Platinum and QE2 (a latter named when the cruise ship). Presently after he turned his attention to songwriting, using the string of collaborations featuring various lead vocalizer alongside his trademark searing guitar solos. A better known one is "Moonlight Shadow", his 1983 hit with Maggie Reilly, which took John Lennon's death when one of its themes. This hit has been covered by various more creative person, including Aselin Debison (Canadian folk singer) and DJ Mystic (electronic/techno). Around 2002 it was the brobdingnagian hit around central Europe for the German dance work Groove Coverage.

the virtually all successful Oldfield composition on the America popular stock and index charts when you took this cycle was actually a cover song -- Hall & Oates's remake of "Family Man" for the duo's 1982 album H20.

Oldfield down a road turned to film & videos, writing the score for Roland Joffé's acclaimed film The Killing Fields and producing substantial streaming videos footage for his album Islands. This wwhen notwithstanding the instance of lot friction by owning his record label, Virgin Records reportedly insisting that any new subservient album should become billed as Tubular Bells Two. Oldfield's rebellious response was Amarok, an hour-long work featuring chop-chop ever-changing themes (purportedly devised to produce cutting one from either the album impossible), unpredictable bursts of noise, & a super cleverly-hidden Morse code insult directed at Richard Branson. Although regarded by numerous fans when his greatest operate, it was non the commercial profits. His parthian shot from either mary label was ''Heaven's Open, which continued the veiled attacks on Branson but was notable for being the first time Oldfield had contributed all the lead vocals himself. A bit of say this wwhen due to his anxiety to quit Virgin when soin as imaginable (he experienced antecedently stated that his voice did non belong on his recordings). His relationship by owning Richard Branson was never effective, possibly in the beginning.

(1992-2003) Warner years
On the Warner label Oldfield continued to embrace new genre, sustaining Tubular Bells II (a re-interpretation of Tubular Bells, the album that originally shot him to fame), which was premiered at a survive concert at Edinburgh Castle, The Songs of Distant Earth'' (the latter based on Arthur C. Clarke's novel of the same name) exhibiting a softer "New Age" sound, and Tubular Bells III (also premiered at a concert, this time in Horse Guards Parade, London), drawing from the dance music scene at his new home on the island of Ibiza.

When you took 1999 Oldfield released ii albums, a 1st existence Guitars which used guitars when a source for all the sounds on the album, including percussion. A 2nd, The Millennium Bell, consisted of pastiches of a total of styles of music that represented various stages within history across a past millennium, & a function was performed sleep in Berlin for the city's millennium celebrations in 1999-2000.

Last he has added to his repertoire a Music VR plan, combining his music by having the virtual reality-based video game. His 1st act on this design is Tr3s Lunas launched in 2002, a virtual game in which a streaming video player may interact by having a wholly globe good of newly music specially composed for this occasion. This task appeared as a double Video, a single sustaining a bit of a share of a music, & a more using the game.

Around 2003 he released Tubular Bells 2003, a re-recording of the original Tubular Bells, in Video & DVD-Audio. This was done to fix numerous imperfectness in the original that existed due to limitations of the recording technologies of the period & limitations eventually that he can spend in the recording studio. This celebrated a Thirtieth day of remembrance of Tubular Bells, & a fact that Oldfield got recently celebrated his Fiftieth birthday. A DVD-Audio version hwhen not single a equivalent content as a Video version inside environment, however it too has a bit of demonstration of the original Tubular Bells. In a 2003 version, the original voice of the 'Master of Ceremonies' was replaced per voice of John Cleese.

(2004- . . . .) Recent years
In 12 April, 2004 Oldfield launched his next virtual reality project called Master which contains music from either a Tubular Bells 2003 album & too occasionally fresh chillout melodies. A demonstration versions of the games may be detected on the official Mike Oldfield home page.

The double album, Light & Shade is released on Mercury Records, with whom Mike recently signed a three album deal. Them discs contain music of contrastive moods, of these relaxed ("Light") & a extra more highly strung & moody ("Shade"). A album was freed in 26 September 2005.

Discography

Studio albums
1973 – Tubular Bells 1974 – Hergest Ridge 1975 – Ommadawn 1978 – Incantations 1979 – Platinum (also named Airborn for the America release) 1980 – QE2 1982 – Five Miles Out 1983 – Crises 1984 – Discovery 1987 – Islands 1989 – Earth Moving 1990 – Amarok 1991 – ''Heaven's Open 1992 – Tubular Bells II 1994 – The Songs of Distant Earth 1996 – Voyager 1998 – Tubular Bells III 1999 – Guitars 1999 – The Millennium Bell 2002 – Tr3s Lunas aka Tres Lunas 2003 – Tubular Bells 2003 2005 – Light & Shade

Soundtracks
1984 – The Killing Fields - soundtrack for the movie of the equivalent title, The Killing Fields 2002 – Tr3s Lunas (II) aka Tres Lunas (II) - computer game soundtrack (never officially freed, however extracted from either a game "Tr3s Lunas" by fans. Live albums
1979 – Exposed

Compilations, remixes, etc.
1975 – The Orchestral Tubular Bells 1976 – The Orchestral Hergest Ridge (Never officially released) 1976 – Boxed 1979 – Impressions 1980 – Music Wonderland 1981 – Episodes 1985 – The Complete Mike Oldfield 1987 – A Virgin Compilation 1990 – Collector's Edition Box We & II 1993 – Elements - The Best of Mike Oldfield 1993 – Elements - The Better of Mike Oldfield 1973-1991 (4CD) 1997 – XXV: The Essential 2001 – The Best of Tube-shaped Bells 2002 – Collection

Collaborations
1967 – The Sallyangie by Sallyangie (with his sister Sally Oldfield) 1972 – Shooting at the moon by Kevin Ayers and the Whole World 1973 – Whatevershebringswesing by Kevin Ayers and the Whole World 1974 – Rock Bottom by Robert Wyatt 1974 – June 1, 1974 by Kevin Ayers, John Cale, Nico and Brian Eno (live album) 1976 – Odd ditties by Kevin Ayers (compilation of singles and unreleased tracks) 1977 – Mathematicians Air Display (extremely uncommon, as well referred to as the collaboration using Pekka Pohjola or even A Results of Indecisions album) 1992 – Still life with guitar by Kevin Ayers