Tubular Bells

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday about Richard Branson who’d been reading his autobiography Losing My Virginity. We were talking about Branson and the debt he owes to Mike Oldfield. For those that don’t know or weren’t around in 1973, Tubular Bells is a two-part piece (made so by the LP, two-sided format) that takes its queue from a minimalist, repetitive style. Its inspiration however comes from the overlaying of a variety of weird and wonderful instruments from “two slightly, distorted guitars”, “mandolin!”, “Spanish guitar and introducing acoustic guitar” to the eponymous tubular bells all introduced with grandiloquence by the great Viv Stanshall.

Even at the time, it was a pretty strange record to sell 16 million copies. It was also the making of Branson, the record that put the newly formed Virgin Records on the map. It’s been remade four times, from the orchestral version in 1975 to three newly made versions by Oldfield in the ensuing 30-odd years, never with the same effect, in fact most of the reworkings have been complete tosh.

So what can we make of this record 35 years on? Well, the first side was always better than the second. These days, I like to see the debt owed to Philip Glass, Steve Reich and other 1960s minimalists. At the time, it was a revolutionary record for the mainstream audience it reached. People that were listening to the David Cassidy, The Carpenters and The Bay City Rollers in 1973 also had this record in their collection (some may still do). I listen to it now as a great minimalist record, there are times when it rolls along like a steam train, it’s great for working with. And of course it had one of the greatest ever footnotes on it, “This stereo record cannot be played on old tin boxes no matter what they are fitted with. If you are in possession of such equipment please hand it into the nearest police station”

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