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

==History==


Oldfield's parents were Maureen and Raymond
Oldfield. His sister Sally Oldfield|Sally and
brother Terry Oldfield|Terry are successful
musicians in their own right and have appeared on
several of his albums.

===(1973-1991) Virgin years===
Oldfield's most famous work is Tubular Bells, an
instrumental composition recorded in 1972 and
launched on May 25, 1973 as the inaugural album of
Richard Branson's Virgin Records label. The album
was groundbreaking, as Oldfield played more than
twenty different instruments in the multi-layered
recording, and its style progressed continuously,
covering many diverse musical genres. The album
quickly reached the top 10 in UK album sales and
stayed in the chart for 247 weeks. In the US, it
received attention chiefly by appearing in the
soundtrack to The Exorcist. In the autumn of 1974,
the follow-up LP, Hergest Ridge (album)|Hergest
Ridge, was No 1 in the UK for three weeks before
being dethroned by Tubular Bells.

Like Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge (album)|Hergest
Ridge took the form of a two-movement instrumental
piece, this time evoking scenes from Oldfield's
Herefordshire country retreat. This was followed
in 1975 with the pioneering world music piece
Ommadawn, and 1978's Incantations
(album)|Incantations which introduced more diverse
choral performances from Sally Oldfield, Maddy
Prior and the Queen's College, London|Queen's
College Girls Choir.



Around the time of Incantations
(album)|Incantations, Oldfield underwent a
controversial self-assertiveness therapy course
known as Exegesis (group)|Exegesis. No doubt as a
result of this, the formerly reclusive musician
staged a major European tour to promote the album,
chronicled in his live album Exposed (Mike
Oldfield album)|Exposed, much of which was
recorded at the National Exhibition Centre near
Birmingham, the first ever concert at that venue.

The early 1980s saw Oldfield make a transition to
"mainstream" popular music, beginning with the
inclusion of shorter instrumental tracks and
contemporary cover versions on Platinum (Mike
Oldfield album)|Platinum and QE2 (album)|QE2 (the
latter named after the RMS Queen Elizabeth
2|cruise ship). Soon afterwards he turned his
attention to songwriting, with a string of
collaborations featuring various lead vocalists
alongside his trademark searing guitar solos. The
best known of these is "Moonlight Shadow", his
1983 hit with Maggie Reilly, which took John
Lennon's death as one of its themes. This hit has
been covered by various other artists, including
Aselin Debison (Canada|Canadian Folk music|folk
singer) and DJ Mystic (electronic
music|electronic/techno music|techno). In 2002 it
was a huge hit in central Europe for the German
dance act Groove Coverage.



The most successful Oldfield composition on the US
pop charts during this period was actually a cover
version -- Hall & Oates's remake of "Family Man"
for the duo's 1982 album H20.

Oldfield later turned to film and video, writing
the score for Roland Joffé's acclaimed film The
Killing Fields (movie)|The Killing Fields and
producing substantial video footage for his album
Islands (Mike Oldfield album)|Islands. This was
however a time of much friction with his record
label, Virgin Records reportedly insisting that
any future instrumental album should be billed as
Tubular Bells 2. Oldfield's rebellious response
was Amarok (album)|Amarok, an hour-long work
featuring rapidly changing themes (supposedly
devised to make cutting a single from the album
impossible), unpredictable bursts of noise, and a
very cleverly-hidden Morse code insult directed at
Richard Branson. Although regarded by many fans as
his greatest work, it was not a commercial
success. His parting shot from the Virgin 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. Some say this was due to his
anxiety to quit Virgin as soon as possible (he had
previously stated that his voice did not belong on
his recordings). His relationship with Richard
Branson was never good, even in the beginning.



===(1992-2003) Warner years===
On the Warner Brothers Records|Warner label
Oldfield continued to embrace new musical styles,
with Tubular Bells II (a re-interpretation of
Tubular Bells, the album that originally shot him
to fame), which was premiered at a live concert at
Edinburgh Castle, The Songs of Distant Earth
(album)|The Songs of Distant Earth (the latter
based on Arthur C. Clarke's Songs of Distant
Earth|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.

During 1999 Oldfield released two albums, the
first being Guitars (Mike Oldfield album)|Guitars
which used guitars as the source for all the
sounds on the album, including percussion. The
second, The Millennium Bell, consisted of
pastiches of a number of styles of music that
represented various stages in history over the
past millennium, and the work was performed live
in Berlin for the city's millennium celebrations
in 1999-2000.

Most recently he has added to his repertoire the
Music VR project, combining his music with a
virtual reality-based computer game. His first
work on this project is Tres Lunas|Tr3s Lunas
launched in 2002, a virtual game where the player
can interact with a whole world full of new music
specially composed for this occasion. This project
appeared as a double CD, one with some part of the
music, and the other with the game.

In 2003 he released Tubular Bells 2003, a
re-recording of the original Tubular Bells, on CD
and DVD-Audio. This was done to fix many
imperfections in the original that existed due to
limitations of the recording technologies of the
time and limitations in time that he could spend
in the recording studio. This celebrated the 30th
anniversary of Tubular Bells, and the fact that
Oldfield had recently celebrated his 50th
birthday. The DVD-Audio version has not only the
same content as the CD version in surround, but it
also has some demos of the original Tubular Bells.

===(2004- . . . .) Recent years===
On 12 April, 2004 Oldfield launched his next
virtual reality project called Maestro which
contains music from the Tubular Bells 2003 album
and also some new chillout melodies. The demo
versions of the games can be found on the official
Mike Oldfield homepage.

A double album, "Light and Shade" is being made
ready for release on Mercury Records, with whom
Mike recently signed a three album deal. The two
discs will contain music of contrasting moods, one
relaxed ("Light") and the other more edgy and
moody ("Shade"). It is thought the album will be
available 27 September 2005.

==Discography==


===Studio albums=== 
* 1973 – Tubular Bells
* 1974 – Hergest Ridge (album)|Hergest Ridge
* 1975 – Ommadawn
* 1978 – Incantations (album)|Incantations
* 1979 – Platinum (Mike Oldfield
album)|Platinum (also named Airborn for the US
release)
* 1980 – QE2 (album)|QE2
* 1982 – Five Miles Out
* 1983 – Crises
* 1984 – Discovery (Mike Oldfield
album)|Discovery
* 1987 – Islands (Mike Oldfield
album)|Islands
* 1989 – Earth Moving
* 1990 – Amarok (album)|Amarok
* 1991 – Heaven's Open
* 1992 – Tubular Bells II
* 1994 – The Songs of Distant Earth
(album)|The Songs of Distant Earth
* 1996 – Voyager (album)|Voyager
* 1998 – Tubular Bells III
* 1999 – Guitars (Mike Oldfield
album)|Guitars
* 1999 – The Millennium Bell
* 2003 – Tubular Bells 2003
* 2005 – Light + Shade (to be released on 26
September)

===Soundtracks===
* 1984 – The Killing Fields (album)|The
Killing Fields - soundtrack for the move of the
same name, The Killing Fields (movie)|The Killing
Fields
* 2002 – Tres Lunas|Tr3s Lunas aka Tres
Lunas - computer game soundtrack
:Note: Although used in The Exorcist, Tubular
Bells (1973) was not a soundtrack album.

===Live albums===
* 1979  – Exposed (Mike Oldfield
album)|Exposed

===Compilations, remixes, etc.===
* 1975 – The Orchestral Tubular Bells
* 1976 – Boxed
* 1979 – Impressions
* 1980 – Music Wonderland
* 1981 – Episodes
* 1985 – The Complete Mike Oldfield
* 1987 – A Virgin Compilation
* 1990 – Collector's Edition Box I & II
* 1993 – Elements - The Best of Mike
Oldfield
* 1993 – Elements - The Best of Mike
Oldfield 1973-1991 (4CD)
* 1997 – XXV: The Essential
* 2001 – The Best of Tubular Bells
* 2002 – Collection

==See also==

List of songs over fifteen minutes in length

==External links==

  
* http://www.mikeoldfield.com mikeoldfield.com -
The official Mike Oldfield website (requires
Macromedia Flash|Flash plugin)
  
* http://www.mikeoldfield.org mikeoldfield.org -
The official Mike Oldfield information service
  
* http://www.tubular.net tubular.net - Tubular
Web, the largest and most well-established Mike
Oldfield website.
* http://oldfield.info oldfield.info - a community
website; home to the #mike_oldfield IRC channel.
* http://www.musicvr.com musicvr.com - Official
MusicVR support website (purchase and subscription
required).