Welcome Guest
[ Log In :: Register ]

Pages: (3) < 1 2 [3] >

[ Track this topic :: Email this topic :: Print this topic ]

Topic: Amarok - The best of Mike Oldfield< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
ex member 419 Offline




Group: Members
Posts: 1177
Joined: April 2008
Posted: April 17 2009, 22:30

To be honest when i first heard amarok i did not like it, after giving it a listen a few months later, no distractions my opinion changed, it is a complex piece, changes in mood, takes one on a journey through a kaleidescope of sound, deb
Back to top
Profile PM 
Guest
Unregistered





Posted: April 18 2009, 04:29

Though I find bits & pieces of absolute wonderful music and I understand the complexity in both the composing and playing skills, the album have never "grown" on me. The same with Music from the Balcony.
...it..is...just...how can I say it..I get bored after a while and even the sudden peeks or changes in the music doesn't wake me up.

I have made my own "mix" of Amarok - removing some of the distortion and especially the whole Thatcher-bit and the number is now 8 minutes shorter.  Much easier for me to listen to but a little bit odd, because I know it was not MO´s intention to make it that way.
It´s a compromise between my heart and my brain..

EDIT.: what I meant by bored was, that I don't get any emotions out of listening to it. The most of MO´s music awakens some kind of feeling in me....happy, sadness, warm, dreamy etc etc, but Amarok and MFTB just leave a blank page    :zzz:
Back to top
Ghostmojo Offline




Group: Members
Posts: 94
Joined: Mar. 2009
Posted: April 19 2009, 05:58

Quote (prisoner.of.the.dark.sky @ April 18 2009, 04:29)
I have made my own "mix" of Amarok - removing some of the distortion and especially the whole Thatcher-bit and the number is now 8 minutes shorter.

I must admit that is the bit I like least. The album actually has two endings if you think about it - it ends the first time just before that bit with Janet Brown starts. Then she (as M.T.) goes on to talk about endings.

This is not something that really dates well. Thatcher (love or hate her) was from a generation ago. The whole wry political joke aspect of it is lost on modern ears ... you had to be there I suppose.

But it was part of the piece so there it remains...


--------------
" ... if you feel a little glum - to Hergest Ridge you should come ... "
Back to top
Profile PM 
smillsoid Offline




Group: Members
Posts: 548
Joined: Dec. 2008
Posted: April 19 2009, 12:38

It's meant to be surreal, not satirical.  For me it works brilliantly, pushing an album that teeters on the eccentric into the realms of the utterly bizarre.  I love it.

--------------
http://www.reverbnation.com/simonjmills
Back to top
Profile PM WEB 
Ghostmojo Offline




Group: Members
Posts: 94
Joined: Mar. 2009
Posted: April 19 2009, 15:28

Quote (smillsoid @ April 19 2009, 12:38)
It's meant to be surreal, not satirical. For me it works brilliantly, pushing an album that teeters on the eccentric into the realms of the utterly bizarre. I love it.

I think it was probably both. Having lived through the Thatcher reign I can tell you she/it was bloody surreal and seriously bizarre, and satire was the weapon of choice at the time...


--------------
" ... if you feel a little glum - to Hergest Ridge you should come ... "
Back to top
Profile PM 
RICHARDGORMLIE Offline




Group: Members
Posts: 98
Joined: Nov. 2004
Posted: May 10 2009, 21:21

this is a mad album, i love the end bit with the tap dancing maggie thatcher impersonator and the zulu singers.  it takes a bit of getting used to this album but i still love it.  played it today for the first time in a year and enjoyed it
Back to top
Profile PM 
Lapelcelery Offline




Group: Members
Posts: 5
Joined: May 2009
Posted: June 05 2009, 02:52

I was reading a book last night, and there were a lengthy few passages which, though they were in fact written about J. S. Bach, seemed a better description of Amarok than I could come up with:

"The air was full of music. So full it seemed as if there was room for nothing else. And each particle of air seemed to have it's own music, so that as [he] moved his head, he heard a new and different music, though the new and different music fitted quite perfectly with the music that lay beside it in the air.

The modulations from one to another were perfectly accomplished - astonishing leaps from different keys made effortlessly in the mere shifting of the head. New themes, new strands of melody, all perfectly and astoundingly proportioned, constantly involved themselves into the continuing web. Huge slow waves of movement, faster dances that thrilled through them, tiny scintillating scampers that danced on the dances, long tangled tunes whose ends were so like their beginnings that they twisted around upon themselves, turned inside out, upside down, and then rushed off again on the back of yet another dancing melody in [the distance].

And then it was all much simpler.
A single tune danced through his mind and all his attention rested upon it. It was a tune that seethed through the magical flood, shaped it, formed it, lived through it hugely, lived through it minutely was it's very essence. It bounded and trilled along, at first a little tripping tune, then it slowed, then it danced again but with more difficulty, seemed to founder in eddies of doubt and confusion, and then suddenly revealed that the edies were just the first ripples of a huge new wave of energy surging up joyfully from beneath.

[He] began very slowly to faint."

- Douglas Adams - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.

I couldn't help but think of Amarok when I read this, it just seems perfect.
Back to top
Profile PM 
46 replies since Dec. 07 2000, 05:46 < Next Oldest | Next Newest >

[ Track this topic :: Email this topic :: Print this topic ]

Pages: (3) < 1 2 [3] >






Forums | Links | Instruments | Discography | Tours | Articles | FAQ | Artwork | Wallpapers
Biography | Gallery | Videos | MIDI / Ringtones | Tabs | Lyrics | Books | Sitemap | Contact

Mike Oldfield Tubular.net
Mike Oldfield Tubular.net