Korgscrew
Group: Super Admins
Posts: 3511
Joined: Dec. 1999 |
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Posted: July 04 2001, 18:04 |
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I'm going to play a little bit of devil's advocate here, as I do understand Mike's reasons for wanting to go back to Tubular Bells (well, partly...I think there's a lot behind it which probably goes quite deep and that not even Mike totally understands).
If, however, Mike keeps releasing albums based on the same theme, doesn't that rather start to suggest that he's running out of ideas? Mike says his best work has the tubular bells name on it - does the fact that he has to go back to the original formula to create good work really show us that it was less of a work of planned genius and more of a fluke that he finds impossible to recreate?
There are plenty of artists who can take a pre-existing work and rehash it to make something 'new' - look at all the people out there doing song remixes. It tends to take far more skill to create something that's completely original and brilliant at the same time, than it is to use someone else's ideas as a platform (indeed, this is why some artists collaborate on projects, so they can use each other as springboards). You would have to have been Mike Oldfield to create the original Tubular Bells, but a lot more people could have created the 'remixed' version we find in Tubular Bells 3.
You could get a bunch of session musicians together and record an exacting cover version of Tubular Bells. It wouldn't have the same feel as Mike's original, but then neither would Mike's re-recording.
So by this constant returning to Tubular Bells, Mike begins to lose a certain amount of status as an artist. The use of 'bells' on albums that are pretty unrelated - like The Millennium Bell - doesn't help (perhaps a record company decision, as was The Best of Tubular Bells). It makes people feel that he's selling on the name, that his music maybe isn't good enough to be able to speak for itself and sell with a different title and cover.
Ok, so I've given my little counter-argument...now what do I think?
Well, Mike doesn't have to prove himself. Like Ugo said, he makes music for himself. Why should he come up with things that are as groundbreaking as Tubular Bells every time he releases an album?
I'm sure a lot, if not all forum members here, have achieved something that was something quite special at one time or another. Often (but perhaps not always), however, nobody is expecting us to reach goals such as that every day of our lives. So should anyone expect to be able to treat Mike differently?
We could say that music is a business, with us as Mike's customers, that the customer is always right and that he's going to get a lot more customers by listening to our requests as demands. That's when you begin to see music as a definite product, the environment that has created modern pop music. Look at most pop acts in the charts. You may not like them, but I would say that their work is of a consistent quality and style (even if, to you at least, that quality and style is rubbish...).
Mike has been going for a long time now, and has been under constant pressure to create. I would have thought that, if he wanted, he'd be quite justified in going into hiding and never releasing another record again. Then watch how many 'best of' compilations would start to appear...
He has, however, kept going and has been trying out new ideas. Some of us may not like the end results and may even feel he could have done better, which is perhaps a source of fan frustration with many things...But he's kept going.
I think that there are times when the ideas can run thin for people (maybe Mike is different though...). Sometimes inspiration can be a while coming, but then suddenly something amazing can happen...I think Mike can still suprise us yet.
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