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Topic: Is Ommadawn The Greatest Album Of All Time?< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
Sweetpea Offline




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Posted: Jan. 20 2008, 03:56

Quote (Scatterplot @ Jan. 16 2008, 01:00)
To my knowledge MO never played in the US. Especially not in Texas. I looked for concert opportunities for decades. None.....I guess either A: he prefers to stay in Europe or B: the number of people who like his music here is too low to make touring here economically feasible. I'm more into British art rock so I've only met a handful of people in 25 years who actually owned one or more of his albums. Or I could be wrong, maybe there was a show right under my thumb and I didn't know about it.

Not that I think he's losing any sleep over his U.S. awareness level, but maybe Mike could do a version of "The Yellow Rose of Texas"? But, if he did, I'd insist on a version of "Seattle"(aka, "Here Come The Brides") as well. And since he'd already be, spiritually, in the West Coastal vicinity... he could do either "L.A. Woman" or "California Dreamin" while he was at it.

I don't know which is more of a bummer - not having any MO concerts, or having them and missing them. *drinks more hot cocoa to cheer up*


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"I'm no physicist, but technically couldn't Mike both be with the horse and be flying through space at the same time? (On account of the earth's orbit around the Sun and all that). So it seems he never had to make the choice after all. I bet he's kicking himself now." - clotty
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Scatterplot Offline




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Posted: Jan. 20 2008, 18:13

I try not to think of "Texas" songs. Although I've lived here since '73, the culture here is something I've never been able to interface with. Guess that's why I enjoy english art rock so much.

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Sweetpea Offline




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Posted: Jan. 23 2008, 02:09

Quote (Scatterplot @ Jan. 20 2008, 18:13)
I try not to think of "Texas" songs.

Same here, Scatterplot, though I'll certainly make an exception if MO ever chooses to record "Orabidood Ranch", "Bagpipe Banjos", or "Incantexans". Of course, Ommadawn's "On Horseback" could be easily Southernized - just add some spoons, a harmonica, and open the song with "I like steer and tall iced teas".

Which reminds me... I actually greeted someone with a "Howdy!" today - something I've only ever reserved for online tongue-in-cheekness. I don't even live in the South. I wanted to kick myself.


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"I'm no physicist, but technically couldn't Mike both be with the horse and be flying through space at the same time? (On account of the earth's orbit around the Sun and all that). So it seems he never had to make the choice after all. I bet he's kicking himself now." - clotty
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Scatterplot Offline




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Posted: Jan. 23 2008, 04:15

I like the longhorns and blackeyed peas
I drive a hummer and hate green trees
but I like more than all of these to be a...
redneck.

Hey and away we go to the redneck rodeo
pass the miller lite, pass the pace
let's watch this guldurn nascar race

So if you live under a bridge you bum
to Austin Texas you should come
we got strippas, gangstas, drugs to burn
I'd rather be a redneck. Hmm.


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Crying to heaven
And will our voices be heard
Or will they break Like the wind
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Sweetpea Offline




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Posted: Jan. 25 2008, 18:13

Quote (Scatterplot @ Jan. 23 2008, 04:15)
So if you live under a bridge you bum
to Austin Texas you should come
we got strippas, gangstas, drugs to burn
I'd rather be a redneck. Hmm.

LOL. You have 'gangstas' in Texas? I had no idea. But your verse reveals that "On Horseback" is highly versatile, and vulnerable to all sorts of bastardizing.


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"I'm no physicist, but technically couldn't Mike both be with the horse and be flying through space at the same time? (On account of the earth's orbit around the Sun and all that). So it seems he never had to make the choice after all. I bet he's kicking himself now." - clotty
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Scatterplot Offline




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Posted: Jan. 28 2008, 02:33

We got gangstas yes. I bastardized that versatile thang, yes.
Jim


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Crying to heaven
And will our voices be heard
Or will they break Like the wind
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Scatterplot Offline




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Posted: Jan. 28 2008, 02:50

But I would still rather be on horseback.

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And will our voices be heard
Or will they break Like the wind
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tranquilinho Offline




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Posted: Feb. 28 2008, 13:41

I agree "greatness" is highly subjective. Experts can note tiny subtleties that prove Bach's music is an amazing achievement, while most people (including me) only have heard one or two "songs" from Bach.

TB probably had the greatest impact, and still today is highly advanced and highly anticipated. Moonlight Shadow is quite popular even to casual people (not Mike's fans). I would agree Amarok represents the "technical peak": experimental, wildly rich, complex...

For me Ommadawn is the most balanced work of Mike: it's complex, without the "too complex" syndrome of Amarok. It's highly innovative. It integrates instruments from all over the world beatifuly. It's moving. It has 2 perfect endings, with outstanding guitar "solos". It's so rich that even after 20 years of listening to it I still discover new details. It's stereo. It's quadraphonic (for the lucky owners of the right equipment. I wish there were a DVD-Audio release that allowed everybody to enjoy the presence of a multichannel mix). It's so great that you can forgive small imperfections (like "On horseback", a nice piece of music that in my opinion does not get well with the rest of the album)

Ommadawn is one of my favourite albums. I think it deserves belonging to "Greatest album" compilations, but it's usually excluded because it requires an "effort" that most people does not want to put on it.

Yet we who made the effort are paid 10000 times worth in return. And from the second listening it becomes a great pleasure and not an effort anymore.

For me there are other great albums like "The Wall" and TB, but I have no reasons to argue that they are better. They are equally good in their global "perfection", in spite of slight differences (The Wall has the best sound, TB has hard passages and techincal merit...)

P.S. Platinum is a great album too, which is usually forgotten because of its unusual mix of features.
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Bassman Offline




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Posted: Feb. 29 2008, 01:25

I was 14 back in 1975.  I had already fallen under MO's spell 2 years earlier because the "Exorcist" Bells excerpt had been a huge hit up here in Canada.  One day my buddy Chris and I are hanging out in his older sister's hippy pad and an FM DJ played the last section of Ommadawn Part 2-I couldn't believe it!  I got the album as soon as my meager allowance permitted, and I've never known the album to get airplay since.

When I look back over this topic and how many of us are so drawn to this album, I'm reminded of a plot point from "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind".  Does anyone else here remember it?  Many different people-from all walks of life, are compelled to travel to Devil's Tower in Wyoming.  They don't know why they must go.  They only know they have to.  They eventually learn that they all shared the experience of a communication from outer space.  That's what good music is SUPPOSED to do-make you feel something strongly.  It's beyond logic, beyond reason.  I think Ommadawn stands as a magnificent example of this phenomenon.  It's got tranquil bits, chaotic bit, happy bits, scary bits-remember, there can be no light without some darkness.  It's balanced and it flows beautifully.  It's absolutely and breathtakingly cinematic in it's scope.  Just like life.  And I think we can all here agree that this music makes us feel ALIVE.

Or something.


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Turn up the music... Hi as Fi can go.
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trcanberra Offline




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Posted: Feb. 29 2008, 05:25

Well - just listened to it for the first time in 20 years or so.

Great album, yes.

Best of all time?  For me - no (another Amarokian here).  Ommadawn used to be my favourite, but has been surpassed by later Mike albums.  I guess I'm not one of those who think Mike has lost his muse.

However, I really did enjoy listening to it, though back then, and perhaps more now, I am not enamoured of the first 3-4 minutes of Part 2, though the harmonies later in the Part are sensational.
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Sweetpea Offline




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Posted: Jan. 20 2009, 15:45

Quote (trcanberra @ Feb. 29 2008, 05:25)
I am not enamoured of the first 3-4 minutes of Part 2, though the harmonies later in the Part are sensational.

Perhaps correlations between the first five minutes of "Ommadawn Part 2" and the 'thunderstorm' section from "Hergest Ridge Part 2" have been made, before, but I find both sections similar in their dissonance. I like the concepts behind them, but I feel their realization was lacking. Considering how I prefer Tubular Bells 2003 over the 1973 original, I'm thinking - if MO ever rerecords Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn - I'd probably appreciate those concepts a lot more.


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"I'm no physicist, but technically couldn't Mike both be with the horse and be flying through space at the same time? (On account of the earth's orbit around the Sun and all that). So it seems he never had to make the choice after all. I bet he's kicking himself now." - clotty
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Ray Offline




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Posted: Jan. 20 2009, 17:46

Quote (Man In The Rain @ June 19 2002, 18:07)
OK, music taste is a subjective thing. People like different things, and yet one would agree that someone who listened to Bach would have better music taste than someone who listened to Slipknot. I hope. Anyway, despite music taste being mostly subjective, there are still often people wanting to find the greatest albums of all time, hence the proliferation of polls on the internet, in magazines, and hosted on radio around the world. Normally, the Beatles always are awarded the best albums of all time, with either Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, or Revolver. Famously in the past, Radiohead and also the Stone Roses have topped similar charts. However Mike is often noticeable due to his absence – rarely Tubular Bells appears, and even when it does, it is in the lower section of the chart. Nothing else seems popular enough to register with voters – including Ommadawn. Now, Ommadawn seems to be, overall, the favourite amongst fans. Its seen as Mike’s greatest achievement, his masterpiece (or rather, his most definitive masterpiece). In my opinion, it is not only Mike’s greatest achievement, but the greatest album ever recorded. It is a beautiful, unique and very moving record. With albums such as those made by the Beatles, they are in song format – songs are fairly restrictive and predictable. Verses, chorus, maybe a solo. I know the Beatles and other artists, notably Beach Boys, sought to expand the boundaries of the pop song, and nothing can compare to Gershwin. But I feel that the best of Mike’s work – Ommadawn – is so much more. It doesn’t lift your spirits and then drop you after five minutes, it’s a proper experience. The music is beautifully detailed and yet the melodies are so strong and timeless, a tune may have been developing for six minutes and then one notices a repetition in the background, which comes to the fore and leads the piece in a new, unpredictable direction. Ommadawn is just so incredibly uplifting, and yet conveys a vast range of emotion, ranging from happiness to seemingly despair and a sense of, as Mike put less-subtly put it, rebirth. In my mind it makes the Beatles sound merely like pretty little pop songs, attractive but disposable, incomparable in beauty and worth. Nothing that I have heard before or since compares, apart from obviously classical music and some other works by Mike himself. It was also highly innovative at the time - and still is 27 years later. So, that leads me to ask…is Ommadawn the greatest album of all time? Have you ever heard a record that you could honestly say you think is better than Ommadawn, and if so, and what basis do you form your opinion? I’m very curious, as Ommadawn seems to be such an amazing high-watermark to me in popular music.

Oliver

Yes

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Looking out over the harbour in Peel.......
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yanouch65 Offline




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Posted: Jan. 21 2009, 04:53

hummm....I guess Ray loves this album. I would say, me too!
:D


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Ray said : "it is a shame you don't play"

manintherain said: "You´d better ask Mr. Y who was first"

yanouch65 says: "I am in love with Scotland"
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The Caveman Offline




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Posted: Jan. 21 2009, 10:06

Can't argue with that.I adore this record.Always have,always will.The only record that gave me cause to weep after my Irish Grandad passed away (Paddy Malone's pipe section) and a serious contender for the most powerfull guitar solo ever commited to tape.What more can be said?
My only small gripe is that it's too short as has been discussed here already and to be honest it's a damn near perfect record so it would be somewhat churlish to bitch about it. :laugh:


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THE COMING OF THE GREAT WHITE HANDKERCHEIF IS NIGH.
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Scatterplot Offline




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Posted: Jan. 21 2009, 13:32

This is a friggin' good record kiddos. Buy it at a record shop near you! Makes a great gift too!
    Interesting story(yeah who gives a sh^& Jim).......OK I'm in a mall in 1975. Just -before- I find out MO has this new album out. I have a ten dollar bill in my back pocket, one hippy (much older, I was like 13 and he was 20-ish) walks up to me and says "Hey how are ya?" then shakes my hand. This was supposed to confuse me to where his buddy could pick-pocket me. I felt another's hand graze my backside as I turned quickly. I said something like "what are you mothers trying to do?"........simultaneously swinging my right foot at the guy who shook my hand. He said "uh....." over the years I forgot what he said. I went into the record shop and there was Ommadawn ready to be plucked like a ripe new symphonic orchid. I'd never seen MO's picture before(lot's of rumors he was a bald old man) and it was the best album yet. But I had my ten dollars. Was I blessed by the music, or just a sharp kid who had seen enough episodes of "Kung Fu"?? I think maybe it was both.....
Jim


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Or will they break Like the wind
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Inkanta Offline




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Posted: Jan. 21 2009, 17:56

I was going to post something about Ommadawn and knew that there must be a suitable topic somewhere, and then what to my wondering eyes should appear.....anyway......

My father died last week. What does this have to do with Ommadawn, you ask? We'll get to that. <-:  My dad was older, but it was still a shock when he fractured his hip mid-December. He never recovered, and on 8 January entered comfort care, as per the instructions in his health care proxy. I spent the entire day with him on the 9th. December and January had been totally crap months. My ex-husband was doing some really cruel things, I'd come to the realisation that I really didn't have a relationship with my B.C. bf, my kids were with my ex for the holidays, the weather was total crap, and my brother and I had to implement the proxy order, which would in effect end my father's life.

That morning, I had grabbed a bunch of CDs off the shelf (hey, Sweetpea--they're finally in order!! ) and one of them was Ommadawn.

On my way back from the nursing home, I was hopping over the lakes and hills, from Keuka Lake, to Seneca Lake, to Cayuga Lake, and then home.  Those lakes are glacially carved, and IMHO some of the most beautiful scenery on the planet. I was in a very pensive, glum mood, totally wrapped up in all the sadness of the last month and very stressed in terms of my father's suffering. I popped in Ommadawn, still deep in thought. As it started to play, the clouds gave way to a beautiful, nearly full moon. I had forgotten we were even nearing full moon. Then up the hill, around 7:00 when the recorder comes in, there were horses prancing in the field, overlooking Keuka Lake. I actually smiled and felt my mood lighten a bit. My dad had gone horse shopping with me many years ago.  I ended up getting my appaloosa mare, whose registered name was Rhio's Dawn, the same week (around 1983) as I found the album. Even at first listen so many years ago and before hearing the "Horse Song," the album reminded me of horses, particularly beginning around 7:00 with the recorder. That evening, it brought back sweet memories of a time with my father.

As the music progressed into part II, it reached me in my sadness and grief like nothing else has ever done. It comforted and nourished my soul, helping me to mend ever so slightly. At least I felt much calmer after listening and that there could be happier days eventually.

The night he died, on 11 January, I had been in the nursing home and left to get back home before the weather turned awful, plus my youngest daughter was alone. I always find something to feel guilty about, and in a way I wish I had stayed, but I really expected him to be there the following day. Once again upon departure, I listened to Ommadawn.  No horses in sight (it was sooooo cccccold), but the moon was rising blood red over the hills and at the same time, there were so many different colors in the clouds. In fact, I don't recall seeing the sky more beautiful than that evening, and suddenly I thought that my father was passing. I can't describe the sensation, amplified by the music and the sky. When I got home, I learned that his earthwalk indeed had ended.

I am never going to forget how much Ommadawn has comforted me in this sad time. Is it the greatest album of all time?  Even though I thought the soundtrack of my life was Incantations, I apparently needed Ommadawn for this passage.  IMHO it is certainly one of the greatest.

Peace,

Inkanta


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"No such thing as destiny; only choices exist." From:  Moongarden's "Solaris."
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wiga Offline




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Posted: Jan. 22 2009, 00:24

I guess this is when Mike's music comes into it's own - in those very personal moments.

Well done Inkanta.


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Barn's burnt down - now I can see the moon.
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Dirk Star Offline




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Posted: Jan. 22 2009, 03:44

One moment I`m chuckling away to myself reading Scatterplot`s story,and then the next I`m almost moved to tears by Inkanta`s post..What an amazing place tubular net is sometimes..And what an amazing album Ommadawn is!
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Sweetpea Offline




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Posted: Jan. 23 2009, 18:58

These stories are reminders of the heights that art can reach. I think it's amazing how someone's creativity can inspire strength, courage, and comfort in others. While art might not be essential to our existence, we would be impoverished without it.

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"I'm no physicist, but technically couldn't Mike both be with the horse and be flying through space at the same time? (On account of the earth's orbit around the Sun and all that). So it seems he never had to make the choice after all. I bet he's kicking himself now." - clotty
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trcanberra Offline




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Posted: Jan. 29 2009, 17:50

Wow - can't believe almost a year has passed since I posted in this thread.

Anyway, I find I have been listening to Ommadawn a lot over the last few months - even beginning to appreciate those first few minutes of Part 2 :)
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