larstangmark
Group: Members
Posts: 1767
Joined: Mar. 2005 |
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Posted: July 06 2007, 09:46 |
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Quote (Alan D @ July 06 2007, 06:00) | Quote (larstangmark @ July 06 2007, 10:44) | But it's very close to self-gratulatory if you're supposed think of platinum sales. |
In all these years, that's never occurred to me. The combination of title and album sleeve made me think of something polished, shiny, metallic, light, mysterious, delicate and precious all at the same time - and that's pretty well the effect the music had on me too: conflicting images and ideas that nevertheless held together. Platinum was a good, expressive title, I think - and fittingly different to what had gone before.
All this talk of Music of the Spheres sounding 'New Age' seems strange to someone who as a child was devouring books on the history of astronomy and had never heard of the New Age movement. The concept is extremely ancient with all kinds of interesting resonances relating to music, harmony, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy and so on, and I'll be very interested indeed to see what Mike has made of it all. |
The origin in the title lies somewhere in between:
"I was very idealistic at the time of 'Tubular Bells'. I suppose you could say I had a vision of what I wanted to do, but it was a vision of security and warmth and safety because I felt so unsafe. Now I want to acheive clarity. I can only describe it in pictorial terms, you know, like the way every album I've ever had has had a blue cover on it. "That's why I called it 'Platinum', partly as a joke - you know, 'Mike Oldfield goes platinum', but also because it's a lovely strange metal, heavy and bendy like lead. I really wanted to call it 'Airborne', but they wouldn't have it. They've always done things like that. They even wanted me to put vocals on 'Tubular Bells'. "I feel nice and averagely neurotic like everyone else, now."
The full interview is here: http://tubular.net/articles/79_12.shtml
Another thing; If something "sounds new age" my worst fear isn't that Mike will dwell on new-age matters, but that it will sound like Yanni! I'm no stranger to new-age concepts, but I don't much like the CDs that they sell in shops with scented candles.
-------------- "There are twelve people in the world, the rest are paste" Mark E Smith
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