one a DVD (Dolby Digital) 5.1 surround sound mix. Chart positions
Year
Chart
Position
1974
Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart
1
UK Albums Chart Single
“Mike Oldfield’s Single” was the first 7-inch single released by Mike Oldfield, in June 1974. In the UK it featured a re-recorded extract from part two of Tubular Bells as the A-side, while “Froggy Went A-Courting” was the B-side. The single was produced in response to an American single containing an excerpt from Tubular Bells which Oldfield did not authorise. This was included in the 2009 Mercury reissue of Tubular Bells. Demo version
Oldfield recorded the demo pieces of Tubular Bells in his flat in Tottenham, London in 1971. Oldfield recorded the demos on a Bang & Olufsen Beocord 1/4″ tape machine which he had borrowed from Kevin Ayers. Oldfield was able to overdub his playing by blocking off the erase head of the tape machine. The demos titled, “Tubular Bells Long”, “Caveman Lead-In”, “Caveman”, “Peace Demo A” and “Peace Demo B” appeared on the DVD-Audio version of the rerecording of Tubular Bells, Tubular Bells 2003.
Pieces from Oldfield’s 1971 demos appear on the 2009 Ultimate Edition Mercury reissue of Tubular Bells; also included on this release is a scrapped mix of the album from Spring 1973. Tubular Bells series
Tubular Bells can be seen as the first of a “series” of albums continuing with Tubular Bells II (1992), Tubular Bells III (1998) and The Millennium Bell (1999). Finally in 2003 Oldfield released Tubular Bells 2003, a re-recording of the original Tubular Bells with updated digital technology and several “corrections” to what he saw as flaws in the first album’s production. This version is notable for replacing the late Vivian Stanshall’s narration with a newly recorded
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