The Songs of Distant Earth

Artist: Mike Oldfield
Label: Warner Bros / Wea
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Enhanced
Media: Audio Cassette

UPC: 093624593348
EAN: 0093624593348
ASIN: B000002MZ7

Release Date: 1996-02-06

Related Categories:

General

| New Age | Styles | Music

Meditation

| New Age | Styles | Music

General

| Pop | Styles | Music

Progressive Rock

| Progressive | Rock | Styles | Music

Electronic

| Progressive | Rock | Styles | Music

Tracks:

In the Beginning
Let There Be Light
Supernova
Magellan
First Landing
Oceania
Only Time Will Tell
Prayer for the Earth
Lament for Atlantis
Chamber
Hibernaculum
Tubular World
Shining Ones
Crystal Clear
Sunken Forest
Ascension
New Beginning

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Tubular Bells II
Hergest Ridge
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Customer Reviews:

One of Oldfield's Best!.......2006-12-13

Mike Oldfield's music is so eclectic and therefore very unpredictable. The man is a genius, but honestly, he has produced some albums I can't stand. The Songs of Distant Earth, however, is awesome. It's one of those albums you can listen to for days on end. It reminds me a great deal of a cross between Enigma and Vangelis with his signature guitar style entwined throughout. It is mixed with very quiet surreal moments to more upbeat with chants and operatic vocals, making this one of those rare albums where you actually enjoy ALL of the tracks. This is definitely worth owning. I just discovered this and will be adding it to our radio broadcast.

IMO his best work!.......2006-11-21

This album is simply fascinating!
It starts with 'In the beginnig' and continues with 'Let There Be Light', 2 very inspired songs which introduce you to the entire atmosphere of the album.
Oceania is an 'Island' style of song, although better sounding.
A New Beginning is a great song with a foreign speaking choir which definitely conveys the message of a 'New Beginning'!
There is not a single song on this album that one feels it should not be there.
Overall, extremely inspired and sending the audience a sense of 'well being' and 'out of this world'!

Haven't got tired of it yet.......2006-10-01

I'm 54 years old and have listened to thousands of hours of everything from A to ZZ Topp. And, I can honestly say that it took longer to get burnt out on this album than any other I've ever heard before. Other reviewers have covered the details of this album quite well. I don't know what more I could say. It's good. Real good.

In the Beginning.....God created Mike Oldfield!!.......2006-09-01

Concept albums are something that is inextricably linked to that genre of rock music known as progressive. But it has been noted that although a major exponent of that form, Mike Oldfield very rarely composes concept albums. He himself has admitted that "Tubular Bells" is not a concept album, but just a continuous suite of music. I would argue that "The Songs of Distant Earth" is in fact his first out and out concept album. Based on Arthur C. Clarke's novel of the same name, Oldfield forgoes the direct narration that the other famous concept album based on a novel "War of the Worlds" utilised and instead chooses to tell the story almost entirely with music. The form and shape of Oldfield's album is a creation myth and what better way to start than with a track called "Let there be Light". Naturally for an album dealing with the forces of nature, creation, technology and science Oldfield produces an epic and epochal grandeur too an album that could in other less talented hands turned out flat and uninspired. It was only logical that Oldfield (a musician always wanting to forge into new frontiers and technologies) should embrace dance and ambient music. At the time of the albums release this was a market cornered by Enigma and at times, especially on the lead single "Hibernaculum" Oldfield comes perilously close to sounding a little too like them. But amid the programmed and heavily sequenced music, Oldfield's soaring and lamenting lead guitar shines, imperious and saying so much more than mere words can. This album was also one of the first to have CD Rom material contained within it, Oldfield proves some twenty-one years after his first album that innovation still comes naturally to him. This is a definite highlight for Oldfield in the 1990's and probably the best album he did for Warners.

Earpleasure from outer space........2006-08-22

Mike Oldfield as an artist is one of the few who can give what we probably can call a somekind of an "out of body experience" im music. This Cd is a good example of it. The only minus experience,as sometimes with Mike Oldfield is that there are to little creativity and variations as he sometimes spins around the same theme over and over again. Anyway he kicks your soul in gear with Track 1 In the beginning, which opens with some kind of "new age" atmosphere, and gives you on the rest some quivering soul pleasures that word hardly can describe.Track 2 Let there be light follows in much of the same direction, but here Oldfields guitar realy sets the standard as we knows it with a "sc-fi outer space sound" which makes the Oldfield soundpicture kind of unique. Track 3 Supernova, sounds hot and the sound melts into youre ear with a vibrating feel. Track 4 Magellan is one of the weak "spot"s on the album. Too much too soon in the beginning, kills much of the listening experience. Not the place for bagpipes sound. Track 5 First landing is a short one, with some lively playing on the synth, but thats it.
Track 6 Oceania makes you feel that your`e soul is kicked out in the oceania, and you are far far away from land, but it doesn`t matter. The soul pleasure is realy there. Track 7 Only time will tell is more rythmic in it`s atmosphere, and have much of the same atmosphere as the previous one, nothing more to add realy.
Track 8 Prayer for the earth has an etnic lapp song in the background, (a monotone chant in the background with strong rythm,) Weird and wonderful is probably the right phrase. Track 9 Lament for Atlantis has a certain"quiet is the new loud atmosphere" all trough. Track 10 The Chamber has a mumbling fuzzy singing which i don`t get, but the overall atmosphere is quite ok. Track 11 Hibernaculum has much of the same atmosphere, but the vocal is clean and gives you more pleasure deep down. Track 12 Tubular World, is the one that shorts you right up info the space with a slight "ecco" an inspiration from the Tubular bells classic, but not so creepy. Track 13 The shining ones is a weird synth "dippie dutt" which fall flat after a time. You get eartired in away listen to it . Track 14 Crystal clear is a simpel ok tune. It has a certain clearness, but i dont like thai fuzzy guitar, but when the vocal says : crystal clear it helps. Track 15 The sunken Forest, brings you down "under the water", and you can feel it allover the body. Track 16 Ascension is typical Oldfield, With a clear guitar without any fuzz. Great. Track 17 A New begging. A weird ethnical choir. Short, and nothing realy more to add. Not may cup of tea. Oldfield gives you anyway earpleasure from outer space, and you realy feel it.

Music CD:

Music CD

Music CD

Music CD

Reconfirmando ~ Johnny Almendra Y Jovenes del Barrio

Gran Reventon ~ Los Flamers

Sounds of Fascinating Animals ~ Various Artists

The Songs of Distant Earth ~ Mike Oldfield

Gluck: Music from Operas

Later That Evening ~ Eberhard Weber

Inventario ~ Joan Sebast%C3%ADan

Felicidadez ~ Alexis Y Mensajeros del Amor

Son Cubano, Vol. 1 ~ Sexteto Haba%C3%B1ero

No Cumpli Mi Juramento ~ Pedro Rivera