Mail on Sunday claimed that their promotion increased sales of the album by 30%; however industry sources noted that this was not a significant rise for the title at the time. This cover-mount deal came prior to the album’s transfer from Virgin/EMI back to Oldfield.
Oldfield attacked EMI in the press for agreeing this deal with The Mail on Sunday, not having been consulted about it. He also stated that he felt that it devalued the work. In a poll conducted by Music Week, to whom Oldfield wrote a letter about the situation, 89.9% of people supported Oldfield’s view that EMI and The Mail on Sunday should have at least asked him about the cover-mount promotion. Mercury reissue
In 2008 when Oldfield’s original 35 year deal with Virgin Records ended, the rights to the piece were returned to him, and were transferred to Mercury Records On 15 April 2009, Mercury announced the transfer of Oldfield’s Virgin albums to the label, and the first album, Tubular Bells, was re-released in June 2009. Tubular Bells was released on various formats, which include an original vinyl, a new remix, a 2CD edition and DVD. There were also bell ringing events on 6 June 2009 at 6pm (a reference to 666, the Number of the Beast). Overdubbing
Mike Oldfield played most of the instruments on the album (see below), recording them one at a time and layering the recordings to create the finished work. Many of his subsequent albums feature this technique. Though fairly common in the music industry now, at the time of the production of Tubular Bells not many musicians made use of it, preferring multi-musician “session” recordings. Reference in other Oldfield works
Tubular Bells is the album most identified with Oldfield, and the reverse may be true as well, as he has frequently
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