Jueves, 25 de mayo de 2023

Mike Oldfield in the recording studio, c1973 © Charlie Gillett/Redferns
Mike Oldfield in the recording studio, c1973 © Charlie Gillett/Redferns

El quincuagésimo cumpleaños de la mítica obra de Mike Oldfield ha sido recordado en numerosos artículos y comentarios que podemos encontrar con una simple busqueda en Internet. Aunque los hay en español, me quedo con el escrito por Michael Hann en Financial Times. Lo transcribo íntegro ya que es de pago:

«Perhaps one should pity the artist forever fixed in the public mind by their opening statement. Orson Welles spent a lifetime trying to live up to Citizen Kane. Meat Loaf discovered that people were only really interested in him when he slapped the words “Bat Out of Hell” on the covers of his albums. And a shy young man from Reading, his mental health damaged by teenage LSD ingestion, spent decades living up to a mostly instrumental album he released on a little independent record label a few days after he turned 20.

Mike Oldfield probably didn’t anticipate his future when Tubular Bells was released 50 years ago on May 25 1973. After all, who would think a largely beatless 49-minute album, consisting of two tracks (Part One and Part Two), would end up altering the shape of the British music business (and, indirectly, dozens of other things, including space travel) and shape a new style of music — chillout — which has itself become ubiquitous? Seguir leyendo ...