XXV - The Essential Mike Oldfield

Artist: Mike Oldfield
Type: Album
Release date: 1997
Run time: 58:29
My Rating: 7

1. Tubular Bells (Excerpt) (4:16)
2. Hergest Ridge (Excerpt) (4:54)
3. Ommadawn (excerpt) (6:57)
4. Incantations (excerpt) (4:38)
5. Moonlight Shadow (3:35)
6. Portsmouth (2:00)
7. Good News (1:44)
8. Sentinel - Remix (3:56)
9. The Bell - Remix (3:06)
10. Let There Be Light (4:19)
11. Only Time Will Tell (4:25)
12. The Voyager (4:22)
13. Women of Ireland (6:27)
14. Tubular Bells III (Excerpt) (3:40)

Comments

The obligatory Tubular Bells extract is followed by three tracks each from Mike's 70s and 80s periods at Virgin, then two tracks each from his Warner music releases to date, followed by a preview of Tubular Bells 3. The excepts from Mike's instrumental 70s albums are somewhat better chosen than the ones on Elements, but seeing as this album is split half and half between Mike's Virgin and Warner output, the former is under-represented proportionally.

From memory I hadn't heard any of Hergest Ridge when I got this album, so for me that was a bonus at the time. The only reasons to get this collection, assuming you already have the albums represented, are the two remixes from TBII (though admittedly the remix of "Sentinel" doesn't feel that much different from the album version. The remix of "The Bell", however, features original TB MC Viv Stanshall announcing the instruments instead of Alan Rickman) and the preview of TB3 (quite a different version of "The Source of Secrets", even featuring a male vocalist instead of a female one).

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