Mike Oldfield – Tubular Bells LP Virgin Records VR13-105 DJ Promo 1973 Hype Prog

Tubular Bells is the debut studio album by the English multi-instrumentalist and composer Mike Oldfield, released on 25 May 1973 as the inaugural catalog release of Virgin Records. Comprising two largely instrumental, long-form movements, the album fuses elements of progressive rock, folk, and minimalism. Oldfield, who was 19 years old when recording began, composed most of the music and performed almost all of the instruments himself through extensive overdubbing. This production method involved dozens of complex tape layers and thousands of punched-in corrections, a process that was highly innovative for a rock release at the time. The album was recorded at The Manor Studio in Oxfordshire, funded by Virgin co-founder Richard Branson, and co-produced by Oldfield with engineers Tom Newman and Simon Heyworth. It features a diverse range of instrumentation—including various guitars, keyboards, percussion, and a set of tubular bells—culminating in a famous finale on "Part One" in which the instruments are introduced individually by the master of ceremonies Vivian Stanshall.
Although Tubular Bells initially generated slow retail sales, it gained global prominence in December 1973 after its opening piano motif was prominently featured in William Friedkin's supernatural horror film The Exorcist. The resulting commercial surge catapulted Oldfield to international fame, established Virgin Records as a major industry force, and laid the financial foundation for the subsequent expansion of the Virgin Group. The album demonstrated historic chart longevity, entering the UK Albums Chart in July 1973 and ultimately reaching number one in October 1974, displacing Oldfield's second studio album, Hergest Ridge (1974). An unauthorised U.S. single edit reached number 7 on the Billboa…

Michael Gordon Oldfield (born 15 May 1953) is a retired English musician, songwriter and producer best known for his debut album Tubular Bells (1973), which became an unexpected critical and commercial success. Though primarily a guitarist, Oldfield played a range of instruments, which included keyboards and percussion, as well as vocals. He had adopted a range of musical styles throughout his career, including progressive rock, world, folk, classical, electronic, ambient and new age music. His discography includes 25 studio albums, nine of which have reached the UK top ten.
Oldfield took up the guitar at age ten and left school in his teens to embark on a music career. From 1967 to 1970, he and his sister Sally Oldfield were a folk duo, the Sallyangie, after which he performed with Kevin Ayers before starting work on Tubular Bells in 1971. The album caught the attention of Richard Branson, who agreed to make it the first-ever release on his new label Virgin Records. Its opening was used in the horror film The Exorcist, and the album went on to sell over 2.7 million copies in the UK. Oldfield followed it with Hergest Ridge (1974), Ommadawn (1975) and Incantations (1978). Like Tubular Bells, these albums consist of longform, mostly instrumental pieces.
In the late 1970s, Oldfield began to tour and release more commercial and song-based music, beginning with Platinum (1979), QE2 (1980) and Five Miles Out (1982). His most successful album of this period was Crises (1983), which features the worldwide hit single "Moonlight Shadow," with the vocalist Maggie Reilly. After leaving Virgin and signing with WEA, the 1990s saw him release Tubular Bells II (1992) and Tubular Bells III (1998) among other albums, and he experimented with virtual reality and gaming content with his Mu…