The 20th of February 1974
Official U.K. Albums Chart results from Sunday the 17th to Saturday the 23rd of February 1974
Cut-off for sales figures was up to the end of Saturday the 16th of February
Results counted from Sunday the 17th,
and published on Wednesday the 20th of February 1974.
Mike Oldfield
Tubular Bells
At No.9, on the “The Top 50 U.K. Albums Chart”, the week of my 2nd Birthday, is Mike Oldfield with Tubular Bells.
Now and again,..
…a rare anomaly occurs in the music world, which causes much interest, fascination, and a ripple effect in the charts.
I believe this album is a prime example of such a moment.
In the fifty-plus years since it was first released, it has lost none of its captivation on me personally, and that’s since I got my first chance to own and play my original version (a first pressing I think) around twenty years since it had first landed, but I had been aware of it for many years before. Well, the image of it at least. Anyway, back then, I didn’t know what was on the inside, and really didn’t know too much about the artist himself.
Now that I do own a copy, and have done for over thirty years, it’s a record which, like many other followers of this artist, I seem to have acquired several versions of, and on other formats.
From memory, and on original vinyl, I also have this album included in “Boxed“, I also have the “Orchestral” version, and on top of that, I also have it in its entirety on CD, from when I came into ownership of the retrospective boxset “Elements” when that released in the early 1990’s.
As for the artist himself,..
…I’d first become aware of Mike, just like many others my age, when I sat down after school to watch Blue Peter, and became absolutely enthralled when Simon Groom visited Mike’s studio and witnessed him re-imagining the Blue Peter theme which, according to various sources, aired on Thursday, the 25th of January 1979, just under a month away from my 7th birthday; and from that moment on, I always wished that I could own my own home studio. I’m still waiting for that wish to come true now; ever since I was 6.
Going back to this point in 1974,..
…it still seemed to most people I imagine, that Mike had just come from nowhere, with an idea no one had ever contemplated before.
An extremely shy and studious individual, who loved to experiment with double tracking and layering instruments. Mike was most comfortable in his own world of music, human interaction kept to a minimum, and just letting what had been held within, to rise to the surface and express itself out of him, unable to explain how and why. For many, he was a bit of an enigma, almost mythical.
The more I got to know about him, through books, interviews, and the collection of many more of his other later albums, the more I related to him. Not that I could play instruments as well as he could, nor that I could even get my hands on a reel-to-reel recorder and place tape over the erasing head to experiment with my own sounds; but more that I admired his privacy, the way he shut himself off from the world, and enjoyed nothing more than his own company, and the access to any musical instrument he could get his hands on, and being able to fly his own mixing desk in his own time. And at eventful points in time, magic would appear for the rest of us to hear. As a child it was almost like he was the musical equivalent of Willy Wonka.
I, like he was able, would be in my element if I ever gave myself the chance.
The actual making of this album…
…has since long gone down into legend. It’s a story that, if anyone knows of Mike’s work over half a century on, will know of its telling to ad nauseam, so I’m not going to contribute my own write-up about it, but instead include the superb BBC documentary which aired around this album’s 40th anniversary.
The album…
…had first appeared in the UK Chart the previous summer, on the 8th of July 1973 at No.31, and the following week had breached the Top 20 to sit at No.18.
A few more weeks of fluctuation followed, before it climbed high enough to briefly dip into the Top 10 at No.7 during the last week of that season, a position it would return to three weeks later, before eventually settling back to the numbers outside the Top 30 as the close of the year approached, falling away from the Top 50 in the last week of the year.
It returned to the chart after only a week’s absence, landing at No.44 on the 6th of January, then climbed with a far quicker purpose through that month, climbing higher than before, and reaching No.5, before slipping a few places as it progressed into this month of February, where last week it stumbled out of the Top 10, before returning to it this week, at this position of No.9.
From here,..
…the album will close out the rest of this winter month with another drop out of the Top 10, slipping back to No.14, and that will be the last time it would do so this year.
As spring takes hold of the year, so the album will manage to peak up a further notch, up to No.4, by the beginning of May.
By the end of the summer month of June, it bounces up to No.3. A couple of weeks later, it makes it to No.2 on the 7th of July, a position it would eventually stick rigidly to from the 21st of that month, all the way through the summer until, on the 29th of September, it hits No.1.
Although it drops away after only a week at the top, it will stay in the Top 5 until the last autumn week of November; staying solidly in the Top 10, as 1974 comes to a close.
With this type of behaviour, the album will undoubtedly make an appearance at another future week during my birthday, so I will talk more about this album, as I progress through my own life’s journey, as we both travel through into the following year.
Side 1
Side 2
Many thanks go to the following YouTube Channels for providing the chance to hear this music once again.
Please show your appreciation by visiting their channel:
Grab Your Binoculars, Come Follow Me
My Socials
What is it…?
Who am I…?
When am I…?
Why am I…?
How do I…?
