Boxed (album)

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"Boxed" ( English , German: "packed in a box") is a box set with four long-playing records by the English rock musician Mike Oldfield , which was released on October 29, 1976. The box with the Virgin catalog number VBOX 1 entered the British charts on November 20, 1976 and reached number 22 in 13 weeks.

The boxed set

After the great sales success with Oldfield's first albums, his record company Virgin Records did not expect a new LP release from Oldfield in 1976. Tubular Bells was still on the sales lists three years after it was first released. So Virgin came up with the idea to take advantage of the popularity of the first three albums again and released them - in a new mix - in the Boxed set . In addition to the new versions of Tubular Bells , Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn , the set includes the LP Collaborations with a collection of pieces that were previously not available on LP in this compilation. However, the original recordings of the three hit albums were remixed in the Quadrofonie -Tonechnik, which was popular in the mid-1970s , so that the buyer of the boxed set actually received new versions of the old LPs - "four LPs for the price of two", the advertising praised this reworking from Oldfield's oeuvre to date. On the labels of the records, the Quadrofonie mix is ​​indicated by the note Stereo / SQ Quad compatible .

Tubular bells

Tubular Bells received some new sounds and instruments for the boxed set from Phil Newell and Alan Perkins . Newell said after the release that he believed "that the new quadrophone version is in parts more polished, powerful and complete than the previous versions."

In addition to this remixing, the end of page two received a new version of The Sailor's Hornpipe - the longer original version. The Master of Ceremonies Viv Stanshall , who already announces the instruments during the entire Tubular Bells work, tells in this song during a tour of The Manor (the house where the recordings were made) what he sees there. Oldfield and his production assistant Tom Newman had previously distributed microphones in the rooms with which Stanshall and Oldfield and Newman, who accompanied him musically in the true sense of the word, were recorded. This track was supposedly too weird for Virgin for the original release of a new artist's first work - probably also because the three were said to have been quite drunk at the time and this is also quite clear in the recording.

  • Title List:
    • Page 1: Tubular Bells, Part One (25'55 ")
    • Page 2: Tubular Bells, Part Two, incl. The Sailor's Hornpipe (25'47 ")

Hergest Ridge

While Tubular Bells offered a few more aspects, Hergest Ridge was slimmed down a bit by Oldfield's own remix . So he completely removed the snare drum and most of the trumpet from the new mix; on the second page he put more emphasis on the vocal parts and removed some guitar passages . When Oldfield's albums were first released on CD in the 1980s , Hergest Ridge took this newly mixed, quadraphonic version - the original mix was only available on record and cassette until the "Deluxe Edition" was released in 2010 , and that only on copies made before 1976. According to the Boxed booklet, Oldfield was very satisfied with the new version; on page two of the LP he says: "Now it is the structure experiment that it should always be, a kind of prototype for the beginning of page two of Ommadawn ."

  • Title List:
    • Page 1: Hergest Ridge, Part One (21'33 ")
    • Page 2: Hergest Ridge, Part Two (18'40 ")

Ommadawn

Ommadawn was the newest of the three republished works, and it was the one that had the least been changed. The quadraphonic mixing options took Oldfield this time in collaboration with Phil Newell ago, a few weeks after the original LP was released in October 1975th This gives Ommadawn a different sound, but not as much as Hergest Ridge . Towards the end you can now hear some vocal harmonies that were lost in the original mix.

  • Title List:
    • Page 1: Ommadawn, Part One (20'06 ")
    • Page 2: Ommadawn, Part Two, incl. On Horseback (17'17 ")

Collaborations

The fourth LP Collaborations contains tracks that had previously appeared on albums by David Bedford or, in collaboration with Leslie Penning , as A- and B-sides of singles ; all of them were mixed for the boxed set by Phil Newell using quadrophone technology.

Bedford and Oldfield only re-recorded the track First Excursion for this record - just five days before it went into the pressing plant. In an interview in 1989, David Bedford cited the reason that a “new” track had to be put on the LP: “ Richard Branson once had the feeling that he shouldn't completely rip the customers off, so something new also had to be done on the album. "

A newspaper advertisement praised the three pieces on the front page of Collaborations as "three of the best examples of Oldfield's work as a solo guitarist for other artists."

Track list

Page 1:

  • 1. Phaeacian Games (3'58 ")
from David Bedford's album The Odyssey , recorded in 1976
  • 2. Extract from Star's End (7'33 ")
from David Bedford's album Star's End , recorded in 1974
  • 3. The Rio Grande (6'37 ")
from David Bedford's album The Rime of the Ancient Mariner , recorded in 1975

Page 2:

  • 1. First Excursion (5'56 ")
Re-entry by Bedford and Oldfield in 1976 for this set; later outside the UK as a B-side of the single "The William Tell Overture" published
  • 2. Argiers (3'59 ")
with Leslie Penning; British B-side of the single "The William Tell Overture" , recorded in 1976
  • 3. Portsmouth (2'02 ")
with Leslie Penning; was released as single A-side shortly after Boxed in the UK in 1976 ; Oldfield's biggest single hit (# 3) in the UK
  • 4. In Dulci Jubilo (2'49 ")
with Leslie Penning; Single A-side, recorded in 1975
  • 5. Speak (Tho 'You Only Say Farewell) (2'54 ")
with David Bedford; B-side of the single "Portsmouth" , recorded in 1974

CD edition

In 1989 Boxed was re-released on three CDs. On the first CD were in addition to Tubular Bells (Parts 1 and 2, including The Sailor's Hornpipe ) the titles The Rio Grande , Portsmouth and In Dulci Jubilo . Hergest Ridge (Parts 1 and 2) were added to the second disc by An Extract from Star's End , Argiers and Speak (Tho 'You Only Say Farewell) . The third disc included Ommadawn (Parts 1 and 2, including On Horseback ) as well as The Phaeacian Games and First Excursion .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ David Bedford: "It was one of these Virgin things to get more mileage out of Mike's music when he wasn't producing anything.", According to David Porter / Dave Walker, David Bedford Interview ( Memento from June 28, 2001 on the Internet Archives ) from Airborne magazine from 1989, online version viewed January 29, 2007
  2. ↑ a b www.mikeoldfield.org ( Memento of the original from July 1, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mikeoldfield.org
  3. ↑ “I believe that the new quad version is in places more subtle, more powerful and more compete than its predecessors”, quoted from: Al Clark: Mike Oldfield Boxed . Booklet accompanying Mike Oldfield's Boxed .
  4. ↑ "At the time, the result was considered a little too bizarre to place on an album by a complete unknown.", Booklet to Mike Oldfields Boxed .
  5. ^ "The helplessly intoxicated trio", ibid.
  6. ↑ Mike Oldfield, Booklet for Boxed
  7. ^ "The original mix of Hergest Ridge could therefore, up until 2010, only be heard on LP and cassette (and even then, only the LPs and cassettes produced before 1976). All CD releases on Virgin Records therefore used the boxed mix. ", According to Mike Oldfield's webpage ( memento of the original from November 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , viewed November 1, 2016 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mikeoldfield.org
  8. ^ " Ommadawn also sounds different, although not so much as Hergest Ridge as all the sounds and instruments are still here. At the very end you can also hear some vocal-harmonies that was drowned in the original-mix. "According to Vintage Progressive Rock Website, viewed January 29, 2007
  9. ↑ David Bedford: “… and they felt, for once, Richard Branson that is, that he couldn't short change the public. There had to be some new material […] so we did it for the album. ”, According to David Porter / Dave Walker, David Bedford Interview ( memento from June 28, 2001 in the Internet Archive ) from Airborne magazine from 1989, online - Version viewed January 29, 2007