What's your favourite album to listen to?
A pretty simple question you might think, yet it is a question I always struggle to answer, purely because my tastes change on weekly basis, depending on whats on rotation at the moment. And then that can depend on the genre of music too. I have a different favourite depending if I am listening to Alternative Rock, or Black Metal, or Country.... or all the myriad sub-genres that exist in between.
A different way of looking at that question would be... which album(s) do I always go back to listen too? I always enjoy exploring new bands, and checking out new songs, but even though I love listening to new music, there are a couple of albums I can always rely on to relax to.
One of those albums arrived this morning in the post. The reason I bought the album will become clear later on, but for now I can reveal to you one of my all time favourite albums...
Drum Roll Please....
Tubular Bells ll - Mike Oldfield.
I kid you not...
People who know me may be surprised to learn that... after all my fave genre of music is Black Metal, which this certainly isn't.
It is an album that is almost completely instrumental. The artist, Mike Oldfield played almost every instument on it (guitar, piano, drums, mandolin and of course tubular bells). It is mostly progressive rock with random 'new age' bits thrown in... and I flipping love it. Such a beautiful piece of music (in my opinion at least)
It is an album that I have known for years. My Dad had a version on tape cassette, and would often play it on long car journeys. When I had my first tape player back in the early 90's, he lent it to me to listen to it so often that in the end he just gave me the tape.
The first Tubular Bells album was released in 1973 to critical and commercial acclaim, and in 1992 the 2nd album was released (which was a reworking of the original album) and then in 1998 there was a 3rd version which again reworked the previous versions.
To celebrate 30 years of this album, there was a special anniversary edition which included all 3 albums:
And while I enjoyed listening to the other versions, it was the 2nd version that I was obsessed with. I played it continuously, whether I was out and about (back when portable CD players were a thing) or at home as background music while I was doing homework and studying.
Although my taste in music has changed since, I still regularly return back to it. Over the years I eventually wore the disc out somehow, so it would often skip and jump between songs. By this point I had a digital copy on my mp3 player, so I carried on listening to quite happily. It was disapointing that the CD no longer worked, so after a couple of years I finally decided to do something about it and bought a replacement.
This was the CD that arrived in the post this morning, and I had ordered the tape too, you know, for nostagia and all that...
So now I can ask you, what is YOUR favourite album to listen too?
(and while you have a nice long think about that, I'm gonna go put this album on...)
Source for information and dates etc - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tubular_Bells_II
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Please Note: I used to talk about music on my 2nd account @earthsea, which I enjoyed doing etc. The main reason was a backup account for security purposes, but also a chance to keep different subjects separate. It turns out that managing a second account is really hard work, whether thats engaging with other users or just trying to post regulalry. I just want to talk about whatever is on my mind at the time, and not schedule in "this time its music, next time is photography". So in future I'm just gonna blog about whatever I want, and today I wanted to talk about music 😉
I couldn't possibly name a single album, there are many.
Brings back so many wonderful memories 🙀
I just listened last night to Bryan Ferry’s Roxy Music / Virginia Plain from 1972 but there are so many more :)
Yours @mammasitta
'Bete Noire' by Bryan Ferry is my absolutely fave from all his back catalogue, and def. among my top 50 LPs
intresting fact about you.. same as @slobberchops, I cant name one, at different cuts of time and life moments they are very different. Lets say I have top-50 to choose from.