An experimental instrumental album full of strange sounds, remarkably cleanly-realized -- plus a few moments of truly beautiful, ethereal melody. The focus on the sub-song realizations in isolation, stitched together after the fact, is a double-edged sword. Each section feels free of convention, living outside of existing music. And the ones that work, do they work. Italian chef finger kiss.
But they don't flow into eachother especially well, and _woof some of them fall flat. The side-enders, especially, jesus. The naming of the instruments out loud as they come in is not a gimmick that's aged well, and the Sailor Hornpipe outro's a heinous spell-breaker. Classical-aping clunkers infiltrate most of the best stretches.
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If you're interested in the history of rock at all, this is a real interesting data point. It _dominated the British charts for _years and sold 15 millions albums worldwide and man its a weird record. Assuredly one of the weirdest to make that kind of impact. It speaks to the post-60's hangover we were facing, maybe: all that hope for music and where did it get us?
It's a bit like how people today root for Tiger to best Nicklaus, James over Jordan.
We're all on team this-generation.
We need to have something that shows us the time we're living in is culturally valid -- that _we're culturally valid. And its hard to escape the idea that this album's success came from some variation of that desire, that lifting it up was some collective delusion that affirmed that we were living in the best time yet.
England in particular, still chasing the British-invasion-high of being the center of culture, seemed to _will this into being a _thing. Fast forward to Oasis. The hype cycle there's its own beast.
It's not that Tubular Bells isn't good, it has its moments. But the idea that two 20-plus minute formless sound-collages was must-have for the general music populace anywhere in the Western world, that it broke records reserved for Jackson and the Beatles, is deeply unusual in the history of modern music. A moment when art music was popular. Man that time seems far away.
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Tubular Bells is super messy, wildly, uneven, and its legend is blown way out of proportion. But there's a real spark of originality there, and in the post-then-now-now, man you can how rare its particular gift was 4/5
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