When I first saw this album in stores a few years back, I gave a heavy sigh. I had gotten burned out on music in general by spending a couple of years as a music reviewer and toward the end, I had felt like I was *forced* to listen to the stuff. And here one of the few artists I could still stand had apparently finally sold out. I believed that TBII was just titled thusly because the original TB was the only thing he appears to be known for in the U.S. Still, I bought it, hoping Oldfield wouldn't let me down.

And he didn't! Almost singlehandedly, Oldfield revived my love for music and restored my faith in the fact that some recording artists remain *artists*!

TBII follows the structure and revisits some of the same themes found on TBI, even if sometimes they are merely faint echoes. However, where the majority of TBI is in minor keys and thus feels brooding, most of TBII is upbeat, almost joyous in its feeling. It lifted my spirits the first time I listened to the album, and it continues to do so when I play it now.

Standout segments--I'm loathe to call most of them tracks, as the album flows in two large blocks as the original TB--are the "overture" 'Sentinal' (where Oldfield draws the listner in with a quoting of the TB theme that serves as an underpinning for the first half of the album), 'Blue Saloon' (a tense section played mostly on guitars and which spotlights his still clever use of these instruments), 'The Bell' (which follows the original TB model of a Master of Ceremonies introducing the instruments from the first part of the album, but which holds my attention throughout where the original bored me slightly), 'Weightless,' (a beautiful segment that introduces a South American musical theme), and 'Tattoo' (bagpipes a-go-go!).

I've occassionally complained that Oldfield sometimes drives a theme for just a bit too long. At no point does he make this mistake on TBII. This is truly one of his finer efforts and it is a worthy follow-up that builds on and surpasses the original TB. It's a worthwhile purchase for anyone who enjoys his music and a fine introduction for those who aren't familiar with his brilliant work.

OK - I started reading the reviews for this and I just had to step in and offer my two cents. First of all, I loved the original Tubular Bells - I listened to it compulsively, repeatedly for about a full year. One day I saw Tubular Bells II in the record store and I thought, "How bad can it be?" Seems like every time I say those words to myself, FATE smacks me down, as if to teach me the lesson: "It can worse than you can possibly imagine."

If I were to describe my feelings listening to this CD in one word, it would be "embarrassment". I was actually embarrassed for Mike Oldfield. The music is basically a remake of Tubular Bells - only "modernized" for MTV fed, low-attention-span simpletons deemed to have no capacity for musical depth or melodic progression. Then again, I can't imagine WHAT audience they were targeting with this thing. All the mood, creativity, inspiration and FEELING of the original has been stripped away, leaving a hollow, pointless collection songs that add nothing to the music. And when it came to the "Piltdown Man" section, I could actually, literally, feel my face flushing with embarrassment. In all my years of listening to music, I have never quite had this experience.

If Tubular Bells were not such a masterpiece, this CD would be forgivable. Tubular Bells II, however, is not only an insult to the listener, it is an insult to the work of art that is the original (as well as a transparent attempt to capitalize on the original).

I'm sorry Mike - I had to say it. I'm a big fan, but I beg you, please leave Tubular Bells alone. A masterpiece, by it's very definition, needs no improvement, or "re-envisioning" or whatever you want to call it.

Like Douglas Adams and a few other British prodigies, Mike Oldfield has had a couple of decades to face the fact that his first major work was his best. So much effort, so much innovation ... and so many baths ... go into that first album that the rest of your career becomes a bit of a downer. There's always the optimism as you set out on each new project that this will be the one, and there's always the consolation of the money that rolls in from that first project. Whether it was TUBULAR BELLS or THE HITCHHIKERS' GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, you know that what your audience prized above all else was the work's originality. It is very, very, very hard to produce a second work that is as strikingly original as the first.

Actually Oldfield produced a couple of decent follow-ups in the form of HERGEST RIDGE and OMMADAWN, both different from TUBULAR BELLS, but clearly from the same pen.

TUBULAR BELLS not only warmed up an audience so that it could move on to Steve Reich's MUSIC FOR 18 MUSICIANS. It also spawned much of the New Age movement. I suspect that what Oldfield wanted to achieve with TUBULAR BELLS II was to take advantage of the great improvements in recording techniques since 1973, and to cash in on the New Age surge which he could justifiably claim to have started.

So what he did was to take the score for TUBULAR BELLS, tweak a note here and there, substitute Alan Rickman for Vivian Stanshall (who regrettably had died in a fire at home), swap out his Farfisa organ for the latest hi-tech keyboard wizardry, bring in a few female voices, and go into the recording studio with Trevor Horn (ex-Yes, Buggles, Frankie etc) and Tom Newman (the original producer of TUBULAR BELLS).

For me the overall emotional effect of this album, despite some highlights, is annoyance; it's close to Bells, but it isn't Bells. The way to improve on Bells is to enhance the sound reproduction, which he has done through the release of the SACD version.

Perhaps the best I can say of this album, by way of a warning, is that it's better than TUBULAR BELLS III.

I realize that the first Tubular Bells from 1973 was a classic, as it should be. But as a new Mike Oldfield convert, I had the privilege to have a first-ever listen to both Tubular Bells I and Tubular Bells II at the same time, and I have concluded that TB II is crisper, more rhythmic, and certainly more patterned and cohesive than TB I. TB I can be rather discursive and simple, and there does not seem to be a unifying theme that pulls everything together. Not so with TB II. The very first notes we hear on TB II, played on piano, are interwoven throughout nearly the entire album with varying degrees of drama and volume. TB II has the feel of a holistic musical performance rather than a collection of instrumental parts. The only exception to this is the very last track, which has a rustic, hill-billy quality to it that unfortunately taints the triumphant, theme-unifying conclusion pounded out in the track before it. I realize that the first Tubular Bells ends with an escapist, country-style track, but I wish Mike had not decided to so closely follow the original score in this second version. Take out the ill-fitting last track, and Tubular Bells II is a masterpiece.

I'll prognosticate that new Mike Oldfield listeners will actually prefer Tubular Bells II to Tubular Bells I, as I do. But those fans who grew up with Mike Oldfield and heard TB I in the 70s will probably consider Tubular Bells II as merely a worthy attempt to capitalize on the success of the original--but it's not quite as good. It's kind of like the difference between people who have read the book before seeing the movie and those who watched the movie and then read the book. Each group will say they preferred either the movie or the book, which ever medium they consumed first. As someone who had my virgin listen to TB I and TB II on the same day, I will say that TB II is easily superior to TB I. It's a conspicuous improvement on the first Tubular Bells. This time, the sequel outpaces the original.

19 years after Mike Oldfield's groundbreaking and complex debut album he returned to drink from the well which had launched his career onto an unsuspecting public. It is easy to criticise Oldfield and record label Warners for the opportunism of this album, but one has to remember the difficulties Oldfield had endured through the late 1980's thanks to Virgin Records indifferent promotional attitude to his work. Pressured throughout the decade to follow "Tubular Bells" up Oldfield resisted Virgin's entreaty. That he eventually chose to record a follow up album for a new record label shows a clear attempt on Oldfield's part to stick two fingers up at Richard Branson et al, like "Tubular Bells" this album was an act of rebellious revenge.
Musically it is also very satisfying, polished and precise Oldfield has never struggled when it comes to producing memorable and often entrancing music. Warner's cleverly marketed the album at the emergent audience for "New Age" music that Enigma had established. The lead track "Sentinel" is a perfect evocation of Oldfield's multifarious thematic style. Certainly large swathes of the music use the "Tubular Bells" as a basis, but Oldfield often takes us on a journey heavenwards as the guitars soar and range. The major difference is the production. Trevor Horn brings a polished over produced sound that is at times clinical. The aggressive improvisation of "Tubular Bells" is not replicated and nor is the energy. Nevertheless on tracks such as "Weightless" and "Tattoo" Oldfield produces some of his most emotive and memorable music. This is an experiment that could have gone terribly wrong, but in fact it is an excellent nostalgic addition to Oldfield's fascinating body of work.