Mike Oldfield: Ommadawn, a jpoc rock music review

Ommadawn was Oldfield's third album and it was commercially much less successful than his first two. Part of the reason for that was that the novelty of Mike Oldfield's style had worn off. For many people, Tubular Bells was the only album by him that they needed. Even if a lot of people didn't discover this until after they had bought Hergest Ridge, that was always going to hit sales of this album however good it was.

In the mid seventies, many progressive rock acts were looking for sources of new material and styles. Oldfield was not alone in this. Patrick Moraz and Ginger Baker were both experimenting with southern hemisphere percussion styles at the same time as Mike Oldfield. In the wake of the success of Tubular Bells, record companies started looking for other sources of long mostly instrumental progressive rock and Ommadawn just didn't stand out against the other music that was around at the same time.

It is easy to see how this happened. Ommadawn is a much slower, darker and more introspective piece than either of its predecessors and it has much less initial appeal. With the exception of the lyrics to "On Horseback" it is well worth a listen though I would never recommend it as an introduction to Mike Oldfield.