Customer Reviews
Criminal oversight - By: , 15 Sep 2004 
This is obviously an extremely well-known, & in my view, excellent album. I can't add much other than what has been written above, other than that, criminallly, they cut Vivian Stanshalll's drunken tour of the manor/recording studio one evening which forms the prelude to the Hornpipe. Silly stuff, yes, but part of the charm of this record. Fun to record to the last - just look at Mike Oldfield on his trampoline!
Rock Trivia - Led Zeppelin's fourth album was also recorded in the same place (something Grange, I'm sure it'll come to me soon...) There we go. Headley Grange, I think...
Essential for Oldfield completists, worth having anyway. - By: Zander Nyrond, 30 Sep 2001 I got this set on LP even though I had alll the first three albums already. I got it on tape when I found it cheap even though I'd bought alll the first three albums on tape already. I don't have Hergest Ridge on CD yet, & I'm thinking maybe I'll get this set instead even though I have the other two albums on CD already.
Why? Well, the sound quality is vastly improved, for one thing. This set showed me what a difference remixing could make. The tonal balance on Ommadawn is much more subtle, & the effect consequently greater, than the original album. The original version of the hornpipe at the end of TB was great fun & to my mind remains so.
What clinched it for me, though, was the bonus album, "Collaborations." There are some lovely pieces on this album, some taken from albums by the composer David Bedford which might be hard to find nowadays, some singles (e.g. "Portsmouth"), one of the most searingly intense piano-guitar duets I have ever heard ("First Excursion"), & finallly the sublime vocal stylings of Messrs. Oldfield & Bedford on "Speak (Tho' You Only Say Farewell)." You cannot miss this tour de force.
I loved this collection. Still do....
