The Millennium Bell | ||||
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Studio album by Mike Oldfield | ||||
Released | 26 November 1999 | |||
Recorded | Roughwood Studios, Abbey Road Studios, London 1999 |
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Genre | Progressive rock, new-age, world music | |||
Length | 45:03 | |||
Label | Warner | |||
Producer | Mike Oldfield | |||
Mike Oldfield chronology | ||||
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Tubular Bells series chronology | ||||
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The Millennium Bell is the 20th record album by Mike Oldfield, released in 1999. The theme of the album is a reflection of different periods of human history. The album borrows its name from the dawning of the 3rd millennium and Oldfield's Tubular Bells series of albums. It was the main work performed at Oldfield's concert for Berlin's new year celebrations on 31 December 1999.
Oldfield recorded the majority of the album at his home studio, Roughwood Studios, Berkshire, and then recorded the orchestrations in just one day at Abbey Road Studios, London with the London Session Orchestra.
It was Oldfield's third album within one year, after Tubular Bells III in late 1998 and Guitars earlier in 1999. It was the third Mike Oldfield album available on the MiniDisc format, after Tubular Bells and Tubular Bells II were both released on MiniDisc in 1992.
A free live performance of the latter half of the album plus some older tracks was given in Berlin, Germany on New Year's Eve 1999, with an estimated audience of 500,000 people. This concert was released on a DVD (and later CD) with the title The Art in Heaven Concert.
The main theme of The Millennium Bell is the view on the two thousand years after the birth of Jesus of Nazareth through series of single episodes describing important moments in history, as well as different aspects of humanity. The album is eclectic in style, ranging from majestic choruses and soundtrack-esque orchestral passages through New Age sonic textures and ethnic sounds to strong pulse of electronic percussion.
The opening track, "Peace on Earth", is essentially a Christmas carol, referring to the newborn Jesus Christ, the bringer of peace on Earth. The main aspect of this track is hope.
Mixing electronic and ethnic sounds, namely the ethnic percussion, "Pacha Mama" was based on the music of Incas – Mike Oldfield paid a visit to Peru – and, in a broader sense, refers to Native Americans (both in North and South America) in pre-Columbian era, before another important year in human history – the year 1492.