Platinum (Mike Oldfield album)
| Platinum | ||||
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| Studio album by Mike Oldfield | ||||
| Released | 23 November 1979 | |||
| Recorded |
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| Genre | Progressive rock, disco | |||
| Length | 37:35 (Platinum version) | |||
| Label | ||||
| Producer | Tom Newman | |||
| Mike Oldfield chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Platinum | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| Smash Hits | 7/10 |
Platinum is the fifth record album by Mike Oldfield, released in 1979 on Virgin Records. It was Oldfield's first album to include shorter songs and music written by others. A modified version of the album was released in the United States and Canada and titled Airborn.
The In Concert 1980 tour, which ran from April to December of that year, was in promotion of the album. In Germany the album peaked at number 11. The album has since been reissued with bonus material.
The nearly twenty-minute piece "Platinum", which makes up the first side of the LP, is divided into four parts:
The first two parts rely on melody played mostly with electric guitar. Part I, "Airborne" is in a slow tempo and has many changes, while Part II, "Platinum" introduces a simple groove rhythm and a more repetitive song structure. Part I was used as the theme tune for the 1980s BBC children's quiz show, First Class.
Part III, "Charleston", is humorous with a simple rhythm and swinging melody that is partly played by a horn section. A female vocalist adds some wailing wordless vocals while Oldfield contributes some scat vocals in a whispering voice.
Part IV includes an excerpt from the 1977 Philip Glass work "North Star" (hence the subtitle). The lead melody is not borrowed from Glass but the choir's part. The constant bass drum beat and octave-jumping bass line start the section and guitar enters with the melody later. A funky guitar riff and chorus appear, and the lead guitar continues to play the melody over them. An engineer on the album, Kurt Munkacsi, was a frequent collaborator with Glass.
Side 2 opens with "Woodhenge", an instrumental track named after Woodhenge, a Neolithic monument located close to Stonehenge.
On Airborn, the version of the album released in North America, the track was replaced by "Guilty", a disco track at the same time as Platinum.
The song "Sally" was written and sung by Oldfield and Nico Ramsden as a tribute to his girlfriend at the time, Sally Cooper (who appears on the album).
"Sally" was removed from the album shortly after its initial release, reportedly at the behest of Richard Branson, and replaced with another song "Into Wonderland", sung by Wendy Roberts. Therefore only the earliest pressings of the LP and cassette actually have "Sally" included among the tracks, despite record covers still including it in the track list. Later pressings and subsequent re-issues of Platinum correctly list "Into Wonderland" in the track list.
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