Editing Mike Oldfield (section)

====''Tubular Bells''====
By mid-1971, Oldfield had assembled a demo tape containing sections of a longform instrumental piece initially titled "Opus One". Attempts to secure a recording deal to record it professionally came to nothing. In September 1971, Oldfield, now a session musician and bassist for the [[Arthur Louis|Arthur Louis Band]], attended recording sessions at [[The Manor Studio]] at [[Shipton-on-Cherwell]], [[Oxfordshire]], owned by businessman [[Richard Branson]] and run by engineers [[Tom Newman (musician)|Tom Newman]] and Simon Heyworth.<ref name="bbc.co.uk"/> Branson already had several business ventures and was about to launch [[Virgin Records]] with Simon Draper. Newman and Heyworth heard some of Oldfield's demos and took them to Branson and Draper, who eventually gave Oldfield one week of recording time at The Manor, after which Oldfield had completed what became "Part One" of his composition, ''[[Tubular Bells]]''. He recorded "Part Two" from February to April 1973.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://tubular.net/articles/2001_08 |title=The Making of Tubular Bells |work=[[Q (magazine)|Q]] |date=August 2001 |access-date=12 January 2012}}</ref> Branson agreed to release ''Tubular Bells'' as the first record on the Virgin label and secured Oldfield a six-album deal with an additional four albums as optional.<ref name=TT13>{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/fameandfortune/9811942/Mike-Oldfield-Tubular-Bells-made-me-a-million-but-the-tax-bill-came-to-860000.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/fameandfortune/9811942/Mike-Oldfield-Tubular-Bells-made-me-a-million-but-the-tax-bill-came-to-860000.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Mike Oldfield: 'Tubular Bells made me a million but the tax bill came to £860,000'|date=20 January 2013|work=The Telegraph|first=Sarah|last=Ewing|access-date=26 February 2019}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

''Tubular Bells'' was released on 25 May 1973. Oldfield played more than twenty different instruments in the [[Overdubbing|multi-layered recording]], and its style moved through diverse musical genres. Its 2,760,000 UK sales puts it at No.&nbsp;42 on the list of the best-selling albums in the country.<ref>{{cite web |title=The best-selling albums of all time on the Official UK Chart |url=https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-best-selling-albums-of-all-time-on-the-official-uk-chart__15551/ |website=Official Charts |date=11 April 2019 |access-date=8 June 2023 |language=en}}</ref> The title track became a top-10 hit single in the US after the opening was used in the film ''[[The Exorcist]]'' in 1973. It is today considered to be a forerunner of the [[New-age music|new-age music movement]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Patti Jean |last=Birosik |title=The New Age Music Guide |year=1989 |publisher=Collier MacMillan |page=138 |isbn=0-02-041640-7}}</ref>