Mike Oldfield

Composer, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, and producer Mike Oldfield rose to international fame on the success of Tubular Bells, an eerie, album-length conceptual piece employed to stunning effect in William Friedkin's 1973 film The Exorcist; it has since sold some 16 million copies and become an indelible entry in the history of popular instrumental music. Oldfield enjoys a special place in pop history not only for his most famous composition, but as a bridge between prog rock, new age, mainstream pop, and cinematic music. His other '70s recordings (Hergest Ridge, Ommadawn, Incantations) are widely considered prog rock classics, comprised of sounds ranging from Celtic folk and guitar rock to jazz, spidery funk, and neo-classical. In addition to Tubular Bells, Oldfield's music has been widely used in films. He composed the Golden Globe-nominated score for The Killing Fields in 1984, while selections from other recordings have been used in films, television, and video-game soundtracks. He pursued a progressive pop direction during the '80s and '90s on charting albums Five Miles Out, QE2, and Crises among others. 1992's 20th anniversary Tubular Bells II topped the British charts. Oldfield's prog and jazz leanings resurfaced in the 21st century on albums such as 1999's The Millennium Bell, Tubular Bells 2003, 2007's Music of the Spheres, and 2017's Return to Ommadawn.