Two Sides - The Very Best of Mike Oldfield

Mike Oldfield’s guest turn at the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics may have been kept a secret from us, but his record company must certainly have known, as they released this Best Of album three days later.

Oldfield made more than 30 studio albums since he began his progressive rock/pop career in 1967 and this double CD set has honed in on 29 tracks in an attempt to showcase the Brit’s multi-instrumental skills, lest any potential new fans thought him ‘just’ a guitarist following the riff-tastic soundtrack he provided over Danny Boyles luke-warmly received NHS tribute during the opening ceremony. 

The maestro himself declared his performance as a ‘relaunch’ for instrumental music and hoped it would encourage contemporary artists to put away the computer software-let’s hope this album finds its way into the hands of auto-tune abusers around the world.