Mike Oldfield: "Heaven's Open" (a review)

"Heaven's Open" has always been frowned upon by critics and it is likely held in no higher regard by his long-time fans. I have followed his career with great interest since his first release, "Tubular Bells", in the early 70's to the present. His oeuvre leading up to "Heaven's Open" was consistently excellent with the exception of a couple of albums (the wretched "Earth Moving" and the tentative "Discovery"). Otherwise there was enough good material on each album to pick up the slack for the rest. "Crises", for instance, has a couple of songs that I think are substandard ("Foreign Affair", "Shadow on the Wall"), but the majority are quite good. The vast majority of them are solid from start to finish.

Not so "Heaven's Open". I really want to like it, because it is the first release on which Mike sings all of the lead vocals. But the fact remains...it is not only a terrible record, it may even be his worst (though I am more inclined to award that accolade to "Earth Moving"). As bad as it is, "Heaven's Open" does offer a couple of decent tracks.

"No Dream" is a dark, foreboding song that shows proof of Oldfield's considerably expressive voice. By the sound of things, the dream that he speaks of is not a good one, and the waking reality is even worse.

The other worthy song here is the title track, "Heaven's Open", which, to my ears, sounds like something that could have been written around the time of "Five Miles Out". The vocals are well done, riding on melodies that are catchy and inventive. The arrangement is outstanding, the guitar solo soaring and unmistakably Oldfield, signed and sealed with his signature sound. Like "No Dream", "Heaven's Open" has fine lyrics. It's a shame that the same can't be said for the other three here (that's not counting "Music from the Balcony", which sucks despite not having words).

A sad harbinger of things to come, the opener here, "Make Make" sounds like he's taken a snatch of "Tubular Bells" and transformed it into a bland 80's-era pop song. Some would say that Mike has pilfered "TB" on many occasions, that this is just another one of many. This is a valid point...Oldfield has been known to plagiarize his most famous work, reconstructing them with various degrees of success. "Make Make" is one of those instances where the formula does not work at all. "Mona Lisa you can stop searching/Don't you know we're not Virgin", he sings, as if the line makes the slightest bit of sense. The "Virgin" part is probably a reference to the record label he'd been recording for since his first album. "Heaven's Open" was Oldfield's final album with Virgin and he was reportedly disappointed with them for expecting him to churn out more hits like "Family Man". Which does not explain what that has to do with the Mona Lisa, but perhaps it does shed some light on the creative laziness that bogs this whole album down.

"Mr. Shame" follows "No Dream" as the third track here. It's a generic affair with awkward chord changes and more silly lyrics..."Are you a victim of that Money Bug?"..."I am calling your name Mr. Shame/There is no doubt/You need to find out about the river (of love)"...

Even if the other songs refer to Virgin out of sheer coincidence (highly unlikely) there seems to be no other way to interpret the miserable "Gimme Back" than as the plea of an artist who feels as if he's being controlled, creatively stunted and basically owned by the powers-that-be. Apparently they're into him pretty deep: "I need my hands/I need my feet/Gimme my soul/I'm incomplete", he sings over a choppy, less-than-authentic reggae beat, "I need my eyes/I want my teeth/Gimme my scope/Give me my beliefs"... Damn, Mike, it's a record company, it's not as if you sold your soul to the devil.

The most disappointing thing about this album is the final track, a sweeping 20 minute opus called "Music from the Balcony". The long form instrumental composition is usually Mike Oldfield's strong point. Earlier epics such as "Crises", "The Wind Chimes" and "Taurus" are cases in point, not to mention his first four albums. I had high hopes that ths lengthy piece would redeem the dreck, but where "Ommadawn" or "Incantations" successfully draw the listener in and offer structure and substance to maintain interest and enjoyment, "Music from the Balcony" comes off as a well-made recording of a guy who just bought a synthesizer fiddling around with all the cool sounds...It's like he's reeling 'em off in no particular order. The song itself, however, is so disjointed that even if the sounds were particularly interesting (which they're not) it would still be little more than one vast, convoluted muddle. To be fair, there are a couple of interesting passages in the mirk. They are repeated at different points in the song as if they're supposed to be some kind of thread that unites the mess. But it's useless. I've tried to get myself into a state-of-mind that might derive a modicum of enjoyment from "Music from the Balcony". Maybe it's meant to be some kind of musical abstraction, I'd try to deceive myself, maybe it's meant to be avante garde. But neither of those approaches seem to work. It all comes back down to just how bland and uninteresting it is.

As such, I can only believe that "Music from the Balcony" (and "Heaven's Open" in general) is nothing more than a final "fuck you" to Virgin records. You can tell the man is pissed off, but instead of rebelling like you'd expect a rock musician to do, he gave them 5 songs that sound exactly like what they expected from him. And the only slightly original track on the record is such a clusterfuck that it's a wonder anyone can sit through even half of it.

"Oh, you really stuck it up their asses with those songs, didn't ya, Mike?"...I doubt very seriously that he made much of an impression, positively or negatively, on his former bosses. After all, it was nothing more than a contractual obligation album. Maybe he felt as if that made it okay to hand in such a piece of shit, but it doesn't say much for how he might have regarded his fanbase at the time.

++++++++++++++++++++++
The day after I wrote this I listened to one of Mike Oldfield's more recent albums. "The Millenium Bell" was his celebration of the turn of the century. Stuffed to the gills with choral singing that sounds out of place and the usual sub-standard lyrics, this pretentious work usurps both "Heaven's Open" and "Earth Moving" as Oldfield' absolute worst album, no small feat (though I hear from reliable sources that his last album is even worse...inconceivable). Y'now, I've had this CD for about 5 years, and I only listened to it once, when I first got it. I had forgotten why I never listened to it again. Maybe I kept it back so I'd have something fresh to hear when I was in the mood for Oldfield but didn't feel like listening to his other albums, which I know pretty well . But no, I realized soon enough that I never listened to it again because...well...it's not WORTH a second spin. Sad but true, and I hate it, because I honestly love the bulk of Mike's output. But integrity demands that I speak the truth as I see it, and the fact is that "The Millenium Bell" is a turd.

I only gave "Tubular Bells 3" one or two listens when I got it several years ago...Now I'm kind of afraid to hear it again...

(Originally posted August 25, 2007 on JACkory's Listening Room)