Tubular Bells

Very nice clean cover and vinyl.

Tubular Bells is the debut album by English musician and composer Mike Oldfield, released on Virgin Records on 25 May 1973. It comprises two mostly instrumental compositions of over twenty minutes each. Oldfield recorded it when he was 19 and played most of the instruments.

Although sales were initially slow, Tubular Bells gained global attention when it was used on the soundtrack to the horror film The Exorcist (1973). In 1974, it reached number one in the UK, Australia and Canada, and number three on the US Billboard 200. It was the third-bestselling album of the 1970s in the UK. It is estimated to have sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, including more than 2.6 million in the UK. Tubular Bells was the first release on the Virgin Records label, and its success played an important part in the growth of the Virgin Group.

Tubular Bells  was orchestrated in 1973 by David Bedford for The Orchestral Tubular Bells, rerecorded as Tubular Bells 2003 for its 30th anniversary, and remastered and reissued in 2009 on Mercury Records. Oldfield recorded three sequels: Tubular Bells II (1992), Tubular Bells III (1998) and The Millennium Bell (1999). Its contribution to British music was recognised when Oldfield played extracts during the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London.