''Man on the Rocks'' is the twenty-fifth studio album by British musician

Mike Oldfield Mike may refer to: Animals * Mike (cat), cat and guardian of the British Museum * Mike the Headless Chicken, chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off * Mike (chimpanzee), a chimpanzee featured in several books and documen ...

, released on 3 March 2014 on the

Virgin EMI Virgin EMI Records was a British record label owned by the Universal Music Group that was formed in 2013. In June 2020, the label was rebranded as EMI Records, and operates Virgin Records as an imprint of the new EMI Records. History Virgin ...

label. The album is Oldfield's second full album of exclusively songs with no long or instrumental pieces, the first being 1989's ''

Earth Moving ''Earth Moving'' is the 12th record album by British musician Mike Oldfield, released in 1989. Unlike Oldfield's albums released prior to ''Earth Moving'', the album contains no instrumental tracks. Album analysis Oldfield used several vocali ...

''.

Recording and production

''Man on the Rocks'' was produced by

Stephen Lipson Stephen J. Lipson (born 16 March 1954) is an English record producer, audio engineer, guitarist and songwriter. As a record producer, he has worked with many artists including Annie Lennox, Propaganda, Act, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Will Youn ...

together with Oldfield. The album features bassist

Leland Sklar Leland Bruce Sklar (born May 28, 1947) is an American bassist and session musician. Sklar rose to prominence as a member of James Taylor's backing band, which coaleced into a group in its own right, The Section. This group of musicians so frequ ...

, drummer John Robinson, keyboardist

Matt Rollings Matt Rollings is a Grammy Award-winning American composer, keyboard player and record producer. Known mainly for playing in Lyle Lovett's Large Band, Rollings has worked with many artists, not all country. Matt won the 'Best Traditional Pop Voc ...

, guitarist Michael Thompson and singer Luke Spiller together with Oldfield himself on guitar. The backing tracks were recorded during June 2013 in Studio D of Village Studios,

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

with producer

Steve Lipson ''yes'Steve is a masculine given name, usually a short form (hypocorism) of Steven or Stephen Notable people with the name include: steve jops * Steve Abbott (disambiguation), several people * Steve Adams (disambiguation), several people * Steve ...

; Oldfield participated in these sessions via

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...

. Oldfield has also recorded part of the album in his home studio in

the Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...

. Oldfield's electric guitar sound on the album is primarily a

Fender Telecaster The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele , is an electric guitar produced by Fender. Together with its sister model the Esquire, it is the world's first mass-produced, commercially successful Les Paul had built a prototype solid bo ...

combined with the Avid Eleven software plug-in. The album marks a return of Oldfield to a

Virgin Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...

branded label since leaving

Virgin Records Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldwid ...

in the 1990s, through the merger of

Mercury Records Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. In the United States, it is ...

UK and Virgin Records after

Universal Music Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Netherlands, Dutch–United States, American multinational Music industry, music corporation under Law of the Netherlands, Dutch law. UMG's cor ...

's purchase of

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...

. Luke Spiller is the singer of

The Struts The Struts are a British rock band formed in Derby, Derbyshire in 2012. The band consists of lead vocalist Luke Spiller, guitarist Adam Slack, bassist Jed Elliott, and drummer Gethin Davies. The band has cited its influences as: Queen, The D ...

, another of Virgin EMI's British artists.

Lyrical content

The album deals with topics ranging from Oldfield's experiences with mental health to his Christian faith to a track inspired by the

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

. The piece "Irene" is inspired by

Hurricane Irene Hurricane Irene was a large and destructive tropical cyclone which affected much of the Caribbean and East Coast of the United States during late August 2011. The ninth named storm, first hurricane, and first major hurricane of the 2011 At ...

which hit the Bahamas in 2011. The final track is a cover of William McDowell's gospel piece "I Give Myself Away". The working title for the album had been ''Rock''. Oldfield has used the title "Moonshine" once before for the final piece on 1992's ''

Tubular Bells II ''Tubular Bells II'' is the fifteenth studio album by English guitarist and songwriter Mike Oldfield. It was released on 31 August 1992 by Warner Music UK and is the successor to his debut album '' Tubular Bells'' (1973). After his contract with ...

''. The song itself is a reworking of his 1994 instrumental "The Song Of The Boat Men", which was featured as a B-side of the " Hibernaculum" single. The song "Nuclear" deals with his grandfather's experiences during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. When interviewed by the ''

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'', he tells the background to writing the song. “I never knew him,” he says, “So I hired a company to find out about him. It turned out he was a great character before the war but came home a very different man. My mum was one of ten or eleven kids and all the children born after the war had problems like hers. I wanted to see if I could spread my senses in the place he was. I travelled around

Ypres Ypres ( , ; nl, Ieper ; vls, Yper; german: Ypern ) is a Belgian city and municipality in the province of West Flanders. Though the Dutch name is the official one, the city's French name is most commonly used in English. The municipality co ...

and the battlefield museums and I saw the graves of his regiment: the

Royal Munster Fusiliers The Royal Munster Fusiliers was a line infantry regiment of the British Army from 1881 to 1922. It traced its origins to the East India Company, East India Company's Bengal European Regiment raised in 1652, which later became the 101st Regiment ...

. And I could feel it. Still there. It’s a blessing and a curse for those of us who have this extra sensitivity.”

Release

''Man on the Rocks'' was released on 3 March 2014, after initially being planned for 27 January. The album is available on single CD, double CD, double vinyl, coloured double vinyl, digital download and a box set. The two CD Deluxe Edition contains the album and a second instrumental disc. In the UK the boxed set is available exclusively through mikeoldfieldofficial.com - this includes the content from the Deluxe Edition as well as Oldfield's demos of the songs and 4 alternative mixes of songs. The boxed set also includes a 16-page CD size booklet, four art cards and a certificate of authenticity.

Singles and promotion

The first public airing of the album was an excerpt of "Sailing" that was played on

Stuart Maconie Stuart Maconie (born 13 August 1961) is an English radio DJ and television presenter, writer, journalist, and critic working in the field of pop music and popular culture. He is currently a presenter on BBC Radio 6 Music where, alongside Mark ...

's radio show on

BBC Radio 6 Music BBC Radio 6 Music is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC, specialising primarily in alternative music. BBC 6 Music was the first national music radio station to be launched by the BBC in 32 years. It is available onl ...

in November 2013. The first full play of "Sailing" was on

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content. ...

on 14 January 2014. "Sailing" was a record of the week on BBC Radio 2 during the first week of February. The music video for "Sailing" was released on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

on 8 February. The video shows Oldfield and Spiller in

on a beach, a boat and in Oldfield's studio there. The song became available to buy on online retailers such as

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...

from 19 February. Behind the scenes footage and acoustic versions of tracks from the album, including "Man on the Rocks" and "Chariots", were released online ahead of the album. The second single was "Moonshine"; a video was released for purchase on iTunes on 14 April. "Nuclear" was featured in the

E3 2014 The Electronic Entertainment Expo 2014 (E3 2014) was the 20th E3 held. The event took place at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California. It began on June 10, 2014, and ended on June 12, 2014, with 48,900 total attendees. Ma ...

trailer and soundtrack for the stealth action game '' Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain''.

Critical reception

Critical reception of the album has been mixed. Music critics and journalists have noted its contrast from Oldfield's

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...

works such as ''

Tubular Bells Tubular bells (also known as chimes) are musical instruments in the percussion family. Their sound resembles that of church bells, carillon, or a bell tower; the original tubular bells were made to duplicate the sound of church bells within a ...

'', and the album's orientation to more standard

rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...

. ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' newspaper called the album "a curious but likable diversion from his multilayered new-age work." "Sailing" reached BBC Radio 2's "A List" rotation.

Weekly charts

Track listing

Disc 1

All tracks written by Mike Oldfield, except where noted. # "Sailing" - 4:46 # "Moonshine" - 5:49 # "Man on the Rocks" - 6:10 # "Castaway" - 6:34 # "Minutes" - 4:51 # "Dreaming in the Wind" - 5:28 # "Nuclear" - 5:03 # "Chariots" - 4:38 # "Following the Angels" - 7:04 # "Irene" - 3:59 # "I Give Myself Away" ( William McDowell) - 5:10

Disc 2 - Deluxe Edition

# "Sailing" (

Instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...

) - 4:44 # "Moonshine" (Instrumental) - 5:47 # "Man on the Rocks" (Instrumental) - 6:09 # "Castaway" (Instrumental) - 6:36 # "Minutes" (Instrumental) - 4:50 # "Dreaming in the Wind" (Instrumental) - 5:31 # "Nuclear" (Instrumental) - 5:02 # "Chariots" (Instrumental) - 4:24 # "Following the Angels" (Instrumental) - 7:04 # "Irene" (Instrumental) - 3:57 # "I Give Myself Away" (Instrumental) (William McDowell) - 5:06

Disc 3 - Bonus Disc (Super Deluxe Edition only)

# "Sailing" (

Demo Demo, usually short for demonstration, may refer to: Music and film *Demo (music), a song typically recorded for reference rather than release * ''Demo'' (Behind Crimson Eyes), a 2004 recording by the band Behind Crimson Eyes * ''Demo'' (Deafhea ...

) - 4:14 # "Moonshine" (Demo) - 5:25 # "Man on the Rocks" (Demo) - 5:41 # "Castaway" (Demo) - 6:25 # "Minutes" (Demo) - 4:29 # "Dreaming in the Wind" (Demo) - 5:28 # "Nuclear" (Demo) - 4:55 # "Chariots" (Demo) - 3:54 # "Following the Angels" (Demo) - 6:25 # "Irene" (Demo) - 3:59 # "I Give Myself Away" (Demo) (William McDowell) - 5:09 # "Sailing" (Alternative mix) - 4:46 # "Dreaming in the Wind" (Alternative mix) - 5:29 # "Following the Angels" (Alternative mix) - 7:05 # "I Give Myself Away" (Alternative mix) (William McDowell) - 5:09 Disc 3 Tracks 1–11: All Instruments and Vocals by Mike Oldfield

Personnel

–

Electric Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are use ...

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

* Luke Spiller –

Lead vocals The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of t ...

* John Robinson –

Drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

–

Bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

–

Piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

Hammond B-3 The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding #Drawbars, drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs ...

* Michael Thompson – Electric & acoustic guitars *

– Electric & acoustic guitars *

Davy Spillane Davy Spillane (born 1959 in Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish musician, songwriter and a player of uilleann pipes and low whistle. Biography Irish music At the age of 12, Spillane started playing the uilleann pipes. His father encouraged him an ...

–

Whistle A whistle is an instrument which produces sound from a stream of gas, most commonly air. It may be mouth-operated, or powered by air pressure, steam, or other means. Whistles vary in size from a small slide whistle or nose flute type to a larg ...

s on "Moonshine" * Paul Dooley –

Violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

on "Moonshine" * Backing vocalists –

Bill Champlin William Bradford Champlin (born May 21, 1947) is an American singer, musician, arranger, producer, and songwriter. He formed the band Sons of Champlin in 1965, which still performs today, and was a member of the band Chicago from 1981–2009. ...

, Alfie Silas Durio, Carmel Echols, Rochelle Gilliard,

Judith Hill Judith Glory Hill is an American singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, California. She has provided backing vocals for such artists as Michael Jackson, Prince, and Josh Groban. In 2009, Hill was chosen as Jackson's duet partner for the song " I Just ...

, Kirsten Joy, Jason Morales,

Louis Price Louis Bernhardt Price (born March 29, 1953) is an American R&B, soul singer, and actor notable for being the lead singer of the first post-Dennis Edwards led version of The Temptations from 1977 to 1980. Price lived in Chicago as a child and att ...

, Tiffany Smith *

Engineers Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

– Mike Oldfield & Stephen Lipson (Battery Studios); Howard Willing with Chris Owens (The Village Studios); Steve MacMillan (engineer for drums on "Irene" & "Dreaming in the Wind" at Steak House Studio, LA) * Produced by – Mike Oldfield and Stephen Lipson

References

External links

Mike Oldfield

Mike Oldfield Discography – ''Man on the Rocks''
at Tubular.net {{Authority control Mike Oldfield albums 2014 albums Albums produced by Stephen Lipson Virgin EMI Records albums