In 2004 Oldfield launched a virtual reality project called Maestro which contains music from the re-recorded Tubular Bells album (Tubular Bells 2003). The original title of the game was The Tube World.^[17] This was the second game which was released under the MusicVR banner, the first being Tres Lunas.

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Cover versions

• Ed Starink made an abridged cover for an album Synthesizer Greatest (the first album in a multi-volume series) that was released in 1989. Tubular Bells appears only on the CD-version as a "bonus track". Other tracks on the album are cover versions of famous synthesizer songs but the original Tubular Bells features no synthesizer.
• Finnish one-man a cappella rock band Paska recorded an abridged cover version for his 2005 album Women Are From Venus, Men From Anus. Paska has also performed the song at his live performances. This number can be considered both a parody of the original work and mockery of progressive rock and new age music in general. In a concert held on the 1st October 2007 in club Tavastia in Helsinki), before performing his version of the song, Ari Peltonen gave a speech about his hatred towards the song and progressive rock in general.
• Book of Love opened their 1988 album Lullaby with a cover version, stretched to 4/4 time by adding stretching a note to make it danceable.
• Therapy? jokingly covered the opening theme live in 1998 as part of a medley, which opened with "Tubular Bells", segued into Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law", and ended with their own "Nowhere".
• Duo Sonare, a German classical guitar duo, has made a complete rerecording of Tubular Bells for two guitars.
• Thrash metal band Possessed played the intro in the first song of the record Seven Churches (in 1985), which is titled "The Exorcist".
• Another thrash metal band called Death Angel played the main theme in the title track of the album the Ultra-Violence in 1987.
• Paul Hardcastle based his hit single "Nineteen" around the piano theme of Tubular Bells
• Forma Tadre use the intro guitars from the second part of Tubular bells in their song Automate on the album of the same name. Their version is done with synth and only repeats the first two bars.
• Rapper Tech N9ne also used a similar version of the intro in the song "Be Warned", only he moved it to 4/4 time, rather than the 7/8 to 9/8 signatures. The piano intro is a slight modification of the original. Also, the bassline, although quite different-sounding itself, is a slight copy of the original bassline, only with a few notes added.
• American artist Tori Amos has frequently been using the opening Tubular Bells theme in her live shows. It began during the 1996 Dew Drop Inn Tour where she would let "Father Lucifer" segue into Tubular Bells on the piano while singing words from Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy" as well as playing it on the harpsichord during songs "Love Song" (a Cure cover) and "Bells for Her" (from the album Under the Pink), usually while mixing in lyrics from a third song such as Björk's "Hyperballad" or "Blue Skies". It appeared again in 2005 as part of "Yes, Anastasia" and on the current 2007 tour promoting her album American Doll Posse it is being performed with full band as an intro to "Devils and Gods".
• Crown Records - iTunes download - A cover of Tubular Bells by the Crown Star Records studio musicians, not affiliated with Mike Oldfield.^{[citation needed]}
• California Guitar Trio covers most of the first side of the original album on their album Echoes released in late March 2008.

Furthermore, many dance acts and other artists have used the intro to Tubular Bells as the basis for their songs. A long list can be found at Rainer Muenz' discography.

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References

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Literature

• Tubular Bells - Mike Oldfield (Music score for piano or guitar, analysis by David Bedford, text by Karl Dallas, photos by David Bailey and others). New York, London, Sydney: Wise Publications. ISBN 0860012492. 

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External links

• Mike Oldfield Discography - Tubular Bells at Tubular.net