Customer Reviews

Voyager

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This album contains some of the most beautiful Irish/Celtic music that can be found anywhere. All of the songs are wonderful, espically "Flowers Of The Forest". Each song is powerful in its own right, but as a whole this album truly spectacular. Mike Oldfield does a remarkable job with each song and this album is a definite must for any Mike Oldfield fan or and New Age, Irish/Celtic music fan.

If you like this album by Mike - try also beautiful magestic folk music music recorded by Orison, William Coulter, Shelley Phillips!!!

As to "Voyager" itself - I had heard this album for the first time in 1996 and I was dissapointed - after "The Songs of Distant Earth" you should wait for more... But artist has his own free will, so he could do whatever he wants.
If you like folky Mike Oldfield ("Ommadawn") - probably you would like this album. Here Mike plays Celtic music with London Symphony Orchestra, live highland bagpipes - so sound is quite live, spectacular and "big" - it`s not quite a meditative new age record.
If you like rocky Mike ("Shadow on the Wall") or electronic Mike ("The Songs of Distant Earth", "Light+Shade") - you would be disappointed - you have to be in the mood to listen to folk style music without any elements of rock dramatisism or electronic sound effects. The main effect here is Mike playing guitar. So when I`m in this mood - I like this CD. It is not the best work by Oldfield but it is interesting music with the distinctive sound of guitar by Mike.

Even if it's kinda a good album of arrangements of well known celtic tunes ( WOMEN OF IRELAND , SHE MOVES THROUGH THE FAIR and THE SONG OF THE SUN are really good ) , the last track , MONT ST-MICHEL , which runs over 12 minutes is worth the price of this CD alone. This orchestral/choral track with solos for guitar , tin whistle and flutes is simply OUTSTANDING and looks like a symphonic poem , just like the orchestral version of TUBULAR BELLS was . The LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA and the LONDON VOICES are remarkable in the playing .I was simply blown away by this track which comes as a true surprise after the new-age atmosphere that comes before , and it cuts completely the tone of the CD , ending it on an eloquent and bewitching as well as impressive note . One of OLDFIELD'S best works in recent years!!!. Try it , you won't regret it : the melodies are beautiful and strong , moving and powerful and the orchestral/choral arrangememnts are magnificent ( even though they don't come from OLDFIELD'S hand but ROBIN SMITH'S).A futur classic !!!! By the way , check out MIKE OLDFIELD'S private joke on WOMEN OF IRELAND as , in the middle of the track , he interpolates an excerpt of HAENDEL'S SARABANDE as a tribute to STANLEY KUBRICK and his film BARRY LINDON in which the director used WOMEN OF IRELAND and the SARABANDE as recurring themes . OLDFIELD'S arrangement is neat and smart as well as unexpected!!!

This is a good all-instrumental album from a master instrumentalist. I have many M.O. albums and this one gets its fair share of play with the rest. It starts strong with a few very hummable traditional celtic tunes nicely rendered. It continues with some of the same and a few that are not so memorable but that don't make me want to turn on something else either.

The final song is quite long and I haven't decided if I like it yet, but with M.O. that doesn't mean it's bad. I have often come to love most the songs I took the longest to like, so after 10 listenings the jury is still out on that one.

Overall this is good Celtic and Celtic-influenced music that won't hurt your ears if you like that sort of thing. If it suffers from any real flaw it is a loss of momentum toward the end of the album, but none of it makes for bad listening. I like the Chieftains, the Afrocelts, Lorreena McKennitt and others and I regard this as a good fit with my tastes. Celtic done well just works for me, so this gets four stars.

...back to the traditional Irish music....This is as far the most calm and relaxing Oldfield's album ever...there are no dynamic songs,all is simmilar a bit to Clannad compositions...
It is the album that should be only listened when you are relaxed and have nothing important to do...it is too delicate to understand this music when you are busy.Many compisitions have a spirit of "Hergest ridge" ("the goose flaps his wings,"Mont st. mitchel")
very etheral and quiet album but only for the quiet and peacefull moments...

I am a huge fan of Mike, and have almost all his albums now. Voyager was one of the last ones i bought, because i was expecting it to be extremely mediocre, but seriously - the last track, Mont St. Michel is absolutely wonderful and ranks very, very highly as one of the kind of mid extended instrumentals (wind chimes, the lake, taurus 2), the other tracks - although a bit dull, are still wonderful if you are in the right mood. If you are a mike fan, I recommend you buy this! because the Last track is worth the purchase price alone.

Before listening to this album, I was bracing myself for something fairly horrific; I was expecting synthetic Celtic blandness, but I'm glad to say that behind the smooth 90's production, Oldfield's brilliance shines through. As I add Oldfield albums to my collection, I'm really beginning to wonder if he's ever made a genuinely bad record - admittedly, I've never heard "Heaven's Door", one he allegedly tossed off to get out of his Virgin recording contract. But I do think that this is a quality record; if you like Oldfield's music, and you give this one a chance without the expectation of getting something ground-breaking or challenging, it will prove rewarding.

It has its ups and downs - "Women of Ireland" sounds like the Ghost of Enya hijacked the recording studio, but I totally concur with previous reviewers that the final track, "Mont St Michael", stands comparison with anything else he's done. I don't agree with some that say its the only decent thing on the record; I love the opening track, and I was pleasantly surprised to find his guitar playing more strongly in evidence than I thought it would be from some reviews. The fact that I love traditional Celtic tunes like "She Moved Through the Fare" helps some for sure, but I'm forgiving Mike for trying to emulate the Michael Flatley/Celtic Warrior look on the cover, and happily adding it to my growing collection of Mike Oldfield CDs.

VOYAGER IS A MASTERPIECE born of musical genius. Rarely will you find an album that just gets better, and better, and better... the first time I gave Voyager a listen, I realized half way through that Mike had created something very special here. Voyager continues to sound as good, or better, to my ears every time I listen to it... and I've been playing Voyager for years. Over and over...

Particularly outstanding are "The Song of the Sun", "Voyager", "Celtic Rain", "Dark Island", "Women of Ireland"(Super Seductive!) and ... get the picture? It's great from beginning to end! The pieces never fail to elicit a powerful emotional response.

I often play this album for friends, dates, etc., and most comment on the mystical, dream-like quality of the music, as well as it's seductive power!

If you've never bought any of Mike Oldfield's music, Voyager is the perfect place to start -- but be forewarned, you might very well feel compelled by an irresistable force -- to aquire all of Mike's music.

Ok, I know that this album is not all original material, but Mike really touched gold with his remakes of some of these timeless celtic classics. High points (well, to me, it's all high points) are "Women of Ireland", "Flowers of the Forest" and "The Voyager". This is one of my top 3 favorite Mike albums, and I pretty much have them all on CD. If you were disapointed in "Guitars" and the "the Milennium Bell", pick this album up to get you back to normal. My 3 month old son loves it, (puts him to sleep) and my wife and I had one of our most romantic weekends with the cd in the background..you can't lose with this one.

None of Mike Oldfield's work (that I've listened to, anyway) has surpassed his work on the Tubular Bells discs, but Voyager is still very good. A good mix of acoustic, electronic and vocal music make this a great CD to have in the background when you're whiling away a rainy summer day.

Oldfield does a good job with the traditional arrangements of these pieces. While you can certainly tell the electronics are there, they still bring to mind a celtic sensibility that takes you to the Irish countryside. The cover of the CD (if you take Oldfield himself off of it) is beautiful, combining the scenery of the coast with the morning mist that the best celtic music invokes. The music definitely adds to that feeling.

If you've never listened to Oldfield, I would suggest one of the Tubular Bells CDs. However, if you like Oldfield but haven't tried this one yet, I would suggest you do so. It will be on repeat in your CD player for awhile.