Now That's What I Call Stuart's Favourite Music 69 - Mike Oldfield - The Bell

Nobody writes feel-good music as well as Mike Oldfield.  Today's song is taken from Tubular Bells II, the sequel to his groundbreaking Tubular Bells album released 19 years earlier.

Keeping with the same style as the Finale of Tubular Bells, The Bell replaces Vivian Stanshall with legendary actor Alan Rickman as the master of ceremonies and is a goose-bump-filled seven minutes of pure ecstasy-inducing musical bliss, culminating in the spectacular catharsis sounds of the tubular bells!

The song was released as a single in April 1993 albeit with a slightly shorter runtime and although the single only reached a rather poor number 50 in the UK charts, the album did much better, reaching number one on the UK album charts. 

I guess poor Mike just couldn't convince the younguns of the day to try something different instead of the usual tripe that was beginning to pollute the charts around the early to mid 1990s.

If you've never heard it before, take a listen.  Crank the volume up and blast those bells so that your neighbours start banging on your wall.  It'll be worth it.

And when you're done with that, listen to it from his live concert on the esplanade at Edinburgh Castle.