Review: Mike Oldfield – Discovery (1984)

Discovery is Mike Oldfield’s ninth studio album.

Oldfield’s career took off in 1983 when the Crises’ single ”Moonlight Shadow” became one of the biggest hits of the year. The turnover was such that Oldfield moved to the Swiss Alps as a tax exile. Tax avoidance was also encouraged by the large advance Oldfield received after renegotiating his contract with Virgin. The score for Roland Joffe’s The Killing Fields, already begun in England, was finished in Switzerland and the subsequent Discovery was recorded in its entirety at an altitude of 2,000 metres in a luxury alpine hut equipped with state-of-the-art recording equipment. Eventually The Killing Fields and Discovery were made in parallel when the producer insisted on changes to Oldfield’s score.

Inspired by the profits from ”Moonlight Shadow”, Oldfield’s record company Virgin pushed Oldfield very enthusiastically to continue in the direction of pop music. Selling instrumental music to the general public was a bit of a crapshoot, even if with Tubular Bells everything had fallen into place by chance. Oldfield was also keen to play the Virgin game at this stage. After all, pop songs were a change and a new challenge for him.

In the 70s, Oldfield’s preferred format had been one long instrumental piece that filled an entire half of a record. By the early 80s this had changed to a format; A-side long epic and B-side shorter songs. The latter format was followed in particular by Platinum, Five Miles Out and Crises. The short songs in the B-halves were not all pop, but some of them were very progressive and some were only short compared to the epic in the first half; for example, Five Miles Out’s ’Orabidoo’ was 13 minutes long. Discovery is clearly aimed at the pop end of the spectrum: there are 8 tracks on the album, the first 7 of which are 3-4 minute long vocal pop songs. Only the last track on the album is a 12-minute instrumental, as a small concession to old fans.

Discovery was put together in sessions lasting about six months with a very minimal staff. Oldfield plays all the instruments on the album except the drums. In this sense, the album is a return to Oldfield’s roots. The instrumental palette is rather limited, though, as Oldfield’s repertoire this time consists mainly of guitars, bass guitar, mandolin and keyboards. The ”rock band” mentality of the previous albums was a thing of the past. Simon Phillips, the virtuoso who had joined Oldfield on the previous album, returned as drummer. Phillips also engineered and co-produced the album with Oldfield. Phillips has said that he took a back seat when recording the Crises’ hit ”Moonlight Shadow” because he doesn’t like pop music. What on earth could he have been thinking about the Discovery sessions, since the album is full of pop music…

At least Oldfield didn’t sing his own pop songs (an experiment that was still in the future), but Maggie Reilly, who made ”Moonlight Shadow” a hit, returns as singer. Her counterpart was the Englishman Barry Palmer, whom Oldfield had spotted on the albums of German progressive rockers Triumvirat. Palmer had already sung for Oldfield on the single ”Crime Of Passion”, released between Crises and Discovery. This single even reached the top of the charts in Denmark, but otherwise did not achieve any significant success.

Read also: Review: Mike Oldfield – Tubular Bells (1973)

The album opens with the folky ”To France” with Oldfield’s mandolin ringing out beautifully and Maggie Reilly singing high above. Oldfield plays a tasty, emphatic short interlude with an acoustic guitar that I wish was much longer. The basic vibe of the song is acoustic, but the crisp electric guitar and swirling synths in the background also play their part. The song is clearly intended to be Discovery’s counterpart to ”Moonlight Shadow”, but there is no tendency to repeat itself too clearly.

If ”To France” is Discovery’s ”Moonlight Shadow”, the second track ”Poison Arrows” is its hard rock counterpart to ”Shadow On The Wall”, a track on Crises. ”Poison Arrows” reveals the calculating nature of Discovery compared to Crises. On Crises, Oldfield had made some rather bold vocalist choices. Not only did Yes’ Jon Anderson sing on the album with his distinctive contralto and Roger Chapman of Family fame squeaked impressively on ”Shadow On The Wall”, but on Discovery Oldfield’s choice of male vocalist seems a safe bet. Barry Palmer, who makes his Oldfield debut on ”Poison Arrows” (if we forget the previously mentioned single ”Crime Of Passion”), is a skilled and powerful singer, but his voice is a rather impersonal AOR ”top-40” sound. The voices of Chapman and Anderson will certainly startle the uninitiated listener, but with Palmer, no one is likely to prick up their ears any further. As a song, ”Poison Arrows” is relatively effective, despite its silly chorus (”Somebody’s out to get you! Hiding in shadows – poison arrows”). Oldfield’s tense electric guitar playing is once again delightful and Phillips’ skilful drumming supports the song effectively. The ending on Fairlight with its sampled wolf howl is also a success.

Another successful rock song sung by Palmer is the album’s title track ”Discovery” where he gets to shout a bit more than usual. Oldfield’s electric guitar playing is also at its most passionate in that song.

The fourth track on the album brings the two vocalists together. ”A Trick Of The Light” features a duet between Palmer and Reilly. A duet that they didn’t actually sing together. In fact, they didn’t even meet during the recording sessions, but both sang their parts separately. This is not necessarily particularly rare, but what is more unusual is that Oldfield had both singers sing all the lyrics to the whole song and only cut up the duet from each singer’s tracks to his liking afterwards. The result is quite successful as Palmer’s powerful voice provides a good contrast to Reilly’s softer style. The upbeat song works well anyway and once again features a great little guitar solo.

The songs I quickly reviewed above, ”To France”, ”Poison Arrows”, ”Tricks Of The Light” and ”Discovery” are all quite successful pop romps, but unfortunately the other three sung tracks on the album are less satisfying. They’re not disasters either, but they’re a bit of a contrived efforts, with Oldfield’s guitar playing being the main delight. Instead of these songs, I would have liked to hear instrumental music more in keeping with Oldfield’s style.

The last song on the album, ”The Lake”, at least offers a 12-minute instrumental treat for progressive rock lovers. This kind of ”mini-epic” is a somewhat rare format for Oldfield as his instrumental works are usually either very short or very long.

”The Lake” is a very melodic song and its several parts flow together quite naturally. Opening with a synthesizer intro reminiscent of Steve Reich, the song is ”orchestrated” quite simply and sounds for the most part like something a rock trio or at least a quartet could play. Oldfield’s electric guitar and synthesizers have a pleasant dialogue throughout the song, and the synthesizers even play fanfare-like parts that are a bit atypical of Oldfield’s music. In fact, ”The Lake” sounds more conventionally prog rock than Oldfield’s music often does. With a different arrangement, the song could well be imagined as being played by Emerson Lake & Palmer if that trio had continued on the path set by ”Fanfare For The Common Man” and ”Pirates” into the 80s without the Love Beach fiasco.

”The Lake” is not entirely instrumental, but also features Reilly’s wordless vocalisation which sounds as if it was built in Fairlight from a single note. The solution works surprisingly well.

When listening to ”The Lake”, it is worth paying attention to Oldfield’s excellent bass guitar playing, which is unfortunately mixed a little too quiet. On the 2016 remaster, the bass is a little clearer.

”The Lake” is not one of Oldfield’s most notable instrumentals, but it is a very pleasant and skilfully constructed song. ”The Lake” also suffers from a bit of the same syndrome as the pop songs on the album; it’s a sure thing. On ”The Lake” Oldfield doesn’t take any risks or reach for something completely new.

With Discovery, Oldfield found his own way of making pop songs, which he then largely followed on his subsequent albums. There is something very formal about his way of doing pop. You can never quite say they’re copied from some other pop song, but they always feel familiar somehow. I think it’s because Oldfield follows so closely certain pop conventions in his songs that they easily create a kind of deja-vu effect. Oldfield’s songs always have great melodic hooks, often catchy choruses, great guitar solos and well-crafted arrangements, but what they often lack is a little surprise or twist that would make them genuinely unique and interesting. This is an annoying omission, especially as Oldfield’s long instrumentals, especially in the early days of his career, were full of these little surprises. Indeed, Oldfield has said that making pop songs is hard work for him and he has probably become a prisoner of the process; mechanically churning out the perfect pop song is missing the soul and the real inspiration that would lead to something truly unique. Having said all that, it has to be said that Oldfield has, of course, had some great pop successes from time to time. But more often in the early 80s when he was not yet so trapped by the format.

Another problem with Oldfield’s pop songs is that their lyrics are often rather uninteresting ramblings. Often the lyrics remain quite cryptic, but in a way that is not very satisfying or interesting. There doesn’t seem to be any great mystery to them. The verses seem to be mostly about creating at least some kind of foundation for the usually quite effective choruses which are then unfortunately often repeated to the point of boredom. Oldfield’s lyrics are at their most interesting when they seem to have at least something personal in them. On Discovery, such a song seems to be ”Saved By The Bell” which seems to refer to the ”last minute rescue” of the title (the phrase ”saved by the bell” refers to a situation where one is rescued from a predicament at the last moment by some unexpected turn of events), with the angle that Tubular Bells was Oldfield’s rescue. Unfortunately, the lyrics of this song, too, only thinly scratch the surface of the interesting subject matter. Not to mention that the song is musically the album’s most lacklustre offering.

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Discovery, wrapped in a messy, ugly cover, didn’t match the sales figures of Crises, but it’s still hard to consider it a flop as it sold about a million copies, especially in Central Europe, which was fast becoming Oldfield’s most important market.

The Discovery Tour, which followed the album, was Oldfield’s biggest tour to date. Oldfield played to over 350,000 people on The Discovery Tour and the tour is claimed to have been the biggest ”indoor arena tour” of 1984 in Europe. The tour also remained his biggest tour because towards the end of that trip Oldfield found himself completely bored of touring. This was compounded by the fact that Oldfield’s old demons were beginning to return in the form of panic attacks and general anxiety. It was as if the effects of the experimental Exegesis therapy of the late 70s were beginning to wear off. This time Oldfield resorted to traditional therapy and meditation. These methods apparently helped to some extent, but Oldfield has struggled with his mental health problems from time to time up to the present day.

Shortly after Discovery, a rather avant-garde soundtrack album, The Killing Fields, was released in tandem with it. After this, Oldfield’s subsequent albums Islands and Earthmoving focused on pop music, with varying degrees of success.

Best tracks: ”To France”, ”Poison Arrows”, ”Tricks Of The Light”, ”Discovery”, ”The Lake”

Author: JANNE YLIRUUSI

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Read also: Review: Mike Oldfield – Crises (1983)

Tracks

  1. ”To France” – 4:37
  2. ”Poison Arrows” – 3:57
  3. ”Crystal Gazing” – 3:02
  4. ”Tricks of the Light” – 3:52
  5. ”Discovery” – 4:35
  6. ”Talk About Your Life” – 4:24
  7. ”Saved by a Bell” – 4:39
  8. ”The Lake” – 12:10

Musicians

Mike Oldfield: all instruments (except drums) Maggie Reilly: vocals (1, 3–4, 6) Barry Palmer: vocals (2, 4–5, 7) Simon Phillips: drums

Producer: Mike Oldfield, Simon Phillips
Label: Virgin

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