1973, Music: Tubular Bells

Tubular Bells, the début record album of English musician Mike Oldfield, was released on 25 May 1973. Oldfield approached (and was rejected by) many established record labels. Richard Branson, decided to give Oldfield a chance and Virgin Records released Tubular Bells as its first album.

Mike Oldfield played most of the instruments on the album, recording them one at a time and layering the recordings to create the finished work. Many of his subsequent albums feature this technique. Though fairly common in the music industry now, at the time of the production of Tubular Bells not many musicians made use of it, preferring multi-musician "session" recordings.

Mike Oldfield in 1973

The opening piano solo was used as a soundtrack to the film The Exorcist, released the same year.