Mike Oldfield – Tubular Bells

Great pressings but labels reversed here too! Both discs flat and near silent throughout after a clean. The 2009 mix is an interesting take. Its quite tonally different from the original. Much more lower middy and bloomy of bottom. Its not bad but i have to say the original mix is best and it sounds great here!

Horrible pressing, lots of ticks and clicks no matter how often you wash it. Recommend looking for an older pressing.

Labels mixed as others have stated. The original 1973 mix sounds very good though. Comparing it to the EMI100 pressing, I can’t really tell any difference. If you want a relatively new pressing of the original mix on vinyl, this is pretty good.

So this whole package is botched? Glad I didn’t buy it.

What happened to the original artwork ?? This one is HORRIBLE... what were they thinking ? The metallic tubular bell was perfect, this one looks like a vectorial thing made on illustrator, it's horrible...

My labels are not swapped. Thought that'd be worth mentioning since it clearly isn't an issue with every single pressing.

My discs labels are swapped too. And they are nasty dirty too. I'll have to clean them twice before my diamond touches them. I sent them an email about the 1973 mix not being included with the download. Haven't heard back yet. The sticker says "this coupon allows you to access all the tracks from this LP as mp3 downloads". And since it's a 2 LP set that means both!

Nice try UMG,
as always - cheapo cover production - the way it fits _not_ back into the sleeve most likely points to GZ pressing. Pinched inners right out of the package plus "instant ringwear" included as an extra bonus. Release reduced to "very good" before even opened.

Next good laugh is the download you get: only one version - guess wich one - in pristine, shiny and high-tech 128 kbits mp3 quality. The voucher promises that you can access "... all the tracks from this LP as mp3 downloads...". A straight lie, Sure - I did not buy it just to download it - I play it on my deck and it is still a great satisfaction to hear a good remaster, but taking into account the money you throw at them - the digital addon is just plain fuckup. The rights department will be armed with massive "money-fight-back-power" for sure.

Positive: The discs are quite good, but the "major-sellout-factor" with the downsides of this realease is a real pain in the ass and tends to hit the 11 on a 1-10 scale. Not a good addon to the vinyl movement and another fail for Universal Media Group, This release of Tubular Bells had the potential to do it -all- right. Target missed. I will further reduce buying releases out of the Back-To-Black series / Universal Media Group as those do simply not pay-off.
Love the music, love the effort - but finish what you started... in a decent way by the way.
/rantoverandout

Addon April 4th 2017:
I just recorded my copy of Tubular Bells in 88/24 resolution.
I can confirm that the labels are indeed switched. 2009 Mix has the labels of 1973 version and vice versa.
It seems that this issue spans the complete pressing run. But at least they managed to bring the right content on disc. :D

Then I noticed that the 1973 mix was mastered from a hig res source - 48/16 at least, maybe higher.
Some errors sound more degraded here as on my old copy from Italy, which was already a reissue in 1979. For example the bass guitar in Part 1 just before the words "Grand Piano..." has quite some distortion to it. This issue was something that Oldfield fixed in the 2009 remaster, but it is still there if you listen carefully.

The 2009 mix was mastered from a standard resolution source - definetely not higher than 44 KHz (or it may be a high res copy of a 44 KHz master). Another downer on the quality side - there is very straight visible highcut-line at around 21 KHz.
The 2009 mix sounds a little muffeled compared to the 1973 version, but the discs are both very good when it comes to sonics - it surely is -not- a simple "CD copy pressing". Surface noise is very little (quite some dirt on the discs, but no visible scratches - washing is a good option).

The kind of dirt I encountered is another indicator for a GZ pressing - saw this on quite some other pressings from GZ. It's a pain in the ass, but normally the discs are not damaged by this. It's just more work for the owner.
All those downers make this an overall 3 star release for my taste. Could easily be a 5 Star pressing, but too many negative points.

They swapped the mixes on this release.
On record 1 is printed "2009 mix", but it's the 1973 original mix. With the second record it's vice versa.