page_title: Tubular Bells
section_title: Artwork
hierarchical_section_title: Tubular Bells / Artwork
caption_attribution_description: English: "Tubular Bells" picture disc on a Dual 1219 turntable.
context_page_description: Tubular Bells is the debut studio album by English multi-instrumentalist, composer and songwriter Mike Oldfield, released on 25 May 1973 as the first album on Virgin Records. Oldfield, who was 19 years old when it was recorded, played almost all the instruments on the mostly instrumental album.
  The album initially sold slowly, but gained worldwide attention in December 1973 when its opening theme was used for the soundtrack to the horror film The Exorcist. This led to a surge in sales which increased Oldfield's profile and played an important part in the growth of the Virgin Group. It stayed in the top ten of the UK Albums Chart for one year from March 1974, during which it reached number one for one week. It peaked at number three on the US Billboard 200, and reached the top position in Canada and Australia. The album has sold over 2.7 million copies in the UK and an estimated 15 million worldwide.
  An orchestral version produced by David Bedford was released in 1975 as The Orchestral Tubular Bells. Oldfield has recorded three sequels: Tubular Bells II, Tubular Bells III, and The Millennium Bell.
context_section_description: The cover of Tubular Bells was created by designer and photographer Trevor Key. In her obituary of Key for The Guardian in 1995, Sue Steward, who was Virgin Records' press officer in 1973, recalled suggesting Key as a possible candidate to create the album cover. Key was invited to Virgin to present his portfolio – among his images was one of a boiled egg dripping blood which Branson liked and wanted to use for the cover art because he wanted to call the album Breakfast in Bed, but Oldfield hated both the image and the title and rejected them. A modified version of the image with the blood replaced by yolk would later be used as the artwork for Oldfield's 1991 album Heaven's Open, his final album for Virgin Records.
  Steward accompanied Key to a beach on the Sussex coast to shoot the backdrop to the album cover. Key had brought with him the bones shown burning on the beach on the album's back cover, but the day was bitterly cold and it took some time to set light to them. The perfectionist Key also spent several hours photographing the seascape until had a shot of the waves that he was happy with. The triangular "bent bell" on the album cover was inspired by the damage Oldfield had caused to the tubular bells while playing them on the record. Key designed the bell and had the model constructed, which he then photographed in his studio and superimposed on the beach backdrop. Oldfield was captivated by the finished artwork, and insisted that on the cover his name and the album title should be in small letters and in a pale orange colour (chosen by Oldfield himself) so as not to distract from the overall image.
  According to Steward, Key was paid just £100 for his work on Tubular Bells. However, in partnership with fellow designer/photographer Brian Cooke, the Cooke-Key Associates agency enjoyed a close relationship with Virgin Records during the latter half of the 1970s, designing the Virgin logo and creating album covers for many of the artists signed to the label, including the covers of many of Oldfield's subsequent albums.
  The "bent bell" on the cover has become the image most associated with Oldfield, appearing on the cover art of all the Tubular Bells sequel albums, and is also used as the logo of his personal music company, Oldfield Music Ltd. The cover of Tubular Bells was among ten images chosen by the UK's Royal Mail for a set of "Classic Album Cover" postage stamps issued on 7 January 2010.
caption: Tubular Bells picture disc
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