The Best of Tubular Bells is a compilation album

Album

An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

 written and mostly performed by Mike Oldfield

Mike Oldfield

Michael Gordon Oldfield is an English multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, working a style that blends progressive rock, folk, ethnic or world music, classical music, electronic music, New Age, and more recently, dance. His music is often elaborate and complex in nature...

. It was released in 2001 and features segments from all of the Tubular Bells albums up to that year.

It is a single CD which consists of pieces of various past versions of Tubular Bells albums; Tubular Bells

Tubular Bells

Tubular Bells is the debut record album of English musician Mike Oldfield, released in 1973. It was the first album released by Virgin Records and an early cornerstone of the company's success...

(1973), The Orchestral Tubular Bells

The Orchestral Tubular Bells

The Orchestral Tubular Bells is an orchestral version of Mike Oldfield's album Tubular Bells, arranged by David Bedford and recorded in 1974 by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, featuring Oldfield himself playing the guitar. In 2000 it was reissued by Virgin as a HDCD.Excerpts from the album were...

(1975), Tubular Bells live (1979), Tubular Bells II

Tubular Bells II

Tubular Bells II is the 15th music album by Mike Oldfield, released in 1992. The album - the first for his new record label, Warner Bros. Records, following an acrimonious departure from Virgin Records after twenty years - was conceived as a sequel to Oldfield's 1973 Tubular Bells...

(1992), Tubular Bells III

Tubular Bells III

Tubular Bells III is the 18th album by Mike Oldfield, released in 1998. A sequel to Oldfield's 1973 Tubular Bells and his 1992 Tubular Bells II albums, it was released on the 25th anniversary of the first Tubular Bells album....

(1998) and The Millennium Bell

The Millennium Bell

The Millennium Bell is the 20th record album by Mike Oldfield, released in 1999 . The theme of the album is a reflection of different periods of human history. The album borrows its name from the dawning of the 3rd millennium and Oldfield's Tubular Bells series of albums...

(1999). The album has been re-edited so that the changes between most of the different parts of Tubular Bells are seamless.

It was advertised on television in 2001, where the actor Tom Baker

Tom Baker

Thomas Stewart "Tom" Baker is a British actor. He is best known for playing the fourth incarnation of the Doctor in the science fiction television series Doctor Who, a role he played from 1974 to 1981.-Early life:...

, known for his role as the Doctor

Doctor (Doctor Who)

The Doctor is the central character in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who, and has also featured in two cinema feature films, a vast range of spin-off novels, audio dramas and comic strips connected to the series....

 in Doctor Who

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

, provides his voice-over.

Track listing

1. "Tubular Bells" - Part 1 (Original edit) - 4:42
2. "Tubular Bells" - Part 1 (Orchestral edit) - 3:14
3. "Tubular Bells" - Part 1 (Original edit) - 3:47
4. "Tubular Bells" - Part 1 (Exposed edit) - 3:20
5. "Tubular Bells" - Part 1 (Original edit) - 8:29
6. "Tubular Bells" - Part 2 "The Caveman Song" (Original edit) - 4:46
7. "Tubular Bells" - Part 2 (Exposed edit) - 4:15
8. "Sentinel" (Tubular Bells II) - 8:07
9. "The Bell
   The Bell (song)
   "The Bell" is a single by musician Mike Oldfield, released in April 1993. The single features a restructured, shorter version of "The Bell", from the album Tubular Bells II.- Master of Ceremonies and Instruments:...
   
   " (Tubular Bells II) - 6:59
10. "Far Above The Clouds
    Far Above the Clouds
    "Far Above the Clouds" is a single by musician Mike Oldfield, released in April 1999 . The single is the final track from the album Tubular Bells III...
    
    " (Tubular Bells III) - 5:28
11. "The Millennium Bell
    The Millennium Bell
    The Millennium Bell is the 20th record album by Mike Oldfield, released in 1999 . The theme of the album is a reflection of different periods of human history. The album borrows its name from the dawning of the 3rd millennium and Oldfield's Tubular Bells series of albums...
    
    " (The Millennium Bell) - 7:32
12. "Tubular Bells" - Part 2 "Sailor's Hornpipe" (Original edit) - 1:34