Music has once again changed my life. I am no longer the same person I was in January. Nor am I living in the normal world. I am living in Mike Oldfield’s world.

Mr Oldfield has changed my relationship with music to such an extent that regular music now annoys me. If a new release is composed of 12x four-minute songs rather than 2x 20-minute songs, it’s not for me. This makes Steven Wilson the only popular contemporary artist I can enjoy.

The story of how Mike Oldfield found his way onto my stereo involves a 90s pop music podcast, an obscure British singer-songwriter, and the world’s preeminent Hawkwind biographer. I’m making it sound more interesting than it is. And anyway, all you need to know is that one thing led to another, which led to me putting Oldfield’s 1978 album ‘Incantations’ on, and then putting it on again, and again and again.

My dad thinks all of this is hilarious. He tells me that Mike Oldfield was always painfully uncool, even at the height of his fame, with every sale of Tubular Bells bolstering his bank balance whilst simultaneously rendering him a touch more embarrassing.

I was vaguely aware of Tubular Bells already, of course. Everyone is, whether through The Exorcist or the London Olympics. I first heard it around 20 years ago, on some sort of ill-fated attempt to make it through all of the highest selling records of all time (quest abandoned once I heard The Eagles).

I listened to Tubular Bells once and promptly discarded it, taking the record as proof that the moon landing had warped everyone’s minds, and the people of the early 1970s were far too weird for their own good.

Tubular Bells is one thing. Most people listen to it at some stage, even if to pour scorn on it. But to the best of my knowledge, no one listens to the Mike Oldfield back catalogue. No one knows it exists. To the wider world, he retired in the early 1970s and the famous singles he put out thereafter are generally attributed to Maggie Reilly, Anon. or the Blue Peter team.

And so the critical question is: have I taken leave of my music senses, or has most of the music listening world missed a trick? Why isn’t anyone going back and reappraising this musical colossus, making him part of the canon, adding him to the national curriculum, or trying to encourage him out of retirement (or at least, getting him to move back from the Bahamas)?

Or to put it another way, is this indisputable evidence that I have finally cracked?

The answer is, it doesn’t matter.

Regardless of who is mad – me or the world – my happy place is still the same. ‘Incantations’ is one of the most hypnotic and satisfying musical experiences I’ve ever had. The conclusion of ‘Ommadawn Part 1’ is electrifying. ‘Moonlight Shadow’ and ‘Guilty’ have been on repeat in my head for weeks. I’ve learnt how to play ‘The Sailor’s Hornpipe’ on the guitar. I find myself enjoying records that even hardcore Oldfield fans think are shit.

I am forever changed. And living in marvel, once again, at music’s endless capacity to surprise and astonish. This is the music of high heaven. I’m not wistful that I didn’t find it sooner. I’m just grateful that I got to hear it at all.