I like every album of your ranking but for me Zeit got a special place in my heart because it was the first Tangerine Dream album I bought and also my guilty pleasure album is The Dream Mixes. Sorcerer is my most favorite soundtrack album of all time. I can visualize the film through the music. Thanks so much for the post.
My top ten TD album's: 1) Zeit 2) Atem 3) Phaedra 4) Alpha Centauri 5) Rubycon 6) Ricochet 7) Force Majeure 8) Sorcerer 9) Encore 10) Green Desert The no 1 album ( the double masterpiece Zeit) is ( and will always remain) unshakeable. The 2-8 ( great albums also) may change positions, from time to time... I obviously agree with most of your choices in the video (Stratosfear and Cyclone are good albums, but not for top ten imo, but well ..)
Excellent analysis and ranking! This will help me get back into TD. I was a huge fan back in the 80s. By the way, zeit is pronounced as "tseyt" rather than "zit", and it means "time" in German. Sorry for being pedantic, but I just wanted to clear that up. Cheers from Montréal! 👍 👏 ❤
Quite a nice ranking, They are one of my favorite bands, so I also did a ranking a while ago ~ 01 Zeit (1972) 02 Phaedra (1974) 03 Poland (1984) 04 Raum (2022) 05 Exit (1981) 06 Stratosfear (1976) 07 Ricochet (1975) 08 White Eagle (1982) 09 Quantum Gate (2017) 10 The Music of Grand Theft Auto V, Vol. 2: The Score (2013)
Hi Ash, an interesting rare ranking. I love Tangerine Dream since the mid 80's, so i'm more familar with their stuff since that time. They had a huge discography; i have almost every album since 1987. In 1999 a saw them live here in Osnabrueck / Germany on the "Mars Polaris" Tour; also a great album. At that time the main band members were Edgar Froese and his son Jerome... great concert, excellent sound. Sadly Edgar Froese passed away in 2015. Jerome Froese left the band in 2006; Tangerine Dream still exists but there is no founding or long-time member... seems more like a tribute-band now. Greetings from germany... bye and take care.
I have well over 40 albums. Saw them four times - and (sadly for me) they became rather "new agey" in past 20+ years. I think you understand. They were hugely influential on me wanting to produce electronic music of all sorts. Clearly hugely influenced acid-house, ambient styles, etc. My love for much of their material is eternal. 💗
Mat I suggest that you and a few others here give the current lineup a go, especially , if like me , you are a fan of their 70s , more organic sound! The albums Raum and Quantum Gate are excellent , and their live shows are fabulous! The final 40 mins of each show is improvised, just like the old days, but sounding suitably contemporary!
I have 3 vinyls. Poland, Dream sequence and Cyclone. I just love this band. Might be a little late but I Will get more albums. Please lest me know the ones that are the ones to get
You could try 'Stratosphere', 'Ricochet' and 'Force Majeure' next... that gives a good cross section of their earlier sound... Thanks for watching my video..
An interesting selection of albums . It would be nice to hear a bit more of your thoughts on individual tracks on the albums , but well done ! My list , starting with my favourites, would look something like this : Rubycon Hyperborea Phaedra Poland Underwater Sunlight Ricochet Stratosphere Le Parc Sorcerer Mars Polaris Check out the new lineup’s album , Recurring Dreams . They revisit some of the old classics , and put a fresh spin on them . It’s excellent . Cheers !
I remember talking with friends when I was in the shipyard about their experiences of seeing Tangerine Dream on the Cathedral tour... I think most of them were either tripping or on cannabis... from memory I believe it was the York show they went to. Would have loved to have caught them in that era... I think Ricochet is a good choice as No.1. The first side contains parts from Croydon (which another of my friends was at!) ... not sure of the rest... but for sure a lot of studio manipulation. Of note are the mellotron fx noises i.e. vocal noises, percussion, fx... I managed to get them for my Nord Stage piano but assume they were custom tapes originally created for Tangerine Dream as I hear the sounds they used across their LPs from 70s into 80s....
I would've loved to see the Cathedral tour but I was slightly too young to head into town on my own... Croydon Fairfield Hall was used for a lot of live recordings around that time, must've had good acoustics or something... Thanks for your message, interesting stuff...
Man, it's a great countdown, I agree on your rating, more or less, I would only put on "Tangram", since it's the only album I really like from the later period, the more commercial!!!
I bought Phaedra, my first Tangerine Dream album, 3 weeks ago on CD with bonus 2018 remixes from Steven Wilson. I gave it away brand new. Why because there is absolutly nothing going on. Nothing happens at all.
RIP Edgar Froese, (You've just made me realise I've been pronouncing his name wrong all these years). The recent stuff I've heard is pretty good also. Their album: Edgar Allan Poe's the Island of the Fay maintains their signature style and has some nice kindof minimalist musical themes. Love them so much!
@@AndyKing1963Thanks mate, good to learn. Interesting to find that Klaus cane to my awareness after growing up watching Hogan's Heroes where Sgt Schultz was striking in similarly.
A great video! Your narration is really cool! It's awesome to just sit back, relax and listen to a guy talking about a band he likes. I've not listened to TD much (yet), but so far my favourite album is Atem. In my opinion, it is a narrative about the formation of the Universe, the Earth, life and humans. Here's my analysis of the album, track by track: Atem: Millenia of absolute stillness are separated by sudden bursts and collisions while the galaxies are slowly obtaining their shapes. And in the middle of one of those galaxies, a small star with some rocks spinning around it starts forming from the chaos. And on one of those rocks, something incredible happens. Fauni Gena: Life starts to evolve, swimming, crawling, flying and growing all around without a care in the world. However, the melodies hint that something big is about to happen, but it feels like it's unknown what it will be and if it will bring good or evil. The music ascends to a belief that everything is going to become better, only to fall back down into a pit of anxious anticipation. Meanwhile, birds continue to sing and animals continue to live their lives, unaware of the inevitable unknown event that's hanging above the entire planet like a giant sword of Damocles. Will it bring good or evil? Only time will tell. Circulation Of Events: Finally, humans appear. All the other animals surround them, studying them with extreme caution, not knowing their intentions. Seems like the entire Earth is holding her breath, looking carefully at humans, examining every inch of their bodies, trying to figure out what's going on in their minds. So far, nothing is happening, but the suspense is unbearable. Wahn: Humans start socializing, talking to each other, exploring the world around them. All the other animals are quiet. Then, conflict starts among the humans. They start forming tribes that battle each other. The tribes form hierarchies with the leaders hurting "lower-level" people. A war anthem is heard across the planet, and among the drum beats, the sorrowful song of nature with a glimpse of hope for humanity and all life on Earth.
I read in the Guinness book of world records saying The who was the loudest as of 1976, but it would be most interesting to imagine a sound that is by far more conducive to levitating into space getting that same review. I did read it was the Ricochet performance/tour from 1975 that was incredibly loud. Although there are no location credits for the live recording, l would assume the album was compiled from their sold out tour of reconciliation in all of England's Cathedrals. The DVD has only 29 minutes and none of the soundtrack is consistent with the footage, but it was most beautifully done with no stage lighting, just candles for those who died under Hitler's bombs.
I agree with you completely about how they became a bit boring in the 80s, I think it was a technology thing when sequencers arrived and I always felt that they started to accompany the equipment and it was a subtle but critical change when tempos became exact and mechanical. It happened again more recently with rock music when producers use computers to "quantize" (I think that's what it is called) to make all the instruments hit the beat perfectly. It sort of removes the human "feel".
The video of the Coventry Cathedral performance contains exactly no music whatsoever from the actual show. It's just the Ricochet album dubbed onto random bits of footage.
@@davidbrown9278 Yeah, that one. And that's exactly what it is, just footage from random bits of the concert with the Ricochet album dubbed on it. It's possible to get some of the actual music from the concert, but because the footage is from random bits of the concert, they won't sync up.
@@quasarsphere All of the audio was replaced as instructed by Richard Branson: Here's what they really played: th-cam.com/video/-XoYkW6cEDU/w-d-xo.html
@@davidbrown9278 The original idea for the BBC broadcast, directed by Tony Palmer (and broadcast on BBC 2 at 8.15pm on 3.10.76) was that it was going to be part of their Omnibus series, but this was scrapped (but not before Chris Franke had flown to the UK to help edit the film). On Richard Branson's instruction, ALL of the audio was ripped off the now edited footage and it was replaced by RICOCHET. Palmer has added to the confusion over the years by flogging the footage on DVD with the 'original' sound, this is utter nonsense - and he added insult to injury by replacing RICOCHET with RUBYCON (as well as crushing the 4:3 ratio picture into 16:9). If you want to see the 'visuals' in the best quality then it can be found on one of the Blu Rays that comes with the TD box set IN SEARCH OF HADES - as does what TD actually played on the night (on a separate CD) and on TD's official TH-cam channel: th-cam.com/video/-XoYkW6cEDU/w-d-xo.html
Great list but I think their 80s stuff is really underappreciated. Exit and Hyperborea are some of my favorites, the whole synth wave movement owes a lot to that era.
The title track of the Hyperborea album is great , among their best, and the first half of the Sphinx Lightning is also good. The rest of the album is rather boring, imo. Half of the Exit album is also good, so I partially agree. The "Thief" soundtrack is their best from the 80s ( again, my opinion..), although it has some material that they had already released previously.
Tangerine Dream is a magical band. Ah, you might like Magnum Opus - Sinestesia.
I like every album of your ranking but for me Zeit got a special place in my heart because it was the first Tangerine Dream album I bought and also my guilty pleasure album is The Dream Mixes. Sorcerer is my most favorite soundtrack album of all time. I can visualize the film through the music. Thanks so much for the post.
I have been listening to Tangerine Dream since the seventies. There is so much good music. Best band ever.
My top ten TD album's:
1) Zeit
2) Atem
3) Phaedra
4) Alpha Centauri
5) Rubycon
6) Ricochet
7) Force Majeure
8) Sorcerer
9) Encore
10) Green Desert
The no 1 album ( the double masterpiece Zeit) is ( and will always remain) unshakeable.
The 2-8 ( great albums also) may change positions, from time to time...
I obviously agree with most of your choices in the video (Stratosfear and Cyclone are good albums, but not for top ten imo, but well ..)
Excellent analysis and ranking! This will help me get back into TD. I was a huge fan back in the 80s. By the way, zeit is pronounced as "tseyt" rather than "zit", and it means "time" in German. Sorry for being pedantic, but I just wanted to clear that up. Cheers from Montréal! 👍 👏 ❤
I really enjoyed that Ash. I've only listened to three Tangerine Dream albums properly so there's a few there to pursue. Some fantastic artwork too.
Nice review off TD. Huuuge TD fan for more than 40 years now. Have seen them 3 times now live in concert. RIP Edgar. Greetings Dirk Belgium.
Thanks a lot for sharing
Quite a nice ranking, They are one of my favorite bands, so I also did a ranking a while ago ~
01 Zeit (1972)
02 Phaedra (1974)
03 Poland (1984)
04 Raum (2022)
05 Exit (1981)
06 Stratosfear (1976)
07 Ricochet (1975)
08 White Eagle (1982)
09 Quantum Gate (2017)
10 The Music of Grand Theft Auto V, Vol. 2: The Score (2013)
great band they made so much great soundtracks.
Hi Ash, an interesting rare ranking. I love Tangerine Dream since the mid 80's, so i'm more familar with their stuff since that time. They had a huge discography; i have almost every album since 1987. In 1999 a saw them live here in Osnabrueck / Germany on the "Mars Polaris" Tour; also a great album. At that time the main band members were Edgar Froese and his son Jerome... great concert, excellent sound. Sadly Edgar Froese passed away in 2015. Jerome Froese left the band in 2006; Tangerine Dream still exists but there is no founding or long-time member... seems more like a tribute-band now. Greetings from germany... bye and take care.
I have well over 40 albums. Saw them four times - and (sadly for me) they became rather "new agey" in past 20+ years. I think you understand. They were hugely influential on me wanting to produce electronic music of all sorts. Clearly hugely influenced acid-house, ambient styles, etc. My love for much of their material is eternal. 💗
I adore Tangerine Dream. My favourite albums is Stratosfear.
Interesting top 10...not my 10, but still interesting.
Force Majeure was the beginning of their best, in my opinion.
"Cloudburst Flight" is brilliant.
Merci
Raum has to be up there , its a solid album but people dismiss it because it doesn't feature Edgar.
The great cover for RICOCHET (not their original choice) was taken at The Dune Of Pilat, La Teste De Buch in the south of France
Mat I suggest that you and a few others here give the current lineup a go, especially , if like me , you are a fan of their 70s , more organic sound! The albums Raum and Quantum Gate are excellent , and their live shows are fabulous! The final 40 mins of each show is improvised, just like the old days, but sounding suitably contemporary!
I have 3 vinyls. Poland, Dream sequence and Cyclone. I just love this band. Might be a little late but I Will get more albums. Please lest me know the ones that are the ones to get
You could try 'Stratosphere', 'Ricochet' and 'Force Majeure' next... that gives a good cross section of their earlier sound...
Thanks for watching my video..
An interesting selection of albums . It would be nice to hear a bit more of your thoughts on individual tracks on the albums , but well done ! My list , starting with my favourites, would look something like this :
Rubycon
Hyperborea
Phaedra
Poland
Underwater Sunlight
Ricochet
Stratosphere
Le Parc
Sorcerer
Mars Polaris
Check out the new lineup’s album , Recurring Dreams . They revisit some of the old classics , and put a fresh spin on them . It’s excellent .
Cheers !
I remember talking with friends when I was in the shipyard about their experiences of seeing Tangerine Dream on the Cathedral tour... I think most of them were either tripping or on cannabis... from memory I believe it was the York show they went to. Would have loved to have caught them in that era...
I think Ricochet is a good choice as No.1. The first side contains parts from Croydon (which another of my friends was at!) ... not sure of the rest... but for sure a lot of studio manipulation. Of note are the mellotron fx noises i.e. vocal noises, percussion, fx... I managed to get them for my Nord Stage piano but assume they were custom tapes originally created for Tangerine Dream as I hear the sounds they used across their LPs from 70s into 80s....
I would've loved to see the Cathedral tour but I was slightly too young to head into town on my own... Croydon Fairfield Hall was used for a lot of live recordings around that time, must've had good acoustics or something...
Thanks for your message, interesting stuff...
Man, it's a great countdown, I agree on your rating, more or less, I would only put on "Tangram", since it's the only album I really like from the later period, the more commercial!!!
I bought Phaedra, my first Tangerine Dream album, 3 weeks ago on CD with bonus 2018 remixes from Steven Wilson. I gave it away brand new. Why because there is absolutly nothing going on. Nothing happens at all.
I love Phaedra. And zeit. Ok I love a lot of them.
RIP Edgar Froese, (You've just made me realise I've been pronouncing his name wrong all these years). The recent stuff I've heard is pretty good also. Their album: Edgar Allan Poe's the Island of the Fay maintains their signature style and has some nice kindof minimalist musical themes. Love them so much!
all German names with an E at the end are 'ER' = Fro-ser, Frank-er, Schulz-er etc
@@AndyKing1963Thanks mate, good to learn. Interesting to find that Klaus cane to my awareness after growing up watching Hogan's Heroes where Sgt Schultz was striking in similarly.
A great video! Your narration is really cool! It's awesome to just sit back, relax and listen to a guy talking about a band he likes.
I've not listened to TD much (yet), but so far my favourite album is Atem. In my opinion, it is a narrative about the formation of the Universe, the Earth, life and humans. Here's my analysis of the album, track by track:
Atem: Millenia of absolute stillness are separated by sudden bursts and collisions while the galaxies are slowly obtaining their shapes. And in the middle of one of those galaxies, a small star with some rocks spinning around it starts forming from the chaos. And on one of those rocks, something incredible happens.
Fauni Gena: Life starts to evolve, swimming, crawling, flying and growing all around without a care in the world. However, the melodies hint that something big is about to happen, but it feels like it's unknown what it will be and if it will bring good or evil. The music ascends to a belief that everything is going to become better, only to fall back down into a pit of anxious anticipation. Meanwhile, birds continue to sing and animals continue to live their lives, unaware of the inevitable unknown event that's hanging above the entire planet like a giant sword of Damocles. Will it bring good or evil? Only time will tell.
Circulation Of Events: Finally, humans appear. All the other animals surround them, studying them with extreme caution, not knowing their intentions. Seems like the entire Earth is holding her breath, looking carefully at humans, examining every inch of their bodies, trying to figure out what's going on in their minds. So far, nothing is happening, but the suspense is unbearable.
Wahn: Humans start socializing, talking to each other, exploring the world around them. All the other animals are quiet.
Then, conflict starts among the humans. They start forming tribes that battle each other. The tribes form hierarchies with the leaders hurting "lower-level" people.
A war anthem is heard across the planet, and among the drum beats, the sorrowful song of nature with a glimpse of hope for humanity and all life on Earth.
I read in the Guinness book of world records saying The who was the loudest as of 1976, but it would be most interesting to imagine a sound that is by far more conducive to levitating into space getting that same review. I did read it was the Ricochet performance/tour from 1975 that was incredibly loud. Although there are no location credits for the live recording, l would assume the album was compiled from their sold out tour of reconciliation in all of England's Cathedrals. The DVD has only 29 minutes and none of the soundtrack is consistent with the footage, but it was most beautifully done with no stage lighting, just candles for those who died under Hitler's bombs.
I agree with you completely about how they became a bit boring in the 80s, I think it was a technology thing when sequencers arrived and I always felt that they started to accompany the equipment and it was a subtle but critical change when tempos became exact and mechanical. It happened again more recently with rock music when producers use computers to "quantize" (I think that's what it is called) to make all the instruments hit the beat perfectly. It sort of removes the human "feel".
Dolphin Dance is the opposite of boring 🐬
1:35
I liked Melrose and their adaption of The Castle by Franz Kafka
The video of the Coventry Cathedral performance contains exactly no music whatsoever from the actual show. It's just the Ricochet album dubbed onto random bits of footage.
Why do you think this about the video? I assume you are referring to the BBC's broadcast of the Coventry Cathedral performance.
@@davidbrown9278 Yeah, that one. And that's exactly what it is, just footage from random bits of the concert with the Ricochet album dubbed on it. It's possible to get some of the actual music from the concert, but because the footage is from random bits of the concert, they won't sync up.
@@quasarsphere All of the audio was replaced as instructed by Richard Branson: Here's what they really played: th-cam.com/video/-XoYkW6cEDU/w-d-xo.html
@@davidbrown9278 The original idea for the BBC broadcast, directed by Tony Palmer (and broadcast on BBC 2 at 8.15pm on 3.10.76) was that it was going to be part of their Omnibus series, but this was scrapped (but not before Chris Franke had flown to the UK to help edit the film). On Richard Branson's instruction, ALL of the audio was ripped off the now edited footage and it was replaced by RICOCHET. Palmer has added to the confusion over the years by flogging the footage on DVD with the 'original' sound, this is utter nonsense - and he added insult to injury by replacing RICOCHET with RUBYCON (as well as crushing the 4:3 ratio picture into 16:9). If you want to see the 'visuals' in the best quality then it can be found on one of the Blu Rays that comes with the TD box set IN SEARCH OF HADES - as does what TD actually played on the night (on a separate CD) and on TD's official TH-cam channel: th-cam.com/video/-XoYkW6cEDU/w-d-xo.html
@@quasarsphere the footage was also edited to RICOCHET
Great list but I think their 80s stuff is really underappreciated. Exit and Hyperborea are some of my favorites, the whole synth wave movement owes a lot to that era.
The title track of the Hyperborea album is great , among their best, and the first half of the Sphinx Lightning is also good.
The rest of the album is rather boring, imo. Half of the Exit album is also good, so I partially agree.
The "Thief" soundtrack is their best from the 80s ( again, my opinion..), although it has some material that they had already released previously.
Firestarter soundtrack is great and also Love on a Real Train from Risky Business
The cover of Electronic Meditation was by Reinhard Hippen. Conrad was a non-musician.
Hi, thanks for your info, always good to learn more about these great bands....
The live albums were original compositions and they did a large amount of music for films. (
Ricochet
Encore
Rubycon
Force Majeure
Stratosfear
Tangram
Pergamon
Green Desert
Exit
Green Miles? I think Green Desert, or Live Miles.
@@barnabarinludocratique6262 My mistake, corrected, thnx