Top 20 Electronic Albums of All Time

 

This was a tough list to compile. What criteria do I use? Influential albums? Ones I play the most? Critics favorites? Do I include ambient albums? Vocal albums? Oof, this was hard.

 

The list I came up with was sort of a bit of everything. All these albums are personal faves but I also couldn't help thinking about things from a historical standpoint. Also, I couldn't help but view them from a personal historical standpoint - such as albums that turned me on to a different style or sound(DJ Shadow, Underworld). Including a few vocal albums might be a bit controversial, I flip flopped on that several times but finally said screw it, it's my list and I can do whatever I want. 

Of course there is also the question of what constitutes an "electronic" album? Some on this list are obviously electronic(Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk) while others are not quite as clear(Air, Postal Service). It would be easy to get pulled into that debate and end up like the "what is ambient music" debate. I decided that I would approach it the way Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart described his test for obscenity - "I know it when I see it." So I just went with whatever I felt worked.

A few other notes on this list - I like how the list spans five decades. I ended up with albums from every decade other than the 2020s. That just feels right. It also felt right to leave off strictly ambient albums. That genre can have it's own list.

I constructed the mix chronologically because it was easier that way and it's cool to listen to the tracks evolve over time.

Cheers!

 

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00   Tangerine Dream - Stratosfear (Stratosfear 1976)
• 07:42   Jean Michel Jarre - Oxygene part 1 (Oxygene 1976)
• 13:33    Kraftwerk - The Robots (Man Machine 1978)
• 22:12   Synergy - Phobos & Diemos Go to Mars (Cords 1978)
• 29:03   Roedelius - Wenn der Südwind weht (Wenn der Südwind weht 1981)
• 32:57   Tangerine Dream - Hyperborea (Hyperborea 1983)
• 37:09   Manuel Göttsching - E2-E4 (E2-E4 1984)
• 45:25   Aphex Twin - Actium (Selected Ambient Works 85 - 92 1992)
• 52:37   Vangelis - Blade Runner Blues (Blade Runner 1994)
• 57:18   Underworld - Air Towel (Second Toughest In The Infants 1996)
• 1:04:43   DJ Shadow - Midnight in a Perfect World (Entroducing 1996)
• 1:09:34   Air - Le femme d’argent (Moon Safari 1998)
• 1:16:07   Boards of Canada - Roygbiv (Music Has The Right To Children 1998)
• 1:18:30   Plastikman - Consume (Consumed 1998)
• 1:23:00   Saul Stokes - Greys (Outfolding 2000)
• 1:27:00   Jan Jelinek - Drift (Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records 2001)
• 1:32:00   Yagya - Snowflake 3 (Rhythm of Snow 2002)
• 1:37:57   Postal Service - Brand New Colony (Give Up 2003)
• 1:42:06   Loscil - First Narrows (First Narrows 2004)
• 1:50:54   Jon Hopkins - Sun Harmonics (Immunity 2013)
• 2:00:00   end