The Best Of Tangerine Dream: The Blue Years

Tangerine Dream | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 2, 2000)
• Original Release Date: May 2, 2000
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Castle - Old Numbers
• ASIN: B00004S97S
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 1.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #654,927 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Horizon [Excerpt]

2. Ride on the Ray

3. Scuba Scuba

4. Underwater Twilight

5. 21st Century Common Man, Pt. 2

6. Vigour

7. The Cliffs of Sydney

8. Hyde Park

9. Zen Garden

10. Livemiles [Albequerque Excerpt]

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A disappointing collection!, June 13, 2000

By 

Steve Benner "Stonegnome" (Lancaster, UK) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Best Of Tangerine Dream: The Blue Years (Audio CD)

There are endless numbers of 'Best of Tangerine Dream' collections; selecting between them is often difficult and invariably confusing. It is not helped by the fact that the band has been contracted to so many different record companies over the years. Each label naturally feels it necessary to keep repackaging THEIR material as the best! Castle Communications/Essential Music has the rights to the band's output during two of their main periods: the "Pink Years" refers to their early 1970's pre-Virgin era, and covers the albums "Electronic Meditation", "Alpha Centauri", "Zeit", "Atem" and "Green Desert". The "Blue Years" covers the band's output immediately after their period with Virgin Records, when they signed with the now-defunct Jive Electro label.

Tangerine Dream's "Blue Years" cover the band's output from the live "Poland" double-album of 1984, through to Chris Franke's farewell concert with the band in 1988, released on the "Live Miles" album. Also included are the three studio albums "Le Parc", "Underwater Sunlight" and "Tyger". The "Best of Tangerine Dream: Blue Years" collection has bleeding chunk extracts of 'Horizon' from "Poland" and 'Livemiles: the Albuquerque concert', and a couple of tracks from each of the other albums, but the selection is poor and hardly representative. Go for the "Dream Roots" collection instead, if you can afford it - much better value.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A less-than-brilliant 'best of' release, June 1, 2000

By 

Steve Benner "Stonegnome" (Lancaster, UK) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Best of Tangerine Dream: The Blue Years (Audio CD)

This is a reasonable survey of Tangerine Dream's albums "Le Parc" and "Underwater Sunlight", with some chunks of "Poland", "Tyger" and "Livemiles" thrown in. It doesn't contain enough of any of these albums to be worth having, though, nor is it sufficiently representative (especially of "Poland" or "Tyger") to be a useful way of finding out whether or not the full albums are worth having! Personally, I'd recommend putting the money towards copies of "Livemiles" and "Poland", if you don't have those. Or, if you're interested in the "Tyger", "Le Parc" and "Underwater Sunlight" tracks, go for the 5-CD "Dream Roots Collection" instead. It is more expensive, obviously, but it has a better mix of tracks than here, (from the same albums) and has some otherwise unavailable tracks on it too.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Vol 1 of an OK compilation, July 4, 2000

By 

Bruce Ewing (Eugene, OR USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Best Of Tangerine Dream: The Blue Years (Audio CD)

There are different kinds of fans of Tangerine Dream music, so to understand my reviews, you must understand my tastes. I prefer their later works, with songs that are harmonious, rhythmic, lyrical, and "pretty." Their first excellent album for me was Underwater Sunlight. You might find (by reading lots of reviews) that the people who love TDream's early work dislike the later albums; people who like the later albums don't like the early stuff. I am the 2nd type. Of my 22 or so TDream albums so far, the greatest ones (in approximate order) are: Le Parc, Underwater Sunlight, Architecture in Motion, Private Music, Goblins' Club, Optical Race, Melrose, Lily on the Beach. OK albums are: Tang-go, Force Majeure, Exit. Unpleasant albums are: Turn of the Tides, Rockoon, Stratosfear, Phaedra, Atem, Alpha Centauri, Elect. Meditation, or anything else pre '83. This is actually Volume 1, and there will be a Blue Years, Volume 2. If you have Le Parc, and Underwater Sunlight, you have the best part of this compilation. There are 3 other tunes, but they don't catch my ear. I would STRONGLY recommend getting Le Parc and Underwater Sunlight, instead of this album. Le Parc has lots more great songs besides these. But any album that has Scuba Scuba on it I cannot pan much.