The mind revealing itself to itself: the TOP 100 AMBIENT ALBUMS as voted by ILX

kind of funny to see that "ambient is good, new age is bad" distinction referenced from nearly 20 years ago. new age is, like, cool now. there isn't much of distinction

also i love trance tbh

Laraaji TOO HIGH, NV otm

Apollo too high as well imho

Cool or uncool, I'm still wary of new age (with exceptions). Old habits die hard, I suppose.

Agreed on Laraaji. A little zither goes a long way.

you're all bonkers, Laraaji is awesome

just put on Meditation #1

i like that album well enough but it's insanely high here

I think he's great! But over the course of that whole album, I get a bit aggro by the end.

Yeah but it's got 'Ambient' in the title.

xp

I get a bit aggro by the end.

Like a cop?

Precisely. The zither police.

brb, writing Laraaji a ticket

'There'll be no cosmic belly laughs where you're going, Larry G.'

hahaha

irl lol

in all seriousness this makes me wanna see the 101-120 results even more, then I can make an imaginary poll without any Eno, SoTL, or beats

More like 101-200 amirite?

lol sure I was gonna say "why not take out Gas and Arthur Russell as well"

the only ambient record is david hykes' hearing solar winds

4'33 or gtfo.

There is really not a lot of distance between this "trance" psybient/psydub and supposedly more 'credible' techno-derived Orbital, FSOL, Orb and Global Communication records, in my ears it's a pretty straight evolutionary line (via The Irresistible Force, Solar Quest et al) that doesn't really have anything to do with Tiesto or anything like that.

4. Stars of the Lid: The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid (2001)
795 points, 12 votes, 1 first place vote.

https://i.imgur.com/hyhmtAz.jpg?1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaSi7Gut7xM

Stars of the Lid's "Tired Sounds Of..." still ranks as one of my all-time favorite albums, even though I've never managed to stay awake for the duration.

― Sam Hunt (robosam), Thursday, February 5, 2004 2:58 AM

itunes tells me i listened to tired sounds...167 times this year. that's not counting playing it on my phone, or on spotify, or on cd, or anything else. some days i think i could only listen to the two parts of "requiem..." happily for the rest of my life.

― the oral history of (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Sunday, December 9, 2012 8:43 PM

tired sounds is more singular in tone to atrotd; atrotd goes for full-on widescreen euphoria, where tired sounds culminates with a series of endless blissed out drones. kinda like the difference between inner and outer space. both are some of the best music ever recorded imo so you need both really. even if you only start with one you'll get the other eventually.

― r1o natsume, Sunday, November 25, 2007 3:02 AM

"The Tired Sounds..." is one of the most self-descriptive album titles ever. It's one of those things I put on and actually forget there's music on at all -- like, I'll go to put in a CD and realize the Stars of the Lid is still playing. Which isn't bad, on its own merits. I mean, I guess it does what it set out to do.

― spittle (spittle), Wednesday, March 3, 2004 2:39 AM

The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid would make for a kind of epic ending to a life, and a peaceful one, too.

― Zach S, Thursday, March 16, 2006 11:08 AM

There it is. So it's going to be Music for Airports, On Land and Selected Ambient Works, Vol. II.

The holy trinity: light, dark and synth.

I guess the popularity of the Stars of the Lid kinda exemplifies the difference of scenes/generations evident in this poll... Apparently they were around in the '90s already, but I don't remember ever hearing that name back then, and even afterwards I haven't come across their music before this poll (though I have seen the name mentioned on ILX). They're from the US and from what I've gathered they come more from the art (rock) music scene than from the electronic club music? Whereas my roots are firmly in the European dance music scene, which I guess would explain why they've been foreign to me. The music does sound nice, tho.

yeah they're out of a totally different idiom

I like both strands although neither is really my favourite.

just to recap my terrible evolution on Tired Sounds and this poll

- it is one of my favorite albums
- i didn't vote for it in this poll because i was thinking it wasn't ambient enough
- i did vote for the Ballasted Orchestra, which is also very good, but in a very different way. much more pure narcotic drone. just as beautiful but with less variation + more time spent in the drone zone.
- i now wish i would have voted for Tired Sounds (and Refinement). compared to much of what placed in this poll, those two albums are ambient as hell

To think that neither Somnium nor The Empty Hollow Unfolds made it (probably).

:(

Stars of the Lid sounds to me like "SAW II (Slowed Down 800%)". But it's consistently rated pretty highly, so I guess I'm just not getting it.

really depends on which SotL you're listening to. they changed quite a bit (although gradually and glacially, as you'd expect) from the mid-90s through Refinement. of course, after Refinement, they've decided to take at least TWELVE YEARS to release their follow-up, so who knows what's going on now

not too many specific song recommendations in this thread, which makes sense, but if you're new to SotL and you want somewhere to start, there's no better place to start than the first two tracks of Tired Sounds (Requiem for Dying Mothers, parts 1 and 2). Part 2 in particular is one of the most beautiful pieces of music in the history of time, and i still request that it played at my funeral, if any of you are there, so that everyone will cry harder than they ever cried

I must buy The Tired Sounds on CD. My vinyl copy crackles too much and I rarely listen to it.

It's my go to soundtrack to flying. Calming, helps me sleep. But I don't pay much attention to it, then. I think I'd like to pay attention to it.

I used to live a few blocks from the Austin Texas Mental Hospital that album refers to

we should do an ambient bracket seeded based on the results of this poll vs. another 100 albums criminally absent from it

would vote

3. Brian Eno: Ambient 1 - Music for Airports (1978)
1119 points, 18 votes, 1 first place vote.

https://i.imgur.com/Vdj405p.jpg?1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNwYtllyt3Q

Of course, the man and the vast majority of his music, and his influence, is classic. Couldn't live without "Taking tiger mountain" or "Music for airports" amongst others. Those two boxed sets are two of the best investments I've ever made.

― Rob M (Rob M), Thursday, January 22, 2004 5:44 PM

I've been a huge Brian Eno fan since I was maybe 16 or so, high school, so closing in on 30 years now. I've listened to all of his stuff, tons of times. I love everything. I'm a completist. I have books, videos, apps, Oblique Strategies cards. And yet - confession - tonight was the first time I put on "Music for Airports" and, as best I can remember, truly enjoyed every last second. Utterly entrancing. Just sitting in the living room with my daughter, reading books, and it just ... clicked. I never disliked the album before, and once even watched Bang on a Can do it, but it always just sort of eluded me. Which is oddly apropos! But tonight - totally magical. Weird.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, August 23, 2018 5:11

I think it's that starting (obviously) with 1/1 in the past has thrown off my listening. It's significantly longer than the other tracks, which makes it a together nut to crack, but for whatever reason this time, once I made it over the first, familiar plinking piano hump, the second half of the track revealed some new stuff to me, like the more traditional synth washes, which for whatever reason I never really glommed on to before. After that, the other three tracks were (for lack of a better phrase) easy listening, prettier and pretty simple, with their own beautiful synths and choral bits. I was able to get lost in the subtle melodies and textures as opposed to focusing on the austere almost chamber piece like nature of the whole thing (which of course is what Bang on a Can exploited so well).

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, August 23, 2018 11:28 PM

Actually I always thought the point of MfA was not to listen to it like you listen to more "normal" music like AGW for example. Instead it is just supposed to be an aural setting which originally was supposed to be played at the airport when you wait for your airplane to arrive or take off but which you actually do not hear consciously. So in a way your experience does not seem to be intended.

― Ich bin kein Berliner (alex in mainhattan), Thursday, August 23, 2018 11:45 PM

also music for airports is great, you just have to put it on in the background in another room while it's raining, like it's meant to be listened to

― messiahwannabe, Thursday, January 28, 2010 7:12 PM

i've got into this weird routine recently of having to blast out the last track from music for airports really loud first thing after i wake up

has to be the most beautiful music ever made. feels like i won the 200 metres and this is the music they're playing during the slow motion replay

― 不合作的方式 (r1o natsume), Sunday, August 1, 2010 6:17 PM

I had to put this at #1, I couldn't even begin to front. Been listening for 35 years and not tired of it yet.

also Robert Wyatt is the secret star on this

You deserve your badge.

2. Brian Eno: Ambient 4 - On Land (1982)
1193 points, 18 votes.

https://i.imgur.com/YAMKnFk.jpg?1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRiNpVslI_c

Ambient with Budd - ON LAND - its great mysteru

― | (Latham Green), Thursday, October 4, 2018 11:21 PM

DD: Is there something ironic about putting on a piece as still as 77 Million Paintings in somewhere so unstill?

Brian Eno: Well, when I lived in New York I made my quietest music. The record On Land (1982) I made here. And one of the things you do when you make a piece of art is you try to make the world you'd rather be in. Do you know what I mean? You try to make up for the deficiencies of the place that you're in, because New York is a hellish place to live. It's so noisy and always broken and always being mended and abrasive and disturbing. So one of the things you want is to find a little place where, 'Swooh', you can breathe out for a minute.

DD: Is it also a reaction to the increasing smallness of music?
Brian Eno: Yeah, I think it is. It's sort of a reaction against headphones, which I don't like. I don't like having the music pressed on to my head. I like feeling I'm walking around inside it.

This, alone, is intriguing and inspiring enough to fuel several different strains of creative activity, should one choose to embrace any of its ideas.

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, July 12, 2014 4:23 PM

"The Lost Day"* has always been my jam from On Land, but I listened in greater detail than usual to the album rather than as background or falling asleep music and the (subtle!) tunes of a few other tracks became more apparent, so I'll be listening for them. partly because of the addition of Hassell (4/1) or Material (4/2), I feel like the side closers work a little against the mood of the first 3 on each side which are more of a piece, but it's pretty perfect as is.

*also like Eno's lost day concept: the things that didn't come to be. which could be read as the road not taken, in contrast to Another Green World aka the ultimately fertile other road (or art process) taken. but in "the lost day" I think Eno was nostalgic for better(?) futures that failed to materialize: other green potentials (or even things we didn't get to do).

― Paul, Monday, July 14, 2014 7:52 PM

I think "On Land" is a good thing to bring up, because I find that album, pretty as it is, much darker and more menacing (same with "Apollo," despite its blatant beauty), which in a way makes it more accessible. Or at least more overtly "interesting." His much later generative stuff, or even his asleep-at-the-DX7 stuff like Neroli and Thursday Afternoon, is more boring and invisible, sort of by design, I imagine, but both are firmly from his installation phase, with them devised explicitly as background support for visuals or other related concepts.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, August 23, 2018 11:28 PM

I'm not really fond of "ambient" as a catch-all term to encompass anything with low-to-no-BPMs which uses drifty soundscapey bits. So little of it paints a compelling portrait of 'place' or sonic geography in the way that, say, On Land did.

― Myke. (Myke Weiskopf), Saturday, September 30, 2006 8:04 PM

An ambient poll without Eno at #1 is embarrassing

SAW II is also RYM's highest rated ambient album of all time.

#2 is… the Silent Hill 2 soundtrack (Music for Airports is also at #3).

Exactly

It's worth comparing the two:

https://rateyourmusic.com/customchart?page=1&chart_type=top&type=album&year=alltime&genre_include=1&genres=Ambient&include_child_genres=t&include=both&limit=none&countries=

I feel like such an amateur ambient cop after LBI’s rejection of SAWII