YMMV / Tangerine Dream

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• Archive Panic: 103 regular albums, plus 34 soundtrack albums (a few of which are rearrangements of previously released music but most of which are original works), plus 78 compilation albums, most of which include a handful of songs unavailable anywhere else. Oh, and 20 extended plays. And this doesn't even include the wealth of bootlegs or the nearly 300 hours of material (mostly live recordings) collected by the Tangerine Tree fan project. Off you go now.
• Audience-Alienating Era: While few agree on when it actually started, very few are willing to defend the band's 90s and 2000s output, as it either consisted of uninspired rehashes of previous ideas, or bizarre experiments like a series of children's albums.
• Broken Base: Opinions on the band's output following Christopher Franke's departure varies wildly. Some find the more pop-oriented, shorter tracks to be an affront to the band's previous MO of long, atmospheric pieces, while others really enjoy the catchiness and accessibility. The fact that this was when the band's soundtrack output was starting to dip in quality does not help.
• Growing the Beard: A few, to say the least:
  • While Electronic Meditation is a fine album, Alpha Centauri and especially Zeit are when the band really showed its ambition, being landmark explorations into the nascent genre of dark ambient.
  • Much like Kraftwerk's Autobahn released the same year, Phaedra might as well be the proper debut album from the band, since it set up most of their trademarks, such as long, hypnotic tracks and sequenced melodies.
  • After years of creative stagnation, Quantum Gate gave the band its beard back, serving as an excellent follow-up to the band's classic sound while successfully integrating modern elements.
• Hype Backlash: Sorcerer and Risky Business are the band's most well-known and acclaimed works by the general audience. While not being bad, most fans consider other albums and soundtracks to eclipse both of these works.
• Win Back the Crowd: As mentioned above, Quantum Gate gave the band some much-needed goodwill from both fans and the music press, being a very good album coming out right around the time the band's sound was experiencing a comeback.

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