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Ah! I cherish every album on Paul's list and many others mentioned. I also second the very high praise for Gentle Giant's "Playing the Fool." That was the first GG album I ever heard.
At the risk of boring many, here's a quick, subjective skim of the highlights of my CD shelf, for anyone that's interested (no one...? Please forgive the bandwidth, then, my friends):
∗IDIOMATIC ELCTRONIC MUSIC∗
_(i.e., 'bleeps' & 'bloops' and new approaches... what we used to mean when we said 'Electronic Music' back in the day)_
"Forbidden Planet" soundtrack by Louis & Bebe Baron (awesome, pre-keyboard EM)
"OHM: the Early Gurus of Electronic Music" (sampler, good overview)
"By Request" Wendy Carlos (not on CD... yet) the "Geodesic Dance" was an early epiphany for me, as were "Timesteps" and "Title Music" featured on the 'Clockwork Orange' soundtrack.
"Beauty in the Beast" Wendy Carlos (microtonal and quite listenable)
"Sonic Seasonings" Wendy Carlos (proto ambient)
"Secrets of Synthesis" Wendy Carlos (actually a fast-paced lecture about EM and composing for EM)
"The Andromeda Strain" Gil Melle (I love this soundtrack, but I do understand why my co-workers want to kill me... erratic, percussive, maniacal)
"Black Mass" Mort Garson (scary Moogish music)
"Beastiary" by Robert Rich, occupying a place of extreme honor in my collection for months now. More! More! More please!
∗ELECTRONICALLY-REALIZED CLASSICAL∗
_(Actual classical music realized on synthesizer)_
"Switched-On Boxed Set" What can I say, it's the original, and few imitators put even 1% of the effort that Carlos exerts to get things right.
"The Planets" Isao Tomita; also "Snowflakes are Dancing," "Daphnis et Chloe," and "The Bermuda Triangle" (trippiest Prokofiev you've ever put headphones on for). Oh, and for Tomita's 'lecture,' "Sound Creature." Carlos is an engineer; Tomita just splashes color at the canvas. Mondrian vs. Matisse. Even though he dips into goofy sound sometimes, Tomita has hit real high points, too.
"Classic Pieces" Mychael Danna (sort of... if Synergy was trying to be Carlos... pieces performed fairly straight, but with what sounds like a small 4-track studio. Among the best of the SOB imitators, I think.)
"The Four Seasons" by Patrick Gleeson. Done on a Synclavier; wish he'd used his Emu modular that he employed on his 'Planets.' "The Planets" is okay, too, but I disagree with a lot of his phrasing, so I hold back high marks on that one.
∗ELECTRONIC POP∗
_(Popular music that relies on synthesizers in a critical way)_
"Stratosfear" & "Encore" by Tangerine Dream; I read the first five Carlos Castaneda books with Encore playing nonstop. Really creates a mood. There's a lot of good TD but you can go broke trying to collect it all. "Sorcerer" is a personal favorite, too.
"Heaven & Hell" by Vangelis, best known for the piece from which the 'Cosmos' TV series got its main theme. Also, his soundtrack for "Blade Runner" is absolutely incredible... too bad he never really released it, but you can find a pretty complete "Romanian Bootleg" if you know were to look; a must-have. "Albeido 0.39" is also a classic.
"Electronic Realizations..." "Cords" "Games" by Synergy; "Slaughter on 10th Avenue" pretty much wore out my 8-track tape player way back when.
"Oxygene" JMJ -- cornerstone of techno. Light, airy, catchy stuff.
"Elements" Mychael Danna (wonderful, sweet compositions; not really "pop" per se, they are classically approached. Danna went on to do soundtrack work; this is his first album from the mid-70's)
"Halloween III" soundtrack by John Carpenter. I dunno; a guilty pleasure I guess. I like Carpenter's scary music, and this album, as opposed to some of the others, is not the very memorable main theme every other track, but a little more broad. Soupy, rich analog textures, brassy synthesizer horn-like sounds.
"Ambient 1," "Ambient 4," "Apollo" by Brian Eno. Classics!
Anything by Enya, but especially the first three albums. It's a shame that "Orinoco Flow" was so overplayed at the time, because it's really a fine song.
∗POP ELECTRONICS∗
_(Not primarily electronic music, but synthesizers get used to good effect)_
"Tubular Bells" who doesn't know about Mike Oldfield? "Hergest Ridge" is a classic, too, but he remixed and ruined it, and you just can't find a copy of the original anymore. "Five Miles Out" is fun if you've only heard Hall & Oates' version of "Family Man."
Anything by "golden age" YES, but "Close to the Edge" is a real high point for progressive rock. Complex, long compositions that just seem effortless. "YesSongs" for Wakeman's solo...
As for solo albums by YES members, you just have to have Wakeman's "Six Wives..." album, and "Criminal Record" is also a classic. "White Rock" sent me to the store to buy an MS-10 with my allowance, decades ago. Do not begin your Wakeman collection with "No Earthly Connection," an album I've always assumed was a dig at Jon Anderson for "Topographic Oceans."
"Olias of Sunhillow" is one of my favorite albums of all time, yet it's virtually unknown, even being the first solo work of Jon Anderson. It's alien electronic folk, if you can imagine that. My father called it "Chinese music" I think because of Anderson's layered, high-pitched vocals and lots of cymbals and bells. But he recorded it in Vangelis' studio, and you can sorta tell.
Anything by Gentle Giant, but "Octopus" and "Freehand" are incredible. The pieces "Knots" and "On Reflection" got my high school band reading books on music theory to understand counterpoint better.
The band Premiata Forneria Marconi (aka "PFM") has some good stuff, obviously inspired by many of the great 70's bands. "Photos of Ghosts" gets a lot of play here.
Emerson Lake & Palmer ("ELP") surely needs no introduction, nor does their paramount album "Brain Salad Surgery." But don't miss "Trilogy" either, gentler but very well done.
Genesis: "Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" has some very good moments, 'Carpet Crawlers' being fantastic.
King Crimson: intense, and with attitude, these guys keep going! Check out "Red," and "Discipline" may be their best album ever, with every note a jewel, but for Mellotron second only to 'Six Wives,' you have to have "In The Court of the Crimson King." Recently remastered.
"War of the Worlds" by Jeff Wayne. I didn't want to like this 2-CD set, but I do. I loved the novel, and the George Pal movie, and here's the "rock opera." It dwells too long on certain less-important plot points, but in general it's catchy and moving. After a second listen, you will be humming '...but still they came,' "Forever Autumn," and "Spirit of Man." "Red Weed" sounds like the whole track was recorded with the mod wheel pushed up... weird, but it works.
"Ashes are Burning" & Scheherazade" by Renaissance. Progressive folk. Good stuff. Not prog-Celtic like Steeleye Span (whose 'Below the Salt' is a must-have). Great vocals.
"Trans Europe Express" by Kraftwerk. Gotta have a little Kraftwerk!
"Birdy," "Security" by Peter Gabriel. Larry Fast on keyboards during Gabriel's golden age.
"Eskimo" by the Residents. Love the fresh approach to music these guys take. "George & James" and "Stars & Hank Forever" are classics, too.
"Happy the Man" & "Crafty Hands" by Happy the Man. Boy are these good albums. The first two minutes of "Starborne" just lulls me into some weird, big, dark, empty space that I don't want to leave. Also check out Kit Watkins' solo career on albums such as "Azure," which is fantastic.
"Mister Heartbreak" by Laurie Anderson. Some people hate her for "O Superman," but she really created some unique, landmark works during her career, and this is one of them.
"Fish Rising" by Steve Hillage (of the original 'Gong'). Psychedelic, swirling, Echoplex, mystical lyrics, guitar... a kind of a classic that not many have discovered. Fun album.
"Spartacus" by Triumverat. At the time, many griped "ELP rip-off," but in the dearth of good music that followed for decades, don't we need more good progressive rock? ;)
"The Story of i" by Patrick Moraz. 'Thick' album, needs remastering, ostensibly rushed so that he could work on YES' "Relayer" album, but still has wonderful moments. A very knotted up concept album.
"Glassworks" by Philip Glass. It's true---Koyanisqaatsi is a high point of Western music (and the movie is a must-see, too), but don't miss this collection of "smaller" hypnotic works.
"Winter Songs" by Art Bears, and "In This Life" by Thinking Plague; ReR Records has some weird stuff, like demonic folk music. Unusual scales, attention-getting vocals.
"Low," side 2, by David Bowie. Fabulous, incredible... Brian Eno!
CLASSICAL & SOUNDTRACKS
_(Not electronic, but compositionally inspiring)_
"Aniara" by Karl Birger-Blohmdhal. The REAL 'Space Opera.' Based on the epic poem, now available in English. It actually has three musique concrete sections. I love this work. Just try to find a copy, though, I dare ya! :)
"Pacific 231" by Honnegger . Named after a steam locomotive, sounds like a steam locomotive, but the composer insists it's not program music. If you've heard Tomita's version, hear the original. Excellent stuff.
Anything by Gyorgy Ligeti, but his 'cloud compositions' like "Atmospheres" and "Lux Aeterna," as heard in "2001: A Space Odyssey," are fantastic.
"Concierto para Arpa y Orchesta" by Alberto Ginastera; Wow, fantástico. You've heard ELP's "Toccata," but listen to the energy that an orchestra can have with this piece.
"Horizen" by Jade Warrior, for the "Dune" piece. (ZBS took parts of this album for use in "The Fourth Tower of Inverness" ... if you know what that is, you're a member of a secret elite!) In the same vein, Klaus Schulze's "Dune" has some good moments, more in the "Idiomatic" category.
Anything by Arvo Part... deep mystical, un-rushed choral works.
"Heart of Uncle" by 3 Mustaphas 3; pseudo-meta-para-Middle-Eastern music. This album has a couple of wonderful cuts that you will play over and over, and two or three that you will skip. They put on a fantastic live show, as well... see them in a small club, like the Iron Horse in Amherst, Massachusetts.
"Planet of the Apes," by Jerry Goldsmith. Don't laugh, if this was composed by Pierre Boulez, it would be required listening in every college composition class. As the back-score to a sci-fi monkey movie, it is ignored, but it is incredible, atonal music.
"Beneath the Planet of the Apes" & "Fantastic Voyage" by Leonard Rosenman. Different from Goldsmith's score, but still unique and wonderful. Both are available right now on ERY limited edition pressings from Lukas Kendall's people; grab them!
"Videodrome" by Howard Shore. I think it's Prophet 5 in an organ voicing, but I'm not sure... a hypnotic, washy soundtrack. Great score to read Stanislav Lem's "Solaris" to.
Anything by Bernard Hermann, but "The Day the Earth Stood Still" for its seminal use of Theremin, "Journey to the Center of the Earth" for wonderful minor chords and pipe organ, and "7th Voyage of Sinbad" for the best skeleton-fighting music you're likely to hear! Don't miss his great stuff for the original "Twilight Zone" series, too.
I gotta stop now. Did anybody make it to the end...? ;)
Mr. T