2 great posts there. Its always great to read how other people percieve their music and how it affects their emotions etc.
Great posts... but ultimately wrong!!
@ Darkorb - The Altogether is your 3rd favourite album??
@ Cranks - Brown sounds dated??
Only joking folks, of course you are entitled to your opinions, no matter how wrong they are...
Ok now on a serious front, because rating Orbitals albums in preference is no easy or light task. This is serious and deserves the thinking time...
Also I have rated them as a whole Album experience and that means more than just the music on it. It also represents various periods in my life and I find it exceptionally hard to listen to music I like and not have it influence my lifestyle.
1) Brown Album
- It has to be for me, I discovered Orbital at Glasto '94 and before that my introduction into electronic music were slipmat and Carl Cox and DJ Hype tapes, which I hated. I didnt really get on with the ravers at school and I was more into Hendrix/Doors/Floyd, the type of bands you start listening to in your teens if you didnt like ravey davey music or pop...and took an interest in a certain relaxing herbal remedy.
Anyway I digress...
Glasto 94 was my first festival and my friends and I were at the NME stage. I cannot remember who was on before Orbital (was it Bjork??) but we were there to see them. I had never heard of Orbital and judging buy the write up in the guide, it didnt really sound like my cup of tea.
Anyway by the time Orbital cam on, we were all quite worse for ware and decided to make a fire to the right of the stage and talk.
Anyway as soon as Orbital came on, I could see the lights looked quite interesting. I remember sitting around this fire and looking at all the legs of the people around me wobbling about to the music. At the level I was (sitting) I could only hear the bass vibrating on the floor and I could hear no clarity in the music.
So I decided to stand up and see what all the fuss was about, and thats when I heard the most amazing melodic, rythmic pulsating emotional electronic music ever. I had no idea electronic music could be so personal. It really impressed me and I got a sense of what electronic music could be like.
So for those reasons, and the fact I have bought the album 3 times because I have literally worn out the previous 2 versions. This has to be not just my favourite Orbital album, but my favourite album of all time.
Impact the Earth is burning must be my most listened to tune, but from start to finish the Brown Album is a magnificent piece of work.
Throughout my clubbing and Uni days, it was always the first album to be played back at somebodies house and it had that delicate balance of being celebral and dancey at the same time.
2) Middle of Nowhere
Ok this frequently fights with Insides for the number 2, but its not just about the complexity and character of the tunes for me. Its also about the memories attached to those songs, and most of us who are passionate about music as a whole tend to sum up big chunks of thier lives by what they were listening to.
So MON was the album I had really been looking forward to. When Insides came out I was into Orbital, but by the time MON came out I was a huge fan, I had developed an unhealthy fascination....
I was working in a music shop at the time and we got the new releases on the Friday prior to the albums official release date.
I found it in a box of new releases and put it on the shitty stereo in the back part of the shop; I disconnected both phones (whoops...) and listened.
It really blew me away. This album reminded me of Ennio Morricone and had a sort of retro cinematic feel to it. It was supremely upbeat but dirty enough to really get the blood pumping around your body.
Not every tune hit the spot for me (Otono??? Still cant listen to it), I wasnt even a huge fan of Style when I heard ol' Jo Whiley play it on Radio one. I had been waiting since Insides to listen to some quality electronic music and all of a sudden they had gone all novelty (especially after The Saint being as popular as it was). Anyway I love it now, and I fell in love with Nothing Left 1&2 and the whole Album (minus Otono).
3) Insides
Wow.
Certainly the most accomplished Album in terms of musical quality and sheer brilliance. Its a more thought provoking album in my eyes.
It was never an album I would play post club. More one for the car where you can gently melt into the music and let it take you on a journey.
Every single tune on this album is fantastic. It hasnt aged at all. The beat to TGWTSIHH is just as captivating now as it was all those years ago.
Adnans still makes me weep, a standout track for me.
The reason this is 3rd however is that for me I just do not have the emotional memories attached to this album as I do with the previos 2.
4) Sniv
As with Insides, this is an album that must be broken into. Forever is one of the songs I remembered from Glasto 94. And the album certainly reflected a lot of opinions about what was happening with the Criminal Justice Bill etc.
I remember hearing this album playing at all the stalls around 94/95 and it can be quite a sparse album and quite moody.
Standout tracks for me are Forever/Klien Trink Wasser (sorry cant be arsed to spellcheck!) and Attached.
5) Blue Album
I was not that disappointed with the Blue Album (which I had with The Altogether).
You Lot really was a step back to one of their epic moments; structured quite similarly to Brown Album era.
Pants worked for me, as did Transient and Tunnel Vision.
But it did seem rushed; the beats were not as complex and it just lacked the depth that Brown/MON/Insides and even Snivilisation had.
Easy Serve and Bath Time just seemed like fillers to me. Those tunes could have made way for something else, even if it had been "What Happens Next" and "Technologiquewiqueegoogle Park".
Transient is beautiful however, but it kind of promises something that as a whole the album doesnt deliver.
6) Green Album
I never really gave this album the time it needs. As I said earlier, I got the Brown Album shortly after seeing them at Glasto, then Sniv a few weeks later. I wasnt a huge fan back then and I assumed the Brown Album was their first proper album.
By the time I got around to listening to the Green Album, I would always get a bit bored and put on an Album I knew better.
It is a very accomplished album in my eyes, but for me it could not live up to the euphoria that I was getting from the Brown Album and MON.
7) The Altogether
Hmmm. I never ever put it on. I do have soft spots for Tension, Tootled, Pay Per View, Waving not Drowning.
But to me its a misguided pop album. Most of the time I think they totally missed the mark with what they wanted to do. Its certainly not a cohesive album and it has some real stinkers on it, most notably Shadows (yuck!), Last Thing and Oi which I cant listen to at all.
It even sounds quite dated too. Too many ideas all squashed together with no breathing room.
The only saving grace is the epic that is Meltdown. That one song in my opinion stops the Altogether from dropping entirely off this chart.
I know my ranking relies heavily on snapshots of periods of my life, but Orbital have been the main musical influence over my entire adult life. For good or bad most Orbital songs are ingrained one way or another with personal experiences of life and in the majority of cases has made a moment seem so much more profound.
Shit... I better get back to work!
Name why it ranks where it ranks overall and name your favorite track. I don't think we've done that before.
. Difficult to pick an individual track from this one because they're all so good, but poss would be the aforementioned TGWTSIHH tied with Out There Somewhere. 
