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Tangerine Dream The Virgin Years 1977-1983- Set/Compilation, released April 2012 - | |||||||||
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Notes | With The Virgin Years 1977-1983 is the follow up to last year's The Virgin Years 1974-1978. On five CDs, this set features the complete material from the original albums:
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Regarding the timeline, this set is overlapping with The Virgin Years 1974-1978 that included Cyclone (1978), which chronologically would fit inbetween the material from Encore and Force Majeure. By some unknown reason the soundtrack album Thief (1981) is represented by two tracks only, originally released on a 7" single. The TD material from the VA soundtrack album Risky Business (1983) is missing as well. | |||||||||
The cover of the set is based on the original artwork of Tangram, overlaid with circular excerpts from the featured seven albums. The typeface selected for the band's name is the same Monique Froese had used for the cover of Force Majeure (as well as for Edgar Froese's solo album Pinnacles). The 8-page booklet contains very small versions of the original album covers with track listings and credits. The middle double page shows numerous photos, mostly taken during the 1977 US tour; this is a reproduction of the gatefold inner sleeve from Encore. The back side of the booklet features the beautiful photo of the mirror-like reflecting tangram sculpture in the snow that originally was featured on the inner sleeve of the Tangram vinyl album. There are no liner notes at all. | |||||||||
Unlike the very similar box set Solo (1974-1983) - The Virgin Years, featuring (most of) the solo material of Edgar Froese and released by Virgin at the same time, booklet and inserts are almost free of errors. Force Majeure is wrongly listed as released in 1977 on the back insert (but correctly as 1979 in the booklet), and in the composition credits, Chris Franke is unfamiliarily spelled 'Christophe Franke', and Peter Baumann is mentioned as 'Hans Baumann', using his rarely seen first name instead of his more commonly known middle name Peter. | |||||||||
The box comes in a quintuple jewel case (having the width of two regular cases), and all five CDs are designed individually very nicely, based on vintage labels of vinyl releases by Virgin. | |||||||||
The first disc is designed similar to that of the The Virgin Years 1974-1978 set; it features the complete Encore double album plus two bonus tracks, originally released as a single, accompanying that album: the short remix from Monolight had later been released on the '70-'80 box set and is now available on CD for the first time. Hobo March is a renamed track from Edgar Froese's then forthcoming solo album Ages (1978) that was used as B side of the single release. | |||||||||
CD number two looks like one of the blue/red labels Virgin used for some vinyl releases in the very late seventies; it contains the complete Force Majeure album plus the first side from Tangram. | |||||||||
Tangram is then continued on disc three which incorporates the unique layout of the labels from the initial vinyl release of this album. What follows is the complete album Exit and two more bonus tracks, originally from the single release Beach Scene/Burning Bar which in France promoted the soundtrack album Thief (which itself is not part of this set). The A side is a slightly edited version of Beach Theme, not much different from the album version; Burning Bar is identical to the version on the album. The US promo single Dr. Destructo/Diamond Diary, released by Elektra in 1981, would have been more interesting as that one features a unique, extended version of the composition Dr. Destructo. | |||||||||
CD four appears similar to the green/red labels Virgin used for the A sides of most of their vinyl (re-)releases during the eighties. This disc features the complete album White Eagle plus the first side of the album Logos Live... | |||||||||
...which is completed on disc five. That one is designed as the red/green counterpart of disc four; Virgin originally used this design for the B sides in the eighties. The last studio album TD produced for Virgin, Hyperborea, fills the remainder of that disc. | |||||||||
Some listeners might argue about the fact that two of the albums are split across two discs, but the split was made at the same point the original vinyl albums had to be turned, so this is not a great issue and might have reduced the price of the box. | |||||||||
Unfortunately, Virgin missed the great opportunity to make this set a real collector's item. After they had included some tracks from the vinyl-only compilation '70-'80 in the The Virgin Years 1974-1978 set there was some hope that a second set would feature the ultra-rare solo tracks from that box. Furthermore the vinyl-only Tatort soundtrack music from Das Mädchen auf der Treppe (1982) and Daydream/Moorland (1983), most of which have never been properly released on CD, could have been included. | |||||||||
Anyway, given the fair price of this release, this box might be a nice opportunity to complete a TD collection. On the other hand it does not feature enough rare material to make it a 'must have' for a collector who already owns the individual albums. | |||||||||
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 Copyright/Disclaimer © 2001-2021 by Michael Berling. Last Update: 2021-09-19 21:31 |
