Oh, and forget about the 'original version' stuff. I had a bootleg. ...the originals.

By far the best Vangelis album I've ever heard!
Vangelis, one of the biggest names of electronic music, has always been a very frustrating figure to me. He'd release some fantastic albums that just simple amazes me, and some truly wretched albums. For me, Albedo 0.39 is simply one of the greatest electronic albums I have ever heard! The ever overrated Chariots of Fire is absolutely nothing compared to this gem (in fact I'm pretty sure some people are turned off by Vangelis because of Chariots of Fire - don't judge all his works by that soundtrack album). Except for the Aphrodite's Child albums, Albedo is by far his more rock oriented album. The music here is all upbeat and very easy to get in to. Some of these songs might be familiar to you if you watched Carl Sagan's Cosmos, as "Pulstar" and "Alpha" were featured on that series. The album is also full of killer jamming as well, which more than demonstrates Vangelis was really enjoying himself big time on this album. Plus I love how the album ends with the title track which includes spoken, educational dialog about the Earth and its features (like diameter, distance from sun, and of course, its albedo). So forget Chariots of Fire, if you want real Vangelis, you must have Albedo 0.39, even if you're not much for Vangelis.

Albedo 0.39
Albedo 0.39~ Vangelis is a masterpiece done by a brilliant man whom has given so much to the 20th century in the form of compositions that will last way beyond the beats of the pop music.

Masterpiece.
Great instrumentation, and programming that Vangelis is truly great at. Synthesizers, and great drum programming, especially on the track Alpha, in fact you'll have Alpha on repeat for days. Pulstar opens the album, and really sets the tone, amazing!

Albedo 0.39
One reviewer here stated that Vangelis is comparable with Mozart and Beethoven and that he is the greatest composer of the 20th century. I cannot quite agree. Vangelis' composing does not have the degree of sophistication and refinement that the music of Mozart and Beethoven possesses and also the music of the best contemporary "classical" composers, such as Stockhausen and Boulez, just to name two (the former is also one of the most important pioneers of electronic music, see for example his Gesang der Juenglinge (1956) and his Kontakte (1960), and has created awe-inspiring synth music as well, such as Oktophonie (1991) - all those works are available at stockhausendotorg).

Vangelis' composing in Albedo 0.39 at times - though not always - seems a bit coarse, abrupt and when it comes to changing keys, simplistic (there should be more modulation involved) and a tad too obvious (arguably, the often maligned but in my view also great Chariots of Fire, for example, is more mature in that respect). However, his craft of composing is sufficiently impressive such that in connection with his truly awesome musical inspiration, the sheer power of his sonic imagination, his innovative and soulful use of synthesizer timbres that also convincingly adapts these to the diverse development stages of a given track, and his astonishing mastery of a great variety of styles, Albedo 0.39 becomes a fantastic and rewarding musical experience. The combination of above virtues also clearly makes Vangelis one of the greatest electronic musicians.

Moreover, the sometimes found simpleness of presentation of musical ideas (there is enough satisfying complexity as well) by Vangelis in Albedo 0.39, rather than routinely being just simplistic, often seems to be the result of a superior musical mind that knows that appropriate simpleness may be useful to achieve a powerful emotional effect. The abrupt transitions in the music and the few sudden - even slightly naive - outbursts of climactic, glorious or triumphant tone (on occasion they seem to symbolize moments of star birth) can be remarkable in their power, and sometimes the sudden transitions in the music appear to be sheer genius, such as in the track Alpha.

In this track of moderate tempo Vangelis paints boldly with broad brush strokes, presenting the original theme and counterthemes to it in varied and inspired ways, with the variations either dropping in suddenly or - towards the end - smoothly developing from the previous material. The large-scale build-up of this 6-minute-piece, easily going from a quiet, delicate "ticking clock" atmosphere to a glorious, free-flowing climax, is simply astonishing. The build-up is able to sustain unerring, powerful directionality over the very diverse stages, a directionality that is also aided by the seamless integration of the solidly driving rock rhythm into the tension of development.

As pointed out by others, the range of music on Albedo 0.39 is huge. You get quality synth-pop (Pulstar; I love those chords ferociously slashing through the music), jamming jazz-rock (Main Sequence), fast-paced and exciting power-rock where the thematic/melodic lines chase with high speed (Nucleogenesis 1 and 2), the above somewhat ballad-like Alpha, and a few quiet pieces that partially show Eastern timbral and melodic influences (especially Freefall).

I agree with many reviewers here that Albedo 0.39 is a most important and impressive work of electronic music. And highly enjoyable to!

Two more points:

1. Vangelis' playing of drums and percussion, though maybe not wizzard-hand virtuosic, is musically just awesome. Always the right and amazing accents.

2. Two passages in Albedo 0.39 sound eerily similar to two highly characteristic and very unique passages in Bruckner symphonies, in # 3 (1889 version) and in # 6 (1881). Compare Pulstar 2'52" to 3'10" with 11'08" to 11'28" in the Karajan recording of Bruckner Symphony 3, 1st movement and Nucleogenesis Part I 5'13" to 5'36" with 13'26" to 13'52" in the Karajan recording of Bruckner Symphony 6, 1st movement (the magical soft treatment of the main theme in horns and trumpets leading to the final climax of the coda; the Karajan recordings of these symphonies are the ones to get).--Are these striking similarities pure coincidence?