innerspaceboy

I'll jump in. I saw The Orb mentioned but no dedicated exploration of the subgenres of ambient music. There's a bit of a challenge here, however - as most ambient albums operate as a whole piece and not as individual songs.

I skimmed the RYM charts and checked them against the subgenre wiki articles and thankfully most of the top results matched my own suggestions for key recordings.

DARK AMBIENT
Bohren & der Club of Gore - Black Earth
Deathprod - Morals and Dogma

DRONE
Fripp & Eno's (No Pussyfooting) - Side A - "The Heavenly Music Corporation"
Stars of the Lid, either The Tired Sounds of... or And the Refinement of the Decline
Robert Rich's 7-hour Somnium sleep concert DVD-audio album

AMBIENT HOUSE
Biosphere's Substrata and Microgravity LPs
The KLF's Chill Out
The Orb's 40:00 "Blue Room" single

AMBIENT DUB
The Orb's aforementioned "A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain..."

AMBIENT TECHNO
Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works 85-92
Boards of Canada's Music Has the Right to Children
Wolfgang Vogit (as Gas) - the Nah Und Fern box set
Global Communication's 76:14

TRIBAL AMBIENT
Steve Roach - Dreamtime Return
John Hassell & Brian Eno - Fourth World Vol 1: Possible Musics

AMBIENT POP
Air - Moon Safari

BERLIN SCHOOL
Klaus Schulze - X or Timewind
Tangerine Dream's Phaedra
Edgar Froese - Epsilon in Malaysian Pale

AMBIENT CLASSICAL
Popol Vuh - Hosianna Mantra

Can we do anything with the above list? Suggestions?

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