Here are my picks for the E's...

Enthusia ~Professional Racing~ Original Soundtrack

There are some great funky little tunes on this disc with a cool fusion vibe to them. Some are a little too peppy for me, but when you take songs like "TAKE NO LOSERS", the several arranged tracks at the end of disc 2 and the awesomeawesomeawesome "AWAKENING ~Nürburgring Suite~", you have yourself a great soundtrack. This one took a while to really grow on me, but I'm glad I've been listening to it as much as I have been recently. It's a fantastic soundtrack!

For a runner-up I'm going to go with the ESPGaluda -Perfect remix- set. It's the latter half of the "Dodonpachi DAI-OU-JOU & ESPGaluda -Perfect remix-", and even though it's not its own CD, it's damn good in its own right. Easily the better half of the album, ESPGaluda's remixes are faithful to the originals (for the most part), and have a much better and clearer instrument set than the arcade OST. It's classic electronica VGM that I feel everyone should at least check out and give a listen to. It's not too expensive, and the disc is totally worth it.

I haven't gotten in on these discussions yet, but here goes:

Top pick:  Everquest II by Laura Karpman.  The main theme and some of the other tracks are amazing, but the rest are kind of far out for me.  Regardless, I bought the whole darn tin collector's box just to get the soundtrack CD.  And hearing the main theme performed live by the Houston Symphony at Video Games Live was one of the best parts of the whole concert.

Honorable mentions:  Elder Scrolls III & IV by Jeremy Soule.  The main theme for III was brilliant, and I remember being mesmerized the first time I heard it playing as I walked by an XBox demo station playing the trailer.  IV also sounds good, but I haven't heard the whole soundtrack yet.

Ditto on Elder Scrolls!  Morrowind in particular, I haven't heard much of Oblivion, but I'm sure it's good   I would also like to add:

Eternal Arcadia OST (one of the best!)

and as a runner up:

Elemental Gearbolt OGS (some gorgeous classical pieces!)

cheers,

-avatar!

Not too much going on in the land of E's...

Winner-Eretzvaju OST
1st RU-Enthusia Professional Racing OST
2nd RU-Estpolis 2
3rd RU-ESPGaluda OST

Been a fan of both Enthusia and Masanori Akita since the soundtrack was first released (he also did the soundtrack for the first PS2 TMNT game, which has a rip floating around). Huge range of stuff from rock to hardcore trance to...uh, stuff. I'm sticking Estpolis 2 here to free up a slot in the "L's" (I've about strained my E's here), but it's one of the best models of how to do a classic RPG soundtrack right. Some of the best battle themes ever composed for an RPG are present here. ESPGaluda 1's OST is some of the most colorful techno I've heard and I'm much more a fan of the tunes present than what came up for its' sequel.

Eretzvaju = T's Music. That pretty much sums it up right there. Extremely strong hard rock entry (with 2 vocals and the occasional electronica influence) that gives Guilty Gear a legitimate run for the money. Other than the over-long voice track, it's 40 minutes of bliss. "Dunjia-S" is a masterpiece, plain and simple.

I'm surprised that no one has listed Einhander yet.

Eternal Arcadia OST for me.  This is one of those albums that I just don't grow tired of, and one of the few double albums that I can easily listen to the whole way through without so much as batting an ear.  Too bad it had such a low print run.

Estpolis (Lufia).

Ramza

I have nothing owned in E-land, so I'll have to go with Eternal Arcadia as well, which I never managed to get

ESPGaluda is a runner up I guess (Estapolis is under L)

-Joshua

Einhander - Just awesome. One wonders how Kenichiro Fukui could seemingly disappear after composing such a masterpiece.

Elemental Gearbolt - I don't usually go for orchestral soundtracks but then again I don't usually play games that have them. It fits the lightgun-style game perfectly. I only have a cd-r copy of the album, though

Elevator Action -Returns- <V.C.O. "Cinema" Mix> - Classic Yack. The "cinema" aspect of the soundtrack doesn't detract from the music one bit. If anything it adds suspense and ties the songs together seamlessly.

Enthusia Professional Racing - This is right up there with Ridge Racer Type 4 as my favorite racing soundtrack ever.

Another vote for the Eternal Arcadia OST.  One of these days I'm going to slog my way through Skies of Arcadia Legends.

Einhander and Elemental Gearbolt get honorable mentions, and Ecco ~ Songs of Time is great for periods of more calmer VGM-listening downtime.

Check out Front Mission 5...He got some decent airtime on that one.

Eternal Arcadia OST. Great battle music, great dungeon music, great town music. Great everything.

After doing a search at GMR for Kenichiro Fukui's catalog listing I guess I'll have to eat my words. Nevertheless, It's great to see that he's still in the vgm business.

Elemental Master - The best ost to come out of Ts and one of the hardest old-school albums you'll find. A couple of funky, fusion-style "live" tracks are just gravy on the turkey.

I'll go with Ecco the Dolphin and Tides of Time as my joint pick for favorite.  It's all incredibly memorable stuff for me.  Like an oceanic Metroid of sorts.  Full of mystery and also sprinkled with memorable melodies amidst the aquatic ambience.  And though it may suprise some, I'm talking about the original Genesis soundtracks rather than the Spencer Nilsen ones for the Sega CD versions.  I still remember pulling up the sound test for Tides of Time during a few road trips with my dad when I was younger.  Through my Nomad, of course.

I suppose that my honorable mention will be Earthbound/Mother 2.  I'm not sure how impressive it is, but every track is as quirky and memorable as the game itself.  I always did enjoy the sheer variety both in style and function.  Somehow everything works.  From the serene sounds of Winters to the prehistoric beats of the Lost Underworld.  I'm sure that the Runaway Five would approve.

Earthbound has quite possibly the most unique music I've ever heard in an RPG. It fits the game perfectly but I'd never want to listen to it on its own. Some of the music is actually quite ugly (and often intentionally).

I'm not even remotely a techno fan but I find Einhander quite catchy...

The game is totally worth it!  One of the most original and wonderful RPG ever!  Only real complaint: all the random battles are very annoying, but at a certain point in the game (about 2/3 rd through) you can avoid random battles almost entirely, which is most cool

cheers,

-avatar!

-Einhander Original Soundtrack
-Elder Gate Original Soundtrack
-Enthusia Professional Racing Original Soundtrack
-Estopolis Biography (but only for the GBC tracks)

I agree that the music isn't particularly good for a casual listening experience.   Or rather, consistently good for that purpose.  Maybe it's mostly because of the importance I place on the function of a soundtrack that I still felt compelled to list it.  I did consider listing Elemental Master instead (a nice choice that I had forgotten about until I saw Nemo mention it; technosoft = win), but since the music of Earthbound means more to me personally, I slipped it in as my honorable mention.  I think there are quite a few listenable tracks.  It's just not always particularly epic like my upcoming favorite "F" soundtracks happen to be.   So while Earthbound rarely gets a spin in my CD player, I still hold the music in relatively high regard.  It wouldn't make my overall favorite soundtracks list, but limiting things to the letter "E" allows it to qualify rather easily for me, especially since I'm not particularly fond of most of the other "E" soundtracks being mentioned.

Escape Goat, was something of a solo album/promotional tool and much under-represented original album with some (mediocre) Street Fighter EX arrangements on there but most notably original tunes from the big guys (and gal) Shinji Hosoe, Ayako Saso, and Takayuki Aihara with their typical, masterful blends of rock, jazz, and electronica all blended into one. This has been a favorite for a few years now.

Going to have to echo Enthusia ~Professional Racing~ Original Soundtrack. Masanori Akita (same guy, I guess, who did the new TMNT music) stun with an unexpected, exceptional album full of jazzy piano (sadly most of which under a minute - decidedly "weather forecast-like", but loved no less), techno, and rock tunes all at high production values. Murai's work on the second disc expand beyond Akita's piano solo pieces some not even minute long tracks are downright excellent smooth jazz arranges (ooooh, the screamy saxophone on "Prize"). Lastly, Akita's "A Doze" gives me chills (perhaps a prediction of snow and rain?)- wonderful track.

A recent discovery, European Front [arrangement album] (KECH-1017), deserves a nod for any who haven't heard it. An interesting blend of orchestral, strings, and even some brassy trumpet and sax here and there not without some hard rock since it we all know 1940's wars are all about, well, er, hard rock.

Earthbound
The Earthbound soundtrack is just awesome (as is the game). Beautiful tracks, catchy tracks, quirky tracks, and downright bizarre tracks combine to form what is at the very minimum one of the most interesting soundtracks out there, and I think one of the best. Definitely the kind of stuff that it helps that I've played the game before, though.

Runners-up
Everyone's mentioning Enthusia ~Professional Racing~, so I'll throw it in too because it's good stuff. Nürburgring Suite FTW. Eternal Arcadia is likewise also a solid choice that's getting some love.

Eretzvaju, damn. I downloaded that years ago at random solely because the name looked so weird. Lost it when my hard drive crashed and then forgot all about it until now. Now I need to track that album down again.

And now for something no one's said anything about, E.V.O.: Search for Eden. Sugiyama did some great tunes for the sucker, and I like it more than any of his DQ work (except maybe DQ1 when I've feeling nostalgic).

Yeah, E.V.O. is pretty good too. Probably one of his best boss themes is in that soundtrack.

There isn't much in my E folder, but my favorite in there is Emerald Dragon ~ Electric Shock CD Library [MWCG-0006]. Oh, and I still have that one as an actual original CD sitting on my shelf. I've tried to sell it numerous times, but no one showed any interest. I have several other Emerald Dragon albums and another good one is in the G folder, since it starts out with "Glodia".

Other of interest in E are:

Elevator Action Returns OST
Einhander OST
Eiyuu Shigan ~Gal Act Heroism~
E.V.O. Symphonic Synth Suite
Elemental Master (actually in T, but I'll mention it here)
Earthbound 1 & 2 (in M, but worth mentioning)
Extreme G Official Remixes