Just wanted to start a new thread and hear what everyone's faves were.

For me
Favorites
-"Velocities," It sounds really awesome to me, and anyone who can play it is probably marimba jesus.
-"Chasing the Caribou," First ever 4 mallet piece I learned (I played the 1st part).
-"Shadow Chaser," Was really fun for me to play, but also difficult.

Least Favorites
-"Yellow After the Rain," It's a great piece to learn, but I simply hate the sound and the fact that many people think they know how to play it, even though they only know the first few measures.
-"Flight of the Bumblebee"

Well, Velocities is a good one, but my favorite is
Ranson by Mark Ford.

Other favorites are:
Memories of the Seashore by Abe
Ilijas by Zivkovic
Reflections on the Nature of Water by Druckman
Virginia Tate by Smadbeck
Nancy (however overplayed, it's still a lovely piece) by Sejourne
Rotation IV by Sammut

Since you didn't specify solos, I'll also add to the list:
Blue Motion by Whible
And Legions Will Rise by Puts, and
Wind Sketch II by Abe

Just a few of my favorites.

As for least favorites?
I don't think I really have any.

Yellow After the Rain is kinda annoying, but I don't hate it or anything.

Favorites:

Vinao's Khan Variations
Lansky's Three Moves
Schwantner's Velocities
Miyake's Chain
Druckman's Reflections on the Nature of Water
Ewazen's Northern Lights
Thomas's Merlin
Montovani's Moi, jeu...
Aldridge's From My Little Island

Least Favorite:

Abe: Frogs
Rosauro's Marimba Concerto
The second movement of Maslanka's My Lady White
Milhaud's Marimba/Vibraphone Concerto
Schuller's Marimbology
Miki's Marimba Spiritual (just because so many people butcher it)
Stout's Astral Dance, the first Mexican Dance, Rumble Strips

Hmm... I'll probably think of more later.

RhythmSong: I'm curious about why you don't like Rumble Strips.

Personally, I just don't get the piece. I don't understand what it's trying to say. Or perhaps I should say that I'm not sure I like the way in which the material is presented and developed. Also, it's just too "marimba-ey" for me. If I hadn't heard the piece before and heard it played on a piano, I would think "Wow, that sounds like it's written for the marimba" because it includes so many idiomatic techniques for the marimba. I feel that the music of the piece is an outgrowth derivation of the technique, as opposed to a piece of music that is just performed through the channel of technique.

Obviously, if someone piece plays the piece well then it's still impressive, but I just wouldn't choose to listen to it in my spare time.

I haven't really gotten into any advanced pieces, although Irish Washerwoman is really fun at about 186, though it is really easy. It has a fun, natural hand motion sequence.

That is true.

I am mainly a pianist, so I am most familiar with piano music. There are a couple different extremes found in piano music. Ravel is a wonderful composer who wrote a number of pieces for piano. Most people find Ravel's music very difficult to play simply because it is very uncomfortable to play. Ravel makes the fingers and hands do things that are very awkward. On the other hand there are piano composers like Chopin where the music is quite comfortable to play but the music suffers some in the limitation of making it pianistic. Then there are others like Medtner where you're not sure if the musical idea or the piano conception came first, the music does not suffer at all because of it being on the piano, and the music is very comfortable to play.

Most of the music for marimba that I've seen or played has seemed very bounded by marimba technique. I look at a passage and I just see technique after technique being exploited. I guess I just got used to it and never thought about it much. I'm curious if you sometimes see marimba solos that are kind of like the Ravel of marimba. I admittedly don't know that much of the marimba repertoire.

You make some great points. I really love a lot of Chopin's music, but you can definitely tell when he didn't know what he was doing (for example, look at the orchestration of his Piano Concerto).

Marimba repertoire is at an odd turning point right now because more and more composers are starting to take the instrument seriously, and to write solo marimba works, whereas twenty years ago, almost always the only people who wanted to write solo marimba pieces were... people who played marimba. That's not to say that these pieces aren't worth keeping in the repertoire, it's just to say that we shouldn't limit ourselves to only semi-satisfying music just because it's idiomatic or written well for the instrument.

EDIT:

Marimba solos that are like the Ravel of marimba... hmm... well, I suppose here I can really only speak of pieces that I've played. Velocities has a couple passages in the middle of the piece that are incredibly awkward but don't really sound so. Ewazen's marimba concerto doesn't sound that difficult because it's so tonal, but it's also got some very awkward passages, especially in the first movement. Also, Lansky's "Hop(2)" from "Three Moves for Marimba" just sounds like a little funky improvisation but has some incredibly difficult leaps.

Basically, I'm 17 and still don't have a very broad view of all the marimba music out there. But for now, here are my favorites and least favorites.

Favorites:

Velocities- Schwantner
Astral Dance- Stout
Sedimental Structures- Stout
Libertango- Sammut

Least Favorites:

Of course you have Yellow After the Rain- Peters
and I'm getting kind of sick of Rain Dance- Gomez/Rife

Personally, Rain Dance Is my favorite solo I've heard/performed so far in my limited career. It has a flowing melody like...well...like rain. I also enjoyed Blumen Cuban, though it is very repetitive.