Entertainment For Lively Minds
Does anyone have a favourite concept album?
Posted by Five-Centres on 31 August 2010 - 10:25am.
I'm not sure that I do, but the other day I stumbled across Love Is All by Roger Glover on a Dutch compilation and had a huge Proustian rush. Turns out it's from The Butterfly Ball, an album I seem to recall being all over the place in the mid-Seventies and I certainly know this tune. The trippy, animated accompanying video must have been on a loop back then too, as it's brought back all sorts of memories. I didn't realise it was Ronnie James Dio on vocals until yesterday, either.
But was this album ever actually a hit? War Of The Worlds aside, are concept albums ever hits? And what's your favourite, if you have one?
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....implying you like more than one.
And since my immediate reactions was "do I admit to my Alan Parsons/ELP/Rick Wakeman vinyl history" the first answer was going to be no. But then I 'spose The Wall would presumably be up there, and a hit. Dark Side of The Moon shifted a few units - conceptual ? Some of Springsteen's opuses would probably count too.
It has to be
The Decemberists' The Hazards of Love - no contest
Just take back the DVD...
A Grand Don't Come For Free - for me, without question.
A complete masterpiece that blew me away on first hearing it, and still does today. You'd think it wouldn't have aged well, but moments like Blinded By The Lights and Empty Cans are too clever to date.
Tarkus
(fuck where IS my coat??)
You hung it up
behind that big armadillo-tanky thing.
'Tommy' and 'Quadrophenia'
Both are class.
Lots of them
Randy Newman: Good Old Boys
Willie Nelson: Red Headed Stranger
Bruce Springsteen: Tunnel Of Love
David Ackles: American Gothic
Eagles: Desperado
Tom Waits: The Heart of Saturday Night
Joni Mitchell: Hejira
I'm a huge fan of it
but is Hejira a concept album? I've never heard it described as such
Similarly
Tunnel of love is a great album but not a concept one. For it to be a concapt album there needs to be a statement of intent from the artist that that's what it is. Otherwise if left to the listener's interpretation pretty much anything could be a concept album, and this thread would cease to exist, conceptually.
Huh?
This would make criticism a lot easier, wouldn't it? They could have stickers on CDs. "Ham-fisted attempt to appropriate a load of ideas done better by James Brown", "Record in which we give the bass player his own way" or even "Absolute Last Chance With This Record Company".
I don't think Bruce Springsteen would ever use the words "concept album" but I think he would be the first to point out that almost all the songs on Tunnel Of Love were either about the challenges of commitment or growing up and the record had a consistency of mood throughout. It finished with a song about his father who died not long after. His first marriage ended at the same time. He didn't have a sticker announcing it as a concept album but doesn't it say "Thanks, Juli" somewhere on the cover? I think that's a clue.
You don't have to know that all the songs on Hejira (which means "journey") were composed during a solitary car journey from the East Coast to the West and they all worry round the subject of how separate she feels from all the people around her. She identifies with Amelia Earhart who went missing the sky. She finishes with a song where she fantasises about disappearing herself. It's more than the sum of its parts, which you can't say about most records.
They are still not concept albums
Is "Hard day's night" a concept album about young love? Is "Lovesexy" a concept album about shagging? Is "Born to run" a concept album about driving cars? Of course not. Just because an individual listener projects some meaning onto the collection of songs doesn't make it a concept album. A concept album has the intent of providing a coherent narrative on a given subject, eg "The Wall" or "Journey to the centre of the earth" to take an even more hilarious example. As Ian Anderson frequently said, people thought "Aqualung" was a concept album but actually it was just a bunch of songs. What makes a pile of bricks or an unmade bed a piece of art? It is the statement of intent of the artist.
Let me clarify
I didn't say Tunnel Love had a thematic unity because it was a collection of songs about love. I said it was about the challenges of commitment and growing up. Given Springsteen's circumstances at the time - with a successful career established but only recently embarked on a personal life - it would seem obtuse not to note the parallels between the songs and his own life at the time. To further ignore the things he said at the time on stage and in interviews would be to miss the clear signals he was giving out about this personal life representing a greater challenge than his career had done. And when he doesn't talk about himself he talks about "his characters" and the things they are going through.
At the risk of sounding like an English Lit teacher, I should mention these lines, each of which comes from a different song on the record:
"It was there in her arms he let his cautiousness slip away."
"As I watch my bride come down the aisle I pray for the strength to walk like a man."
"Then the lights go out and it's just the three of us, you and me and all that stuff we're so scared of."
"I want to know if it's you I don't trust cause I damn sure don't trust myself."
"When I look at me I don't see the man I wanted to be."
I don't think I'm just an individual listener projecting a meaning on to those songs. I think Tunnel of Love is one of the least inscrutable pop records ever made. Although it doesn't have the kind of novelistic plot people would recognize if it was based on a book it has the unity of a collection of poetry and the emotional arc of a great film.
No wizards or swords, obviously, but it's *about* something.
Hmm
Many people have released what I'd call 'break-up' albums. For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver and Grace & Danger by John Martyn being two examples where the artist's domestic tribulations have dominated the music. However, I don't see these as concept albums. For me, a concept album has be more specific somehow...
No wizards or swords, obviously, but it's *about* something."
Have an UP for that last sentence sir. Excellent! I'm sure some of us here get what your saying and for the record my favourite 'concept' albums are the Sinatra ones from the 50's. When no one sang about demons & wizards!
Where do you draw the line?
If you expand the parameters of what constitutes a concept album you arrive at the point where almost every album ever made is a concept album about the human condition.
concept albums, flagged or otherwise
I'm with David Hepworth on this (an easy position to take, I know). Who says that an artist's statement of intent has to be explicit? David's example of Hejira is bang on. Like so many of the albums quoted, the success lies in the songs having come from a particular time in the artist's life and therefore being more than just a collection of tracks. It's that particularity that means its an album about something more specific than the human condition. For the record, that's what makes that album not just my favourite concept album, but my favourite.
But here's another suggestion for you. The first album by The Imagined Village, possibly my second favourite concept album, was definitely publicised as an album built round an idea. So, now that Weller and Bragg have contributed to a concept album, maybe we can all let go of the wizards and sorcery cliches and be up front about enjoying concept albums in all their finery. If artists in the future are going to persuade us to part with our money to download more than a couple of tracks per year, they may well turn to creating sets of songs that should be heard together and I suspect we will be richer for it.
In that case every album Bruce has ever made
Could be referred to as a concept album, perhaps apart from the first two. If not squeeze-as-many-words-into-every-line-as-possibly-and-make-them-rhyme-and-hope-no one-will-ask-you-what-it-means-and-in-that-case-just-try-to-make-something-up qualifies as a concept as well.
In way though I guess Bruce´s career could be defined as a concept career. When it comes to subject matter he´s been very consistent, at least since Darkness On The Edge Of Town.
First define your terms
"Tunnel of Love" is a collection of songs written when the artist was in a particular mood. That's not the same as an album written with a deliberate intent to have all the songs linked together.
My personal favourite concept albums are
"Days of Future Passed" Moodys
"The Holy Bible" Manics
"If I Only Knew Your Name" Arthur Godfrey
Damn!
you beat me to it with American Gothic.
However, I'm glad I'm not the only one who appreciates the class of this album.
'Ballad of the Ship of State' and 'Midnight Carousel' are peerless. Without meaning to be pretentious, the use of allegory is superb - The title track 'American Gothic' is worthy of anything by Garrison Keillor.
Plus the whole sweep of 'Montana Song' is so poignant.
Great orchestration by Bernie Taupin too.
Ackles used wonderful chord choices as well as writing sensitive and intelligent lyrics.
Phases and Stages
Willie Nelson, 1974, produced by Jerry Wexler at Muscle Shoals. A breakup record, alternating songs from the male and female point of view. Wonderful spare but rich songs, gorgeous playing - including the string arrangements - and minimalist lyrics that are audio verite..
"Well it's a bloody Mary morning / she left me without warnin'
Sometime in the night ...
Just a country boy finding out that the pitfalls of the city /
are extremely real"
The Decemberists -'Hazards Of Love'
Hands down.
Husker Du - Zen
Husker Du - Zen Arcade
Pretty Things - SF Sorrow
?
I didn't know a lot those mentioned were concept albums
Tunnel Of Love? Hejira? Wow.
Tubular Bells? Probably my favourite.
Perils of being a heavy metal superstar...
It's got to be W.A.S.P.'s "Crimson Idol" - a rocking career-killing concept album from Blackie Lawless & Co. about a ginger heavy metal superstar surrounded by booze, dodgy doctors, pills, bad women, a bloke called 'Chainsaw Charlie' (who works for 'the man', i.e Big Record Company), an abusive father (and mother), a red 'axe', a dead brother and, finally, suicide by guitar string during a big solo.
So stick your "Wall" and your "Tommy" up your holes, this is the real stardom gone bad story.
How about...in rough order...
'Songs For Swinging Lovers' Frank Sinatra
'Sgt Pepper' Beatles
'The Beat Goes On' Vanilla Fudge
'SF Sorrow' The Pretty Things
'What's Going On' Marvin Gaye
'Village Green Preservation Society' Kinks
'Tommy' The Who
'Aqualung' Jethro Tull
'The Snow Goose' Camel
'Illinoise' Sufjan Stevens
'Duckworth Lewis Method' That bloke out of Diving Comedy.
I know the history books say
Pepper was the first concept album, but it wasn´t really, was it?
It starts with Sgt Pepper´s Lonely Hearts Club Band introducing Billy Shears singing With A Little Help From My Friends, but then what? it just trails off. Then they were clever enough to have the Pepper reprise by the end which helps to give the feel of a concept.
But apart from those three songs it seems to me that the other songs could have gone anywhere. It doesn´t really tell a story, does it?
I quite agree Ola
but I guess none of the albums I list tell a story as such ( I could never quite figure out what the hell was going on in 'Tommy' for instance...or 'Quadrophenia' for that matter- much as I love them both ). I'm beginning to wonder if one valid definition of a 'concept' album is a collection of tunes which, together, make up some kind of semi-linear 'song cycle'? If so then 'Pepper' would possibly qualify because it presents a tangible 'mood' and state of mind.
But of course there's always the terrifying possibility that I could be completely off my fucking head and so wrong as to be a figure of merriment and ridicule for all eternity.
There is a myth about Pepper that makes it work
Even if there isn´t a concept as such. I think the "mood" you talk about is also a result of the myth of Pepper, rather than the music. We all KNOW it´s a "concept album", because we have read/heard/been told it is, so we hear it as one. It is certainly a very creative album, but no more a song cycle (great phrase, btw) than A Hard Day´s Night or Rubber Soul. If we had been told Rubber Soul was a concept album about coming of age and losing one´s innocence we would have seen it as that. A lot of the songs of Rubber Soul are about those things, but it´s not known for that (Pet Sounds, howvere, is).
One mood and state of mind don´t make a concept album (at least not to me, these are all opinions and not facts, of course). If it did, stuff like Pink Moon, Kind Of Blue and Lovers Rock would be concept albums due to the fact that all the songs pretty much stay in the same state of mind or mood throughout the whole albums.
Tommy and Quadrophenia, however, contains a plot and - even if I, just like you, may not get it - there´s a story to find in there.
I don´t think you´re off your fucking head. Maybe this is mainly a discussion of how we define certain words.
Maybe
We could define a concept album as an album where the artist has had a 'concept'. Ie. "I'm going to write an album about (insert specific theme)". Whereas in the case of an album about heartbreak, say, the artist's personal situation has just naturally filtered into the songs.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I'm still with David
at least as far as Hejira is concerned, old chum. It's always struck me that way, to the extent that I played it incessantly at a particular point in my life for the express reason that I felt I was at some sort of pivotal moment of separation from what had gone before, and it comforted me to feel she'd been there before me and taken notes.
Yes!
If you´re in a certain place emotionally when you write an album it´s gonna show, even if you´re not planning to make an album about, for instance, heartbreak. But it´s not necessarily a concept album just because there are several songs about the same subject. In that case 95 per cent of all albums would be concept albums about love.
But if you set out to make an album about green aliens taking over China while tripping on acid - then it´s a concept album (and you´re Wayne Coyne).
Double headline
Double post
Does it have to tell a story?
The intention was that Sgt Pepper was to be songs on the theme of childhood (it's a thematic thing with concept albums mainly isn't it, not necessarily a narrative) but this didn't really work out once Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane were to be released as singles and could no longer be on the album, and they were the ones written to the theme. So I agree it's a bit of a half-arsed concept suggested and hinted at through artwork and the whole Sgt Pepper idea rather than being properly realised, not a bad end result though!
To be a concept album
I would have to say it needs to tell a story, ie - to have a concept. Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane is a concept single, it tells the story of their childhoods. The songs are linked by memories of growing up in Liverpool.
Best single ever, btw. I´m almost glad EMI forced them to put it out even if it did ruin the original idea for Pepper/what then became Pepper.
.
Yes, but...
It started as a concept album, songs about Northern
childhood... Then the first two songs got released as a single & didn't make it to the album...
I think Macca's later concept that Sgt. Pepper's band was the alter ego of the Fabs kind of works... It's their least Beatley album, they seem to have been freed by the ideas drifting around. It's not totally coherent, but more than just a bunch of tunes...
It started as a concept album, yes
But it didn´t end up as one. I´m sure it freed them creatively and from the pressure of being The Beatles, but more or less every album they had made up to that point - and after that point - sounded completely different anyway. Both George and John are quoted as saying they didn´t really care for the idea of Pepper and his band that Paul kept on talking about during the making of the album. George said "to me we were just making another album" and John said something like "my songs had nothing to do with Pepper. Lucy could have gone anywhere, Mr Kite could have gone anywhere".
What do you mean when you say it´s their least Beatley album? I´m not trying to get you (I realise it sounds as if I am), but what would you say is a more typical album of theirs? Aren´t they all rather different?
(I come in peace and mean no harm)
(I now feel like a very boring professor I had at University. He had the ability to make me fall asleep just by walking past me in the corridor)
Let's ask George Martin
37 secs in
Big Train is brilliant
Really should buy the DVD. On a slightly different topic:
No worries, Ola!
Least Beatley album...
To me the feel of Sgt. Pepper is very different. It's like there is a weird sonic sheen over it, that the other records don't possess. I think that is to do with the time they took to record it, the technical innovation, the big production numbers. Also, thematically the Beatles were moving on... extending the range of their lyrics beyond the usual constraints of rock'n'roll. This starts with Rubber Soul and Revolver, but becomes completely evident on Sgt. Pepper. I guess by 'Beatley' I mean the traditional four-piece band playing and singing together - all their records up to Sgt. Pepper sound like that (even if they weren't recorded like that...) Then Sgt. Pepper doesn't sound like that at all. Obviously The White Album is another creative step again, but I think after that they tried to pull it back, and sound more like a band again. With varying degrees of success and failure, as we know.
"Weird sonic sheen" is a good definition
If by Beatly you mean their early more-or-less-live-in-the-studio sound ,the mop top era - yes, then they were definitely moving somewhere else around the time of Pepper.
I agree that it sounds weird. Even after listening to it regularly for more than twenty years it still sounds strange and all the instruments are slightly out of their usual range played through different filters and such. Also due to all the vari-speeding the instrument´s ring don´t go where it should go. I love the piano (which is apparently four pianos) on Penny Lane and the way they were all recorded with different effects.
Even on Revolver they wanted to make every instrument sound different from how it would sound when played straight (I´m talking sound wise here, fans of pot - go to Rubber Soul). On Pepper they took this idea to its extreme.
I think Abbey Road is probably really their most tecnically accomplished album, even if it doesn´t sound as out there as Pepper. Maybe because the equipment was starting to catch up with their needs. Perhaps this enabled them to go further without having to push so hard.
Loving this side discussion!
I'd never thought about Sergeant Pepper in that way, of being the least "Beatle-y" album (in fact, I would maybe even have said it sounds the MOST Beatle-y, if anything) but it makes sense when you think about it. They did kind of cease being a band. The varispeeded chipmunk vocals on Pepper sound really disembodied: the boys don't sound "present" on their own album.
As a contrast, listen to the lazy stuff they recorded straight after Pepper: It's All Too Much and Magical Mystery Tour and things like that. Without the Pepper production sheen (I think George Martin was getting fed up with them by this point) they are thin and empty sounding, as if they had spent so long relying on studio techniques over the last six months they just forgot how to be a little four piece rock'n'roll band.
They got it back, of course. I love Yer Blues and Dig A Pony, for the very reason that you can hear the same little four piece rock'n'roll band again.
Great that you are enjoying this little diversion...
Sgt. Pepper was the first Fabs record I owned (aged 21, almost 20 years ago...) to me it *was* The Beatles... I then spent several years catching up... I loved 'Revolver' as a kid and got back into that... the rest was all news to me... That's probably why Sgt. Pepper stands out... but I think it occupies its own space, anyway. My dear favourites are... Sgt. Pepper, Revolver and Rubber Soul. Abbey Road is special too.
It was my first too
So I always think of it fondly.
Favourite track? Nothing on earth sounds like A Day In The Life. It's a spectacular achievement. Great songwriting, great concept, great production, great structure, great singing, great drumming: everyone is working at the top of their game. (Though I suppose the only one who wasn't involved in the song was George Harrison.)
Like this side discussion too - Beatle nerding are always fun
In its sound, Pepper may be the lest Beatley. But in attitude it may be the most Beatley. Because with the technology they had it wasn´t really possible to pull it off, but they did anyway. That I think says a lot about them. "No, we can´t do that. Sorry, boys". "Well, then let´s go. You can fix that, George".
Playing it safe was never an option.
Pepper was my favourite for a long time. Then Rubber Soul was number one and now Revolver. I bought them all around 10-12. I probably expected ALL music to be that good. They really ruined it for me.
A Day In The Life would have to be my favourite track. Never heard anything like it really. And it´s certainly not for lack of searching.
As for Let It Be I have to say the idea was better than the result. But The Beatles with a limp is still better than most bands at full speed.
Sergeant pepper
I am a massive fan of the Beatles, & I love Sergeant Peppers to bits, but I am with you Ola.
I have never seen it as a concept album. To me, (& this is going to sound daft), the only link between the songs is that they are all sound totally different from one another.
I think if strawberry fields & penny Lane had have been on it, & perhaps fixing a hole & Mister kite were dropped, then maybe a loose theme of childhood / disillusionment could be argued, but as it is ?? I dont think so.
That´s a great link
"The only link between the songs is that they are all sound totally different from one another."
Which is true. But to support your theory - Mr Kite´s link to childhood would be that a circus is very much a childhood thing. Can´t find a childhood link in Fixing A Hole, though. Apart from "taking some time for a number of things that weren´t important yesterday" which could be interpreted as a referrence to things you have to do as a grown up that wasn´t part of your childhood. Renovating houses and paying bills perhaps? But now I´m really shoehorning. I just don´t want to get rid of Fixing A Hole. Love the effortless melody and that bass, you see.
The Kinks – We Are The Village Green Preservation Society…
It has taken me ages (probably about 15 years to be precise) to really get into this album. But just recently a whole load of the tracks have suddenly started to make sense (current faves are Phenomenal Cat, I Remember Walter and The Village Green)…
I think my conversion may be something to do with my recent move from Islington to Hertfordshire which has brought me a bit closer to the old England which forms this albums subject matter
This is a truly great album and proof that they were more than a singles band. Also this is a far more subtle and clever effort than any of the many lumpen concept affairs by contemporaries, The Who.
My favourite album by one of my favourite bands
Glad to hear you´re finally "getting" it.
Yes, "Village Green" is a superb record,
but for me, the Kinks managed to make a concept album that was even more brilliant than VGPS.
I refer, of course to the mighty "Arthur, or the Decline & Fall of the British Empire"
It was the soundtrack to a Granada Television play about a carpet-layer that, in the end, was never made.
Shangri-La..
.has to be in my Kinks all-time top 5 tunes. But I never got the album as a whole – that said its been some years since I heard it last so I think its time to give it another spin.
Shangri-La...
... has to be in my Kinks all-time top 1! Fantastic structure, great build-up from the folky plucking to great stonking Who style acoustic strums in the last section. And doesn't outstay its welcome.
..sadly Arthur is not on Spotify...
..but there is a Kinks anthology (Picture Book) which has Driving and Some Mothers Son (as well as the better known Shangri-La and Victoria). Both great tunes!
Just thought I'd mention a few recent one's.
Hadestown - Anais Mitchell
The Foundling - Mary Gauthier
The Life of Birds - David Rotheray.
Ogdens Nut Gone Flake
Always brings a smile to my face.
My favourite piece of vinyl
It's only the Castle reissue, but full circular original package.
A beautiful thing bought in Camden Lock years ago.
Taped it immediately and then bought it on CD to preserve its beauty as a package.
Now only used to be marvelled at like a safety blanket in times of existential crisis.
No one for Garth Brooks'
Chris Gaines foray? Thought not.
Flash Fearless versus The Zorg Women Parts 5 & 6
Vocalists on tracks include...
Alice Cooper, Jim Dandy, Elkie Brooks, Maddy Pryor, etc.
Musicians involved include...
John Entwistle, Carmine Appice, Nicky Hopkins, Bill Bruford, Kenny Jones, Justin Hayward, Eddie Jobson, Keith Moon, Leslie Duncan, etc.
Brilliant!
It came with a free comic book drawn by the bloke who did the Tom Sharp covers and the Ogri cartoon in "Bike" mag. Paul Sample? Incidentally the solo on "I'm flash" is by Robert Johnson (not that one) whose other claim to fame was playing the wah wah guitar part on "Theme from Shaft" (Heppo - this was a famous concept album about policemen).
Green Day
Green Day did pretty well out of American Idiot, which probably counts as a concept album..
Janelle Morae should do well with ArchAndroid.
Otherwise:
Revolutions - Jean-Michel Jarre
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - Genesis
Just about all the Kraftwerk albums
Ein kleines bisschen horrorschau by Die Toten Hosen. Might not have done too well over here but sold well in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Iron Maiden´s
Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son. One of my all time favourite albums.
Concept Album
The Wall - Pink Floyd
Tommy - The Who
Quadrophenia - The Who
Village Green Preservation Society - Kinks
Ogdens Nut Gone Flake - Small Faces
Misplaced Childhood - Marillion
The Jam's Setting Sons apparently started life as a Concept Album (Tracks 2 to 6 (Thick As Thieves, Private Hell, Little Boy Soldiers, Wasteland & Burning Sky were apparently 'salvaged' from the idea and the remaining tracks added to create possibly the best album of 1979)
Songs For Drella.
By Lou Reed and John Cale.
One of my favourite albums, full stop.
Sgt Pepper: the director's cut
It's generally agreed that it was a mistake to let Parlophone have 'Penny Lane' & 'Strawberry Fields' early rather than save them for Sgt Pepper. It would have been a much more substantial album rather than the "day-glo tombstone" (Marcus) it was sometimes accused of being in the late 70s, when the Fabs' stock was at its lowest.
My questions for the Massive are: if Sgt Pepper was able to be reissued the way it was meant to be (Naked, so to speak), how would you reorder it? What would go? Any room there for 'Baby She's a Rich Man'?
Given that
PL and SFF, Baby You're A Rich Man and sundry other great cuts adorn the 'Magical Mystery Tour' LP I'm quite happy to let Sgt. Pepper rest as is.
My hippie uncle claimed that 'Magical Mystery Tour' was the Fabs best record... For years I thought he was a drug-addled fool, but now I'm beginning to see things his way.
Penny Lane v Magical Mystery Tour
I never owned the Magical Mystery Tour LP until a few months ago, because I already had the original Parlophone single from early 1967 (bought by older siblings at the time) and the original Magical Mystery Tour EP (still available in NZ in the mid 1970s). The US album always looked like a cash-in.
So the role of PL/SF on MMT isn't something that occurred to me. I was hugely disappointed by the remastering of the recent reissued MMT album (which, funnily, I bought for those tracks, not being on Past Masters).
The remastered edition really seemed to show up the limitations of the cobbled-together 4-track tape machines and all that loss of generation as parts got bounced down.
In the Beatles canon, to me Magical Mystery Tour has always seemed just a rung or two above the soundtrack itmes on the original Yellow Submarine album ... or Oldies But Goodies.
Magical Mystery Tour would be the best Beatles Album...
...IF it was a proper album (and maybe given an extra track from the era - say "Only a Northern Song").
I am biased - the original EP, along with the Strawberry Fields / Penny Lane singles were the first Beatles records I ever sat down and listened to. For me there is a magical quality to all of their records from 1967. I also think that it boasts four killer tracks (Fields, Lane, Walrus and Fool) compared to Pepper's two (Day in the life and She's Leaving Home). I am also a staunch defender of some of its less celebrated moments - Flying and Blue Jay Way are unique mood pieces like nothing else around at the time, while Your Mother Should Know picks up the template of When I'm Sixty-Four but beats that song hands down for emotional impact...
...its definately their most consistent collection of songs
Magical mystery tour
I remember MMT as a double EP, so to me, it doesnt count as a bona fide Fabs album as such. However, anything with "i am the walrus" on is OK with me.
Only they could put out Walrus, Revolution & Come together as B sides,& stuff like Norwegian wood, Youve got to hide your love away & 8 Days a week as album "filler".
Spirit - 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus
The songs have always seemed 'linked' to me, but maybe I'm reading too much into it. Great album though.
Here's an audio sample:-
I too was thinking of Spirit
but then again I was also thinking of The Adventures of Panama Red by The New Riders of the Purple Sage and Olias of Sunhillow by Jon Anderson.
Black Love
I've said it before on here and here goes again, "Black Love"-The Afghan Whigs.
Good call
- a fantastic album.
In Search of the Lost Chord
I think all concept albums are flawed in some way, except for maybe Dark Side of the Moon. But this early Moody Blues mellotron-heavy concept is a favourite of mine
No love here for
Thick as a Brick? - it's the concept of a spoof of a concept, I think. I also am far too fond of Marillion's "Clutching at Straws" which I'm assuming is a concept, rather than a thematic collection of songs.
Thick as a brick
Love it. Brilliant, and as you say a spoof, written by Ian Anderson as a ripost to those who said Aqualung was a concept album. The remastered CD has an interview with him and a few other Tulls talking about it which is an entertaining listen. Apparently it took longer to design the sleeve than it did to record the music.
(Younger readers - the sleeve was a fully featured spoof of a 16 page local newspaper...)
Yep, I love "Thick as a Brick" ...
... apart from that rather yucky line about 'sperm in the gutter.' Eeuwww.
'Brick all the way.
'Brick all the way. Listening to it now. The "where the hell was Biggles" movement is my favourite, I love that bassline.
I've always had a soft spot for Bryan Adams "Reckless"
which may not have been as high falutin' as a concept album, but had a definite narrative arc and theme - young man fancy free (sex), through relationship (sex), marriage (no sex?), affair (sex), breakup and divorce (throwing the pottery and lawyers at 20 paces). What realism eh? With an obligatory soppy ballad that became the dominant thread of his career shortly thereafter and caused a disconnect for me that lasts to this day.
The Fall - I Am Kurious Oranj
1988 album to soundtrack a ballet by Michael Clark, and a definite highlight from The Fall's back catalogue.
Includes a terrific reworking of William Blake's "Jerusalem".
Agreed
Big New Prinz would be a good shout for the Track 1 Side 1 topic.
Tales From the Turnpike House
Saint Etienne put out this excellent album which is about a real block of flats in Islington. I have to admit to walking round the area while listening to it on my ipod. Most enjoyable and a very underrated album.
Have an arrow for that suggestion...
A lovely record. Must go and dig it out!
Here it is - Turnpike House
So no fans of
Styx then ? Kilroy Was Here ?
eh...no, me neither.
Apart from laughing everytime I hear Domo Arigato Mr Roboto.
Demon............The Plague.
Honest. The title track is ace.
Please. Someone else out there rate it?
What!? No Serge....?
Surely Gainsbourg's "Histoire de Melody Nelson" is the greatest French man knocks attractive but slightly dubious of age English girl off her bicycle, nurtures her back to health falls in love then when she flees back to the UK he evokes an age old voodoo cult to bring her plane back to France but it unfortunately crashes and worryingly young English girl dies leaving French man forlorn and heartbroken concept album of all time?
Here's the first track:
I have a £25 iTunes voucher
burning a hole in my (metaphorical and virtual) pocket. Most of it earmarked for aural delights, care to recommend a Serge album for the rest?
Comic Strip
Yet another of his finest hours.
I'd also go for "Comic Strip", it's a great compilation.
Otherwise "Initials B.B." or "Bonnie & Clyde" with Brigitte Bardot. His reggae album "Aux Armes Etc" is surprisingly good, featuring Sly & Robbie and works really well. His first album "Du chant a la une" is good, more of the classic French chanson style.
Avoid "Love On The Beat" (awful 80's production) and "Rock Around The Bunker" - kind of Mel Brooks Springtime For Hitler set to a plodding mock rocknroll sound.
But my favourite, and recommendation, would be the above mentioned "Histoire de Melodie Nelson", druggy, psychedelic and atmospheric - you like Charlotte Gainsbourg don't you Joe, think of her track "5:55", that and most of Air's ouput and you've got an idea of the feel of the album.
Thank you both
Serge is someone I've been meaning to get into for a while - my Francophilia seems to be growing by the week (currently working through the boxset of Spiral and attempting - and failing - to ignore the subtitles).
I tend to steer away from compilations where possible, so think I'll go for Histoire de Melodie Nelson. I'll let you know how I get on next week!
If you can afford both - go for...
"Comic Strip" (despite it being a compilation) and "Melodie Nelson" you won't regret it!
If you are not in any way satisfied with your purchases I shall reimburse the equivalent total cost in beer next Friday.
Mind you with the price of albums these days against the price of beer in London it might just stretch to half a bitter shandy.
The Point by Nilsson
That gets my vote. The concept being; to tell a children's story - of a boy without a pointy head - using songs and narration. I went through a 'stage' of always listening to the album in the early hours, following a heavy evening on the sauce. The perfect wind down album. I'm sure kids love it too, though!
The other great 'chronological narrative' concept album has to be Hazards of Love.
G... G for Germany
Captain Lockheed & the Starfighters - superb.
"Concept album" is a bit broad, isn't it? The original "concepts" (Who, Pretties, Moodies) called themselves "Rock Operas", which is a wonderful conceit. And if "Jerry Springer" is an opera, so's Bob Calvert!
His follow ups were concepts too
Lucky Lief and the Longships and Hype.
no mention of Tales from Topographic Oceans yet?
That bloke from E7
Plan B - The Defamation of Strickland Banks. I know it's far from Word approved but I like it.
I approve of it
It was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the topic title. Also The Liberty of Norton Folgate by Madness.
Strickland banks
Album of the year in my ears.
Cathal Coughlan
Foburg.
Awesome.
And The Lamb...
Lies Down...
On Broa-a-oadway!
(Totally bonkers) story? Check.
Brilliant music? Check.
Slubberdegullions on squeaky feet? Check.
Gabriel-era Genesis at their finest.
"Three vermilion snakes of female face..."
As a callow youth, many decades ago, I loved "The Lamb", which was, in effect, the first Peter Gabriel solo album. I couldn't make head nor tail of the strange story set out in such detail aross the wonderful gatefold sleeve. But I loved the music. "Progressive rock" was supposed to be pompous, overblown and pretentious, but these songs sounded taut, driven and wonderfully emotional. No wonder Jeff Buckley chose to sing one of them for his final album.
I almost don't dare to play "The Lamb" nowadays, for fear that I might find it to be rubbish - that somehow time has made me think differently of it.
A friend of mine saw Genesis performing "The Lamb" in its entirely on their tour to promote the album. I'll be forever envious of him.
It's not rubbish
but it is my least played Genesis album, at the time I adored it. The live version on Archive vol.1 bores the erse off me... Zzzzzz
hmmmm, not convinced
don't get me wrong, I'm a Gabriel era fan, but I think you were closer to the mark with "pompous, overblown and pretentious" in relation to the Lamb, to which I would add "boring". As a single album it could rightly have been held up as a classic. I love the first two sides and can 'sing' most of the lyrics. But there's too much aimless noodling on the second half. A little aimless noodling I can handle...
Utterly convinced
For me it remains the best thing that they ever did.
Bowie : Outside
Well, I think its a concept album; at the very least its "a non-linear Gothic Drama Hyper-Cycle"! But I loves it.
BR
FT
Room for a small one?
Maybe not quite an album but side two (remember those?) of Hounds of Love, aka "The Seventh Wave" gets my vote. A proper song cycle, a unifying idea, a narrative thread and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Fairport Conception?
A mention in passing for Fairport's Babbacombe Lee is surely in order here?
Not necessarily their finest moment but there was definitely a concept there and some of the songs have resurfaced on recent tours and work quite well as a set piece in concert.
TFTO
Much maligned and an album that splits the Yes faithful in two, but I for one love it. Sure it meanders in places, is obtuse in others, but it has something that connects if you are in the right frame of mind. It doesn't make any sense, but Yes lyrics never do, but a concept based on a footnote in an Autobiography of a Yogi is about as mad as a concept can get. The album suffers because of Rick's many amusing but disparaging anecdotes, and the insanity of it's gestation (recorded in the country with keyboards on straw bales, mite infestations in the circuitry, mechanical cows adding to the vibe, and no doubt a few mushrooms in the omelettes). An album that both defines prog yet provides the prog detractor with all the ammunition he requires.
Other honourable mentions:
Camel - The Snow Goose
Gong - Flying Teapot Trilogy
Gentle Giant - Three Friends
Decemberists - Hazards Of Love
Virginia Astley - From Gardens Where We Feel Secure
Lou Reed's Berlin surely, surely
On so many fronts.
The sheer confronting bleak dark nature of the story.
The contrast to the sugar of its predecessor Transformer.
The list of musicians- hunter, wagner, anynsley dunbar,tony levin, stevie winwood bruce of the jack variety et al
The trial of its production and the waste it laid to Bob Ezrin in its making
The controversy over how the crying kids came top pass in The Kids.
And some pretty good songs too boot. Songs that stand the test of time -Caroline Says, Sad Song, How Do you Think It Feels . Heck it even spawned the name of a band- the Waterboys I believe
I rest my case.
Concepts
Yeah. I'd have to go with that.
First album I ever bought aged 13. I only had enough moolah to buy one LP and it was a toss up between Berlin or something by Queen. Being a fan of Bowie, I had heard of Reed but knew nothing much about his ouvre. You can imagine how the sheer bleakness of Berlin effected my teenage mind. Those screaming kids! Learned to love it though. "Caroline says" is still my favourite track.
Magic and Loss - does that count
New York
Songs for Drella - probably the most affecting concept album I've ever heard
Desperado -Eagles
Jordan-the comeback -Prefabs
Quadrophenia -the Who
Histoire de Melody Nelson
Anybody for Olias of Sunhillow!?
Haven't listened to it in years. I presume it's still a stinker. Stuck in the attic along with my unlistened-to "Tales of Topographical Oceans"- grew out of Yes about two days after I bought it.
Evelyn Evelyn
by Evelyn Evelyn is my favourite album of the year so far. It's by Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley performing as conjoined sisters -it is darkly comic, moving, depressing and uplifting and ends with - of course - a cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart!
any votes for Millie
any votes for Millie Jackson's Caught Up?
good shout
And of course, Marvin Gaye What's Going On?
If you want a Marvin Gaye concept album
there is surely none better than "Here My Dear"...
Which reminds me - Durutti Column "Paean To Wilson"
Vini Reilly's tribute to Tony Wilson, which includes a What's Going On sample.
A beautiful album.
Best concept album packaging
Has to be Dave Greenslade's The Pentateuch of the Cosmogony.
The music is awful.
The Pentateuch of the Cosmogony
was a major inspiration for 70s Dorset based Prog Rockists - Ozymandias the Hellebore's "The Excavation of The Underling KIng of Pantheocrates".
Yeah but
it was a rip-off of the Aspidistra hatstand's 'lower case" album
any fule noe that!
Yeah but
it was a rip-off of the Aspidistra hatstand's 'lower case" album
any fule kno that!
some more suggestions
Not seen any of these mentioned yet?
Do these qualify as concept albums?
Requiem for an Almost Lady - Lee Hazlewood
69 Love Songs - Magnetic Fields
North - Elvis Costello
Murder Ballads - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
24-Carat Black - "Ghetto: Misfortune's Wealth" (Stax, 1973)
This discussion about concept albums over the past few days has been rather timely, because what should drop through my letter box the other day from that nice Mr Amazon, but this:
24-Carat Black - "Ghetto: Misfortune's Wealth"
Ever heard of it? No, neither had I, until I read the piece on the 70 Greatest Soul Albums of the 70s recently in M*j* Magazine. I decided to take a chance on it.
It was the brainchild of an arranger for Stax called Dale Warren, who gathered a bunch of Stax performers together in 1973 to perform his suite of pieces on life and troubles in the American inner city. There's a lovely vibe to it all: wearied, but supremely soulful, rootsy and funky. And I 'd say that it's a more cohesive "concept album" than, say, "What's Going On", much as I love the Marvin Gaye record.
Anyway, if you like the early 70s social consciousness music of Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye, this is well worth investigating.
Mr Mick
Not my favourite, but a truly bizarre concept album. Rather sad old man wanders to rubbish dump. Finds many things that have been thrown away and becomes a celebrity. You could read too much into it and take it as a 30 year old comment on the noughties shallow celebrity culture. Check out the lyrics to Fish in a Glass. The more recent reissue is more coherent than the record company butchered original.
Who dat
by then ;-}
Oh really...
Lest we forget.....
The rise & fall of Ziggy Stardust & the spiders from mars.
The soundtrack to my teenage years.
Absolutely fantastic IMHO.
and anyone mentioned.....
I always loved Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Rick Wakeman's best (yes I know...it's all relative). It got me through A Level Geology and led to a career is erm...well IT to be honest.
Retrospective Planning Permission in the inverted city of Rythhn
In 1995 Anal C**t broke fresh conceptual ground with the release of their EP Howard is Bald - A nine track record which, over the course of seven minutes, explored the follicly-challenged scalp of former Earache Records employee Howard Wulkan.
The overture - Howard is Bald - clocks in at 1 minute 51 seconds and is something of a departure for a band whose speciality is 20 second blasts of noise and near-indecipherable, ultra offensive lyrics. Here members of Anal C**t can be heard bellowing “HOWARD IS BALD!” over Walter Murphy and The Big Apple Band’s disco version of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. At one point someone begins to spell out the word ‘bald’ only give up after the “L”. By the end of the song the listener is left in no doubt that Howard has “got no f***ing hair.”
Bald to the Bone is pared-down, front porch blues, where we learn that Wulkan has a goatee, possibly to compensate for his lack of hair elsewhere.
The unquestionable highlight of the album is a spoken word piece titled: A Conversation With Howard Wulkan, in which one band member reels off a series of non-sequiturs while another, taking on the role of Howard Wulkan, responds by laughing like a howler monkey. Sample lyric:
“Hey Howard, I was breathing oxygen today.”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
“Howard, I was wondering if you had like, that Napalm Death album?”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
OH, YOU GUYS ARE INSANE!
YOU GUYS ARE CRAZY!”
Ballad of Baldness is another low-key blues number with Seth Putnam adopting the strained, balls-in-a-vice falsetto that he would later use to explore his sensitive side on the Anal C**t album Picnic of Love (another concept record exploring themes such as gender equality, environmentalism and the importance of sexual abstinence before marriage). It ends with a frenetic one second tom-tom solo.
Howard Is Bald (acoustic and jazz versions) are both dispatched within 14 seconds . The latter piece resembles the beginnings of a Gilberto Gil song, before the tropical vibes are dashed by Putnam yelling “He’s f***ing bald!”
Night on Bald Mountain introduces a sacrificial tribal chant (naturally dwelling on the baldness of Howard Wulkan) to David Shire’s disco reworking of Modest Mussorgsky’s dramatic orchestral movement. This turns out to be the first in a suite of songs (followed by If I Can’t Have Hair and You Should Be Balding) in which lyrics are improvised over tracks from The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, that can be heard playing on a stereo system in the background.
The album concludes with Howard Wulkan (Wesley Willis Version). Performed by schizophrenic busker Willis, over cheesy organ backing, it ends enigmatically with the words:
“ I'm not only the hair club president,
I'm also a client.”
Since its low-key release Howard is Bald has gained a cult following, with fans of the record numbering in the tens or possibly even hundreds. Its subject has acquired a level of internet fame that most of us can only dream of. The Howard Wulkan Appreciation Club on facebook currently boasts an impressive 36 members.
Was away when this blog was posted
Reading through it I am quite surprised that there is no mention of The Alchemist by Home. The album was released in the mid seventies when concept albums were popular. I think it compares favourably with the Decembrists Hazards of Love which I have difficulty in connecting with despite the brilliance of their earlier release The Crane wife.
The Snow Goose by Camel and The Tain by Horslips are other great concept albums released in the same era.However my favourite concept album is Hotwalker by Tom Russell which is a superb chronicle of early sixties forgotten America with recorded contributions by Carnies, midgets, circus freaks and beat poets.It is lovingly compiled and curated by Tom Russell and despite his brilliant conventional albums I would imagine this one was a real labour of love.
The Alchemist by Home.
I too was away and was about to mention The Alchemist by Home... but you beat me to it.
Just to bring things bang up to date...
how about The Suburbs by Arcade Fire? It hasn't been off my gramaphone for a couple of weeks now & I still can't get enough of it.
Suburban War, Modern Man, Rococo & City With no Children are total highlights amongst a beautifully fluid set.
Script for a Jesters Tear??
brings me back to my schooldays
Jawohl
Kraftwerk - Autobahn, Trans Europe Express, Computerworld.
The Decemberists
The Decemberists - Hazards Of Love
The Residents - Eskimo
All those replies
and no-one has mentioned Emmylou Harris and her concept album The Ballad Of Sally Rose. Not her best, but some pretty good songs there too. Based roughly around her relationship with Gram Parsons.
Emmylou was also involved in a concept album titled The Legend of Jesse James produced by her ex husband Paul Kennerley. All I've ever heard from it is Wish We Were Back In Missouri which appears on the Songbird anthology. It's a superb song. If the rest of the album was anywhere near as good it is a real lost gem.
Does anyone recall the multi artist concept All This And World War Two? I seem to recall it somehow told the story of WWII through Beatles' songs. All I ever heard was an awful version of Get Back by Rod Stewart.
There was another multi artist concept in the mid 70s called something like White Mansions which was apparently about the American Civil War. Eric Clapton may have played on it. I never heard anything from it. Paul Kennerley may have been involved in it too.
White Mansions
Yes, I've got it on vinyl. Good stuff - countryish, Waylon Jennings, Emmylou etc - came with a splendid 12" book of black and white photos from the Civil War. Spooky.
Paul Parrish... The Forest of My Mind
Lost classic from about '67 - loosely about taking a walk in the forest of his (erm) mind... a vocal so twee it makes Donovan sound like Lemmy.
Hi, I'm Troy McClure...
... you may remember me from great Word discussion threads like "Does anyone have a favourite concept album?" or "I am defrosting my fridge"...
;-)