Entertainment For Lively Minds
The most valid "concept:" album?
The "Concept album". As descriptions go, it's pretty meaningless, but what about the examples in the genre? Which one is truest to the definition? (for sake of argument, an album with a coherent theme, be it melodic or narrative)
Let's look a a few examples - Sgt. Pepper's LHCB . Actually, I'm at a loss to see what the concept is on this daddy of the genre. Is it a "Band within a band" performing some wildly disparate songs in the style of the Beatles? Or is it just a bunch of songs bookended by an intro and a reprise. It sounds like there was a half-baked idea here which needed to stay in the oven a bit longer.
Then there's Tommy. We have re-occurring melody and themes, but the narrative is, well, rather baffling if you take a small stride back and look at it objectively. Perhaps The Who Sell Out is a better example - at least the Pirate Radio theme means that any song can work, being unified by the fake snippets, though where is the DJ? Quadrophrenia may be the most considered concept from The Who, though again, Townshend's concept whistles over my head with a sort of "thrripp" noise.
Tull's Aqualung? Ok, there's the eponymous tramp, who pops up in two songs, but he doesn't really bring much to the party on side two. Lamb Lies Down on Broadway? I genuinely have no idea whether this is coherent or not. I'm far too dim to grasp what's going on, though it does seem to run out of steam somewhat rather badly on disk two.
Dark Side of the Moon? I believe it's a meditation on the pressures of life, but where do "Any Colour you like", "Brain Damage" and "Great Gig in the Sky" fit in?
I was going to go for Clutching at Straws by Marillion as the "best fit" in my collection, but listening to (as the inspiration for this post), I could pick a few holes there two.
So, the precis, for those who haven't waded through all the dribble above. Which album best meets the definition "concept". not your favourite (though I'd be interested to hear those too)
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Abba's 'The Visitors'?
I've never heard the whole record, but isn't it all about feeling shit after a divorce etc?
Off the top of my head
"The Wall" , "Animals" and "The Final Cut"- Pink Floyd
"Go" - Patrick Moraz. I think PM had ambitions to make this into a movie at the time. Didn't happen.
"Deloused in the Comatorium", "Francis the Mute" - The Mars Volta. As far as I know, TMV set out to make concept albums, certainly with their first two.
And didn't Sham 69 attempt one?
I can only speak for the Floyd ones...
Animals holds up pretty well, though I'm never sure who is supposed to be singing the bookend tracks - two slightly above-average Sheep, perhaps?
The Wall also works pretty well until "Bring the Boys back home" and "Vera" which have never struck me (not that I've actually though about it until now) as a tremendously effective way of evoking a lost childhood - they seem sentiments more appropriate for Pink's Mother's generation. "Comfortably Numb" does the job more than adequately.
Final Cut might be the strongest candidate from the Floyd catalogue, though it's docked a point for going all apocalyptic with the last track.
The Kinks Are
the Village Green Preservation Society has an overall theme, and is my favorite of the genre.
Are we counting albums like
Camel's "Snow Goose" or Bo Hansson's "Lord Of The Rings" and "Watership Down" essays?
And also
Rick Wakeman's various Journeys To The Centre Of Somewhere And Back Again With A Choir.
Oh, oh, oh. The Eight Wives Of Henry VI.
etc.
Anything goes...
...I guess "War of the Worlds" must be high up there.
I think the full title was
"Journeys To The Centre Of Somewhere And Back Again With A Choir (On Ice)."
The songs on Badly Drawn Boy's "The Hour of Bewilderbeast"
mapped out the different stages of a relationship from start to finish - surely this counts as a concept album?
And Spearmint did the same
on "A Different Lifetime" which was released at around the same time - I'm not sure which album came first.
I'd also suggest Ziggy Stardust as the most "concept-y" album I own as it tells a proper story, and surely the Dame must earn bonus points for performing in character as part of the concept.
Funnily enough
Ziggy was going to be one of my examples as a half-assed concept which doesn't pay further examination :-) So we start off with "5 Years" - OK, I can buy that - sets the scene that the planet is going to explode or something. Good start, but then the conceit is not referenced again, as perhaps it morphs into a rock star, who may or may not be an alien ("Star Man") and gets eaten up by his own hedonism ("Moonage Daydream") - of course, these tracks are in the wrong order if this is the case.
Then from nowhere, we have "It Ain't Easy" which just doesn't fit other than sonically. Then we have a good run with "Lady Stardust", "Star" and "Hang on to yourself", and the concept is explained with "Ziggy Stardust". Then, along comes "Suffragette City" - what's that all about, and shouldn't it have been a bit earlier on?
Can't argue with "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" though. Do we still have 5 years at this point?
I fully accept that I may have:-
a) ...thought about this too deeply
b) ...not thought about it enough
Disclaimer. I am a huge Bowie fan and would make the claim for Diamond Dogs as his best concept, or possibly 1. Outside.
I'm going to go with
option a) in your case and option b) in my case :-)
1984
Yes I'd agree Diamond dogs is Bowies best concept album.
Great minds, etc.
Never heard the Spearmint album, though - is it any cop?
*nods vigorously*
It's twee-ish indiepop, so it depends on your tolerance for winsome jingle jangly-ness really (I love it). I'd say the lyrics are more explicit and obvious than "The Hour of Bewilderbeast" and the songs are divided into two halves: part one is the meeting and falling head-over-heels phase, part two is about when it all goes wrong.
Also: it features the corking "Scottish Pop", which is a great list song that namechecks (among others) Stephen from the Pastels, Edwyn Collins and Douglas Stewart from the BMX Bandits.
Good to see a shout-out to Spearmint
The "A Week Away" set also seems to be a concept album of sorts, and "Sweeping The Nation" is a brilliant lost classic. Highly recommended for all fans of things both jingly and jangly.
A Different Lifetime
Excellent album!!
"You can call me a plageristic English fop, but when i'm with you I feel i'm listening to...Scottish pop"
More Tull
Ian Anderson always said "Aqualung" wasn't a concept album, but the follow up, "Thick as a brick" certainly was, the concept being a fictional poem supposedly written by a 13 year old boy. And fantastic it is too. The remaster includes an interview with IA and band members which is most entertaining in a podcasty kind of way.
Fantastic indeed...
...and the concept extends to the packaging AND there's the overall concept that it's a joke at the expense of other, more po-faced concepts - we may have a winner!
Johann Johannsson's "IBM1401
Johann Johannsson's "IBM1401 - A user's manual" is a concept album of modern classical/electronic music where the manual of the titular machine is set to music (literally - a lot of it is assembly instructions and advice), and then, in the final track, the machine comes to life and sings the final track.
I'm not claiming it's the best, but's it's absolutely great.
Here's the final track, with the computer singing:
Rog loved a concept
Even after Floyd, there was "Radio KAOS" - the story of wheelchair bound Billy and his brother, and the radio station that broadcast their story. The tour that followed was set up as a Radio KAOS special, a concert staged as a radio show.
Then there was "The Pros & Cons Of Hitch-hiking", a dream sequence taking place in real time, ostensibly about a mid-life crisis, much like all the rest of Waters' stuff. Again the our that followed featured the album played in its entirety, a multi-media, if you will, rocktacular.
They do follow a storyline pretty much start to finish, so in that sense, they're both coherent concept albums. Whether they're any good or not is another question.
I have a soft spot for Amused to Death
Next to
the geraniums?
Seconded
Of the 3 Roger Waters solo albums, it's the best thought out, and possibly even the most tuneful (!)
Piddle In Perspex
Music From The Body is the most coherent of all of Waters's albums, I contend. Is it any good? Absolutely: if your head is still in 1970.
I think Ron Geesin
would have a pretty stringent opinion on the rectitude of your description of it as one of "Water's albums".
I think Ron Geesin
would have a pretty stringent opinion about the rectitude of your describing it as one of "Water's albums".
Frank Sinatra - In The Wee Small Hours (1955!)
A lovelorn collection of ballads, recorded when he was broken-hearted over Ava Gardner. It's a great record. I think it sets the standard high too - it's a high-concept concept album!
Also recommended - k d lang - Drag. Splendid collection of songs about smoking, including The Air That I Breathe and Smoke Rings, beautifully executed.
Hip hop concept albums anyone?
I can only think of the first two De La Soul albums, where the concepts - "here are some moderately amusing comedy bits we have inserted between random tracks" - are pretty half-baked. But I imagine there must be loads of more suitable candidates that the Word Massive can recommend.
I have a *very* limited knowledge of hip-hop...
...But I do have "Dr Octagonecologyst" by Dr Octagon, which, in as far as I can tell, has the premise of a horny alien who works as a gynecologist. In terms of high concept, it's right up there, so to speak.
Tony Starks Enterprises
Fishcale by Ghostface Killah comes pretty close - you could certainly thread about half of it into the concept.
It's a really great record though.
As I read this....
...I am listening to Hazards Of Love by The Decemberists, which has got to be the most recent example of the genre. Lovers, lycanthropes and murderers. As much a musical as a concept album.
Steve Earle
Jerusalem....concept - we're all going to hell in a handcart.
The Revolution Starts Now....concept - get the Bush Administration out of the White House.
Love him or loathe him, his political rants ring true right now.
Randy Newman - Good Old Boys....concept - the American South viewed from the American North.
Good Old Boys
Are you sure you´ve listened to it? It´s the South viewed from the South.
Start at Side 1 Track 1
"Last night I saw Lester Maddox on the TV,
With some smart assed New York Jew...."
The persepective doesn´t change.
Of course I haven't listened to it.
I simply posted my opinion of the concept of the record simply by looking at the picture on the cover.
He's not singing "we're rednecks, rednecks, we don't know our ass from a hole in the ground" as an anthem. He's saying - you northerners all think we're rednecks because of the way we treat the black man, but you're no better because of the slums you keep him in.
Which is
the south viewed from the south.
er...
isn't it a southerner commenting on the North's view of the south - I haven't heard it, I'm just stirring the pot. I know Newman is from the West coast so that probably just confuses the issue a little more.
Quite simply,
it's someone with a brain, from wherever, commenting on those, whoever and wherever they are, with no understanding of history or place and who express a view of the south, narrow and simplistic, that is informed only by their interpretation of the attitudes of those with little brain who live in the area under discussion; the south.
Rednecks was written...
..(as the lyrics tell you)after Lester Maddox(Governor of Georgia)appeared on the Dick Cavett show(New York chat show). On the chat show, Cavett and at least one of the other(northener) guests were ganging up on Maddox and making fun of him because of his segregationist views(and in gereral, the racist opinions of southerners).
Newman wrote the song(from the view of an "unreliable narrator")in protest of the north's bigotted and hypocritcal opinion of the south.
We talk real funny down here
We drink too much and we laugh too loud
We're too dumb to make it in no Northern town
And we're keepin' the niggers down
We got no-necked oilmen from Texas
And good ol' boys from Tennessee
And colleges men from LSU
Went in dumb. Come out dumb too
Hustlin' 'round Atlanta in their alligator shoes
Gettin' drunk every weekend at the barbecues
And they're keepin' the niggers down
badartdog - you need to spotify this. Newman was indeed born in California but lived in New Orleans from a baby to about 12. His mothers family lived there. He now lives in Los Angeles. Good on you for sticking your oar in....most of Newmans songs are thought provoking and create discussion....nobody can be sure what his songs are about, unless he tells you, and even then he probably won't be telling the truth.
Which only goes to prove
that concept albums should only ever be about mythical Kings, goblins, hobbits and aliens from the future. The stuff we can all agree on.
It's a bit like
a response to Neil Young's 'Southern Man' too. Maybe that was in his mind as well, as I recall reading in the Neil Young biography 'Shakey' that Randy Newman didn't think too much of the lyrics in Neil's song.
Sweet
Home Alabama, indeed.
Babbacombe Lee
Fairports attempt at concept wasn't bad.
Songs for Drella
Lou Reed & John Cale's "song cycle" about Andy Warhol has a consistent central theme. Some good stuff in there as well - the video of the show is worth a shufti.
Kate Bush
is fond of the concept malarkey, though keeps it to a bearably intoxicating half album, ref: 'The Ninth Wave' and 'A Sky Of Honey'.
And from the sublime to the ridiculous, The Osmonds had a concept album called The Plan, built around their Mormon faith.
The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands
Where the band play various styles of music under the guise of different bands.
I would also add 'Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake' by The Small Faces.
666 by Aphrodite's Child
the concept being biblical/Byzantine stuff, or something. Even features a side-long reprise. Good stuff and well played.
Good call.
It's the Revelation of St John set to a prog workout, and it's one of my favourite indulgences when I need to hear something substantial, intriguing and recognisably odd, but which rocks out, as they say.
All Summer Long by The Beach Boys
The concept being stuff teenagers in California got up to in the summer: kissing, dancing, fooling around on motorbikes, surfing, hanging around at the beach, spilling Coke all over your blouse etc. etc. Not very clever, but then nor are any “serious rock” “concept” albums.
(Themed albums i.e. congregations of songs with a similar theme, mood, topic whatever are commonplace in fields like jazz or the pop music that “serious rock” fans turn their noses up at and call “easy listening”. It’s only “serious rock” types who think they’re a big deal.)
Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds?
Isn't that the ultimate concept album?
Home - The Alchemist
The story is a bit ill-defined - I think they may have been taking a lot of drugs at the time, but the music is excellent.
Let's go somewhere completely different..
Paddy MacAloon's I Trawl the Megahertz is about music, sound, radio, listening, other people's lives. Like all great concept albums it's a bit bonkers but unlike most of the above it's deeply personal and carries a huge emotional punch - 'I'm 49' gets me every time
Paddy! Paddy! Paddy!
That's a tremendous record, made even sadder if you consider that he only really made it (or so I hear) because his eyesight was too bad to do another Prefab Sprout record.
Mr Mick
Stackridge, late Stackridge, not very good Stackridge, but a concept with spoken interludes between the tracks. Nice cover of the Beatles' Hold Me Tight, tho'.
Donald Fagen
Let's not forget "The Nightfly" - the world of late 50s America through the eyes of a young teenager. And brilliant too.
seconded
That makes maybe 3 that I think work - in general they slump under their own self-importance - rock opera ? NEIN DANKE!
Desparado
Cowboy concept. Still the Eagles best
Yes - Tales From Topographic Oceans
Only Kidding...................
Residents - Commercial Album
40 songs, all one minute long. What a concept! What a lot of drugs!
And I quite liked kd Lang's album where all the songs referenced smoking.
Drive-By Truckers
Does 'Southern Rock Opera' by Drive-By Truckers qualify? It's a song suite about a rock band closely interlinked with the story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash.
If only half an album can be considered for qualification what about the Small Faces' 'Ogdens Nut Gone Flake' concept about riding on giant flies and searching for the moon?
Aimee Mann
The Forgotten Arm, a story of a junkie ex-boxer and his white trailer trash girlfriend (Aimee Mann's description, not mine). Takes them through the years from meeting to break up to a kind fo reconcilation. And the booklet that goes with it is beautiful too.
Viv Stanshall's
Sir Henry at Rawlinson End. It was released as an album, it all flows, fantastic songs and it's bloody funny to boot.
I would just like to say...
... Trevor Howard
So?
He ain't on it. Only pure Viv. Trev was in the mad-as-a-nail film.
Whatever people say it is...
How about the Arctic Monkeys' first album - it's a pretty good stab at capturing a teenage night out, from getting ready (view from the afternoon), clubbing (I bet you look good on the dancefloor, dancing shoes), drunkenly chatting up girls (still take you home), run-ins with the law (riot van)... I could go on. The name of the album is even a quote from Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.
And finally, the only reason I can think that they didn't include such a brilliant song as Bigger Boys and Stolen Sweethearts is because it didn't fit into the theme...
Greendale (Neil Young)
It divides people, but I like it and it certainly fits nicktf's request to meet the definition.
How about School's Out by
How about School's Out by Alice Cooper?
What about Willie?
Willie Nelson is very parttial to a concept album, his most notable contributions are Red Headed Stranger and Phases ans Stages. Both are brilliant by the way.
Yet more Tull, anyone...?
Agreed on the Aqualung/Thick As A Brick discussion above. But one never hears of 'Too Old To Rock And Roll' in concept album discussions (only as autobiographical denial by Ian Anderson, and as a witty title which has sort of 'entered the language'). It has a strong (if bizarre - but, hey, what did we expect?) narrative from start to finish about an unfashionable old rocker entering a TV quiz show, winning it and suddenly becoming an icon of fashion (crikey - could Ian A have predicted the whole Jade Goody/famous for being famous phenomenon decades ahead of time?) and his ruminations on life therewith. It's also assisted by a 'graphic novelisation', as it would now be called, in the gatefold of the original vinyl.
That said, it's not a fave Tull album with me... just a stronger and more definable concept than Thick As A Brick et al - though Thick As... is indeed a masterpiece!
Tull as total concept
There's an argument to say that Tull have the most concept albums in their canon than just about anyone. Surely 'Heavy Horses' qualifies, with its suite of songs about the minutae of the rustic farming life; 'A' with its obsession with technology; 'The Christmas Album...?
Yes, I'd have to say...
...your argument is compelling and indeed persuasive on every level, KC!
I can't help imagining Ian Anderson in a Rutles-esque type interview ("I can't can't deny it... we took tea... AND biscuits...") revealing, to a shocked world, that "Yes, I'll come clean: we played progressive rock... AND made concept albums... more than once..."
Aqualung Live
A concept in itself, take an American radio station studio, have an audience of, say, no more than 40, and play your most famous album in its entirety. Now, not to say the results were not crackingly good, because they were, but the CD has some Ian Anderson interview snippets at the end. And, just as you say, he sounds detached from the whole rock universe. Distant and utterly gentrified, some light years from the bearded man in the coat that adorns the cover, and who looked uncannily like Mr A circa 'Rock And Roll Circus'.
Recent Example...
of the genre is possibly The Trials of Van Occupanther by Midlake.
Seems to me to be about a pioneer seeting up a homestead in the late 1800s (or something!)
Actually, I think I read somewhere that it's based on the US educational computer game "Oregon Trail" about settlers moving west and the like.
Can this be right? Someone will know!
I live about 5 miles
...from the Oregon end of the trail - I'll go and have a look! :-)
Contradicting myself
I said earlier that Jethro Tull were possibly kings of the concept album, but I now think the winners are The Kinks. 'Village Green' was cited earlier, but having just spent the day with 'Lola' 'Arthur' 'Preservation' (I & II) 'Soap Opera' 'Schoolboys In Disgrace' to name just a few, I can't see any challengers.