This phenomenon was a bigger deal in the late 60's - early 70's than at any other time, but specimens have cropped up at other times. There's plenty of them out there: "Tommy" and "Quadrophenia" by The Who, arguably every Pink Floyd album from Dark Side thru "The Final Cut", "Operation: Mindcrime" by Queensryche, "2112" by Rush, to name a few.
I'm speaking of course about concept albums. A collection of songs all relating to a central theme. usually, they're supposed to tell a story.
Personally, I like this idea a lot. There's a lot work involved in writing songs that work as individual pieces of music yet still relate to the central theme, and tell a coherent story. It takes balls to undertake such a project, and a massive amount of creative chops to pull it off. I admire that. And as a constant reader and frequent film watcher, I have an appreciation for the narrative, and love finding one threaded thru what you may often consider an unusual place for one: the entire contents of an album.
If you consider Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" to be a concept album (and there's evidence on both sides to suggest it is and isn't), then that wins hands down, as Floyd is my favorite band & Dark Side my favorite album of all time. BUt if you remove Dark Side from the equation, I think I'd give the nod the the album I was listening to on the drive in this morning that got me thinking about this: "The Turn of a Friendly Card" by the Alan Parsons Project.
There's only two modest hits to come from this album, "Games People Play" and "Time", but I think every song on it is at least kind of cool, and the title track (Parts I & II) are very cool indeed. The story, as the title implies, is about a degenerate gambler who basically loses everything in Vegas. It's a bit looser and less obvious than some other concept albums, and if I hadn't known before I bought it (after hearing from a freind, who turned me on to it) what it was about, I may not have picked up on it until after I had listened to it multiple times. I gues that's a flaw in the execution, because you may not get the concept they were going for (which is the whole point) without outside confirmation. But there's other concept albums that suffer from this problem to a much, much greater degree. And I just dig the music so much, that this one still gets my vote, and I'll overlook it.
What about the rest of you? Do any of you like concept albums? And which one(s) is your favorite & why?
I'm speaking of course about concept albums. A collection of songs all relating to a central theme. usually, they're supposed to tell a story.
Personally, I like this idea a lot. There's a lot work involved in writing songs that work as individual pieces of music yet still relate to the central theme, and tell a coherent story. It takes balls to undertake such a project, and a massive amount of creative chops to pull it off. I admire that. And as a constant reader and frequent film watcher, I have an appreciation for the narrative, and love finding one threaded thru what you may often consider an unusual place for one: the entire contents of an album.
If you consider Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" to be a concept album (and there's evidence on both sides to suggest it is and isn't), then that wins hands down, as Floyd is my favorite band & Dark Side my favorite album of all time. BUt if you remove Dark Side from the equation, I think I'd give the nod the the album I was listening to on the drive in this morning that got me thinking about this: "The Turn of a Friendly Card" by the Alan Parsons Project.
There's only two modest hits to come from this album, "Games People Play" and "Time", but I think every song on it is at least kind of cool, and the title track (Parts I & II) are very cool indeed. The story, as the title implies, is about a degenerate gambler who basically loses everything in Vegas. It's a bit looser and less obvious than some other concept albums, and if I hadn't known before I bought it (after hearing from a freind, who turned me on to it) what it was about, I may not have picked up on it until after I had listened to it multiple times. I gues that's a flaw in the execution, because you may not get the concept they were going for (which is the whole point) without outside confirmation. But there's other concept albums that suffer from this problem to a much, much greater degree. And I just dig the music so much, that this one still gets my vote, and I'll overlook it.
What about the rest of you? Do any of you like concept albums? And which one(s) is your favorite & why?
