concept albums

i'm really anticipating the new diddy/dirty money album!

fucking love me a good concept album. no matter how ridiculous. that is all.

The Jam - Setting Sons is a concept album invoking the fall of the British empire & the UK's attempt to find something to replace the gallantry of war. At least it seems that way to me. In the same area, Pink Floyd - The Final Cut has a similar but even more bleak concept.

But neither are "narrative concept albums actually make any kind of coherent sense"

The Orb - U.F.Orb is pretty straightforward if you see Towers of Dub as either an intermission or that the aliens smoke you out w/ Venusian Ganja.

Robert Calvert "Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters"

I can't stress enough, but if you are a fan of concept albums you can do far worse than check out "Long Live Pere Ubu!" by Pere Ubu. It's a musical version of Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry based on the hum of 20 decaying apple macs as played down the phoneline from across the atlantic.

There's this thing by Chris Judge Smith (ex-Van der Graaf Generator) called Curly's Airships, a narrative concept album about the R101 airship. It's not terribly good, despite a guest vocal appearance by Peter Hammill.

Hammill himself did an adaptation of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher which retains and amplifies the text of the story very well.

I think records with a narrative, plot, or story you can follow [or not, as with The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway's dada lunacy] fall into a sub-set of concept albums often referred to as "rock opera." I still believe that Setting Sons & The Final Cut qualify as concept albums because they were conceived under a thematic umbrella from jump. This would also qualify Jad & David Fair - 26 Monster Songs For Children as a concept album.

Prob'ly true but thread was revived to talk about albums that "tell a comprehensible story without the listener having to turn to sleevenotes, interviews, etc for explanation"

I suppose that is rock opera, musical theatre, whateva you wanna call it

The thing about the "rock opera" tag is, what distinguishes a rock opera from a normal opera? Hammill describes The Fall of the House of Usher as an opera, and I'd be inclined to agree with him since it has a proper libretto, arias, recitative sections &c.

Because rock operas usually even shiter than operas?

The Calvert album features great spoken bits from Viv Stanshall and Jim Capaldi alternating with badass Hawkwind jams.
Everyone should hear it. And it tells a story quite coherently.

And "Lucky Leif and the Longships"?

Yeah, I've never heard that one, actually. Is it good?

I was asking you!

Produced by Eno, of course!

I've always heard it wasn't as good, but I'm sure it's another coherent story record.
I should check it out.
No Lemmy :(

Lemmy's absence could surely be a problem. I once owned & enjoyed Capt. Lockheed, but somehow never heard Lucky Leif. Now I'm wrestling with (CL - Lemmy) + Eno = LL It should be worth a listen at least.

Eno did Lockheed under an alias or something.

Zappa's Joe's Garage and Thing-Fish have very linear storylines, with irritating narrators (the Central Scrutinizer, Thing-Fish) explaining the plots along. PS, Joe's Garage is mostly crap and Thing-Fish is 100% utter shit.

Surprised no one's mentioned A Grand Don't Come for Free. Definitely has a coherant narrative, definitely not a rock opera.

*Smacks forehead* Of course, A Grand Don't Come for Free.

I'm intrigued by the stage version of American Idiot because extracting a proper narrative from that record must have been a tall order. Billie Joe Armstrong as good as admits that he sets up his characters and a few themes and then improvises around them without really caring if they add up to anything close to a story.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment+arts-10485929

>>>pedant alert<<<<

Sgt. Pepper isn't even close to being the first concept record

That's the worst thing about reviving a thread, no bugger talks about the thing that causes the revival, they just talk about the OG question. :)

haha sorry

I dunno about that BBC article, concept albums haven't ever gone out of style afaict

My favorite concept albums.

I'd argue Signals -- indeed, every peak Rush record -- is a concept album.

I think there's a useful distinction one could make between thematic coherence and the concept album proper but I wouldn't argue about what records belong in which box

good list, some 21st c stuff i'd include:

diddy dirty money - last train to paris
the thermals - the body, the blood, the machine
the microphones - mount eerie
owen pallett - heartland
richard dawson - peasant

occasionally glancing up through the rain, wondering which of the buggers to blame