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Music What are some of your favorite concept albums?

EvilChameleon

EvilChameleon

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The concept album. You gotta listen to the whole thing in one go or you lose the "experience" the artist put forth. What are some of your favorites?

I'll be cliche and say Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wall by Pink Floyd, of course, but also I'm gonna throw Mylo Xyloto and Music Of The Spheres by Coldplay on my list as well. Great celebratory albums with positive vibes. Almost the exact opposite of the two Floyd albums, haha.
 
The first that comes to mind is To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar. It's an amazing experience.
 
The Kinks - Soap Opera was one of my grandma’s favorite records so I got a bit of a fondness for it too. I also really like Quadrophenia.
 
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Nine Inch Nail's The Downward Spiral. Also, can I cheat and say anything by The Dear Hunter? The Acts are five incredible albums all telling a story. The Color Spectrum is a brilliant way to show their versatility, even if the full version is a whopping two and a half hours long.

And if EPs count, I'd like to give a shout to Knocked Loose's A Tear In the Fabric of Life. 21 minutes of sheer brutality. Haunting concept, but the music makes me think I'll fistfight God and win lol.
 
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Not enough metal in this thread, so I have two favorites that immediately come to mind:

Nightfall in Middle Earth
by Blind Guardian

Blind Guardian is one of my favorite bands of all time and probably their best work is a concept album based on Tolkien's The Silmarillion of all things.




Paradise Lost
by Symphony X

Excellent concept album based on, well... Paradise Lost, lol.

 
There's a girl band who were huge in the UK in the 00s called Girls Aloud. At the height of their powers, they put out an amazing pop album called Chemistry and constantly said it was a concept album when promoting it but when anyone asked wouldn't say what the concept was or what it was about. My early internet days were spent reading theories about how it's a condemnation of the war in Iraq or a meanings of outing a producer as a sex offender or an admission all of the group were pregnant at once. I still don't think we know for certain what the concept is, but my money's on Iraq.
 
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SammyJ9 said:
Nightfall in Middle Earth
by Blind Guardian

Blind Guardian is one of my favorite bands of all time and probably their best work is a concept album based on Tolkien's The Silmarillion of all things.
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Man. I love this album.
It's probably my favourite from Blind Guardian.
 
Maybe the status of some of these as concept albums can be debated, but here are some I love:

The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals - Pink Floyd

Funeral, Neon Bible, The Suburbs - Arcade Fire

Quadrophenia, The Who Sell Out - The Who

Hejira - Joni Mitchell

Blood on the Tracks - Bob Dylan

The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, Arthur, Muswell Hillbillies - The Kinks

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars - David Bowie

Illionis - Sufjan Stevens

Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy - Elton John

American Idiot - Green Day

Zen Arcade - Husker Du
 
Seven said:
It was watching the film on TCM late one night during my university days that convinced me to get the album. However the music store close by didn't have the film soundtrack so I ended up getting the 1970 album instead. I prefer Murray Head's version of Judas slightly more, but Carl Anderson is the best live-action version.
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Its one of the corniest things I unironically love
 
I absolutely adore Janelle Monáe's Metropolis suites, and I really hope she finishes them one day. That said, Dirty Computer was outstanding as well, as was The Age of Pleasure.

I also really love AnaĂŻs Mitchell's Hadestown album, to the point where I held off on listening to the Broadway album for a long time because I was worried it just wouldn't be the same (it's not, but it's incredibly good in its own right so I regret holding out on that lol).

The state albums from Sufjan Stevens are fantastic too, but I have to say I prefer Carrie & Lowell. Just achingly beautiful.
 
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Kezia by Protest the Hero. Released in 2005, it’s been an album that has had a lasting impact on me, from my teenage years up to my 30s.

It’s progressive metal, that may not be for everyone, but the concept is fantastic. Summary below from Wikipedia.

It is a concept album about a young girl (Kezia) sentenced to death, told from the perspectives of the various players involved in her sentencing and execution.
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"There are two ways to explain the concept behind "Kezia": the literal meaning of it and the deeper meaning behind it. The simple explanation is that you have three characters on the album who all describe a certain situation from their point of view, which is the execution of a woman. We chose a priest, a prison guard who's also the executioner and the woman in question, Kezia. They all have three songs to tell their story. In the first song they paint a general picture, the second track explains how the character feels connected to Kezia and the third one is their view on the shooting of Kezia. The last song on the album brings us as a band into the picture, although the lyrics are written in the form of Kezia's last words. The deeper meaning of the concept is the gradual downfall of our society. We tried to make the lyrics timeless, so the story could be situated in any time period. There are also political and social critical messages in it. Not that we bluntly say that we hate Tony Blair or George Bush, but more in general comments on the fact that religion and power are getting more intwined every day. The album is also about the responsibility that everyone has as a member of our society. It's your civil duty to act when you need to."
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I thought of one more, my favorite Within Temptation album The Unforgiving. It's based on a comic book of the same name and is part of a transmedia project of multiple different things, although I haven't read the comic myself. Even without that knowledge though you can get a feel for the overall story and what's going on and it has a really great overall feel to it:

 
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I know a lot of "thematic albums" rather than concept albums that i think are great but will check some of these out for sure.
but one more recent one that comes to mind is

Arctic Monkeys - Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino
 
listening to pink floyd's the wall and realizing it was telling a story from song to song was pretty mind blowing to young teenager james and it still holds a special place in my heart.

if i had to pick a real favorite at this point though its almost certainly to kendrick lamar's to pimp a butterfly. insane to think that albums almost a decade old because it doesnt sound like its aged a day. (good kid m.a.a.d city is really good too).

another honorable mention to tyler the creator's igor. beautiful album.
 
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Embers said:
I love several albums mentioned here already, but when it comes to my favorite concept album, I think I have to go with Deltron 3030.

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Pink Floyd already mentioned here, so I'll just say my favorites are Wish You Were Here and Animals. That whole run of Dark Side through The Wall though is just pristine discog.

Jethro Tull's Thick As a Brick is not really an accessible listen and is kind of a joke anyway, but I definitely have a soft spot for it.

And outside of boomer rock, I think American Idiot has some of Green Day's best work on it.

Back to boomer metal, Judas Priest's Nostradamus got ripped hard at the time for being a corny, bloated album way off-style for them, but damn the haters, that album fucks. I'd go as far as to say that I actually liked it more than Iron Maiden's concept album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.
 
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Queens of the Stoneage: Songs for the Deaf (2002)

An album structured like someone flipping through radiochannels. I lived in this album for a month. It’s such a wild ride; everybody knows “No one knows” as the break-out hit from the album, but there are so many banger hits on it.

From the opening of You don’t think I’m worth a dollar, but I feel like a millionaire which has this aggressive energy.

You have First giveth, than taketh away, Hanging Tree, Sixshooter, God is in the radio, Go with the flow. Plus the little intermezzos with the radio broadcasts.

There is one where they just laugh. On thre melody of Feelgood hit of the summer.

 
I'm generally not a fan of concept albums since I find a lot of them to be a bit gimmicky, but there are definitely some gems.

Hospice by the Antlers, De-loused in the Comatorium by the Mars Volta, and Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age.
 
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I can only listen to The Weeknd's Dawn FM as a singular listening experience from start to finish, and even hearing the singles out of context on the radio don't sound nearly as good.

Trying to think of other "concept" albums I know, but while I'll recommend Born To Run regardless, it does have a certain air of the entirety of each song and all the characters involved taking place across one long, heartland Americana summer night
 
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Gong's Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy (Flying Teapot, Angel's Egg, and You) is a blissed out acid stoner odyssey about how we just be good to each other, relax, and get high. Love, love, love these albums.

 
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