I have just watched a BBC documentary about Concept Albums. It was presented by multi concept albumist Rick Wakeman.

I owned a few of the albums mentioned.

Does anyone have a favourite one?

Mine are Dark Side of the Moon, Once I was an Eagle, Pet Sounds and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.

I have toyed around with circulating an internet rumour that, the main quest of Fallout 4 can be played in the time it takes

to play Dark Side of the Moon.

Yeah, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO2gm29rI7E is an amazing album, one of my top five. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER9FNRr0BIY (the band of the guy who scored Life Is Strange) is a great narrative album.

It's really hard for me to find albums that aren't concept albums in one way or another, though. Most at least have some kind of theme running throughout. How do you define concept album?

I apologise I appear to have somehow managed to create a parallel post.!

This is what I was thinking, most albums are surely around a theme. I always imagine the album title to be an indicator.

Even the That's What I Call Music! is a concept of sorts.

A few of my favorites, in no particular order:

Dust Bowl Ballads - Woddie Guthrie

Joe's Garage - Frank Zappa

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

Quadrophenia - The Who

The Dreaming - Kate Bush

Scarlet's Walk - Tori Amos

The Juliet Letters - Elvis Costello

Thick as a Brick - Jethro Tull

Songs For Drella - Lou Reed and John Cale

Mass In F Minor - The Electric Prunes (almost unknown today, this was the first album I heard that was composed around a unified theme)

I cannot help feeling that Dust Bowl Ballards and Songs for Drella are beyond being mere concept albums.

Metropolis, pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory by Dream Theater.

I remember listening to Argus by Wishbone Ash and being surprised at how good it was.

Does anyone know when the term was first used. It sounds like adman speak.

Give us your expert definition of "concept album" if you're going to be picky about the albums we list.

Fairly certain that The Wall counts as a concept album.

It was a comment on the powerful nature of both pieces of work.

Concept album appears to mean one in which all the tracks have a common theme or tell a story.

Your choice of The Dreaming by Kate Bush got me searching round the web as I'd never thought of it as a concept album - it was never written as such unlike 50 Words For Snow or The Ninth Wave. According to Wikipedia a concept album is an album that is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concept_albums

It does has a certain feel all the way through it, mainly I think down to Kate's production style at that point - perhaps this is what they mean by unified by an instrumental or compositional theme. In which case a lot of albums could be reclassified as concept albums such as Treasure by the Cocteau Twins, Floodland by The Sisters of Mercy, Peter Gabriel 4/Security etc etc.

?Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters and ?Lucky Leif and the Longships, both by Robert Calvert.

My favorite is Quadrophenia by The Who.

I am still a bit fuzzy on this myself... (just a bit thick I guess)

Kilroy was here Styx ??? Maybe

OR if shoestring's explanation is correct every old school punk/ most modern rap/ And nearly every country album ever heheh

A collection of songs named after Elizabeth Fraser's cats, allegedly. Although they may have just been winding up the interviewer.

It does sound a bit like a wind up, but at the same time you just want it to be true. If it was true she must have had a lot of cats.



@2-Caps

It's not my definition of a concept album but it appears to be Wikipedia's. In which case virtually all the albums I own could be classified as such. I think it's probably too loose a definition, really.

I always thought in the realms of rock music the loose definition of a concept album as one with songs sharing similar themes lyrically was so all-encompassing as to be useless. That said, in jazz that definition makes more sense as its not so common to see albums that fit it.

So with that in mind, two of my favourite concept albums at the moment are Maiden Voyage by Herbie Hancock and The All Seeing Eye by Wayne Shorter.

Most of Rush's older albums and many of Yes's older albums were created around a concept. Rush's 2112 (side one at least) is probably the most famous and Yes's Talk had a recurring theme throughout all of the songs. Rush also had Caress of Steel (a universally despised album) with great story on side two, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EbJMuSfgxc, who was defeated by By-Tor. In an earlier album (Fly By Night), By-Tor was defeated by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1vlx2a_aDE

Agree with others about Dark Side of the Moon and I'll also throw out Alan Parsons Project's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHZeFoWzajQ&list=PLFjW-0OyOHxFk4G-wLoVyxUJ1d6Hc3_Aw that dealt with gambling.

I grew up with on concept albums. Kind of

Haven't listened to/owned many things that are maybe considered "concept albums", but I quite like Tori Amos's Scarlet's Walk and ELO's Time.

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about Captain Lockheed. That's a great album, I should listen to it again.


Yeah, even if it included all the cats she ever owned, it seems a little unlikely. But it's an awesome explanation of the randomness of the song titles and the typically impenetrable lyrics, so it remains my preferred explanation nonetheless. Apparently the band are not fans of the album, which is a shame as it's a bit of a goth icon IMHO.

Just in case I wanna be clear (cause no one reads minds) I was not calling you out,In fact my own search of what it means lead to pretty much much exactly what you said......(mutter even though I am still in hiding from you sending the Sas after me, now the Canadian mounties are in on that as well not sure if its royalty loyalty or just the 50 cent bounty placed on me now )

It just was my very first thought that dang alot of punk/country/and rap seem to fit the bill...Cause well whole albums are generally about how they see life.

I From what I read beetles Srg Peppers lonely heart was one of the first (not really the first but perhaps the best known) .....Wish I knew who they were?? (heh.....)

Always had an interest in Maiden′s albums. Especially Somewhere In Time and Powerslave stand out for me.

hehehe near One of the only things that gets the blood pumping through this old shell.

Hey Binky (i see you there) how about some ground rules like maybe 3 of the 4 things that shoe brought up to make it truelly a concept...

(oh ya Most of Gwar's Albums sure fall into concept no matter how you slice it -with huge blood spurts-heheheh when Ithink bout it)

The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table was the first concept album I purchased. It is a actually a Stereo cassette.

It is the only tape cassette album that I have ever purchased. I still have it. I once hid it amongst my sisters cassettes, however she found it and gave it me back