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Author Topic: Concept/Thematic Albums?  (Read 21836 times)

Luigison

  • Old Person™
« on: January 28, 2018, 08:27:40 PM »
As some of the long timers may remember I am a fan of thematic albums and thus my list below: 

Date Artist Album MyStarRating
1972 David Bowie:  The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust And the Spiders from Mars David Bowie ***
1975 The Who:  Tommy *
1979 Pink Floyd:  The Wall ****
1983 Styx:  Mr. Roboto **
1988 Queensryche:  Operation Mindcrime *****
2004 Green Day:  American Idiot ***
2009 Coheed and Cambria:  Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow ***

I am saddened by the current popular short 3 to 4 minute pop songs.  If anyone has any long form suggestions or disagrees with my above ratings please let me know.  I welcome any and all discussion.  Thanks in advance! 


« Last Edit: January 28, 2018, 08:36:54 PM by Luigison »
“Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don’t need to know."

« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2018, 01:38:33 PM »
Haven't there always been popular short 3 to 4 minute pop songs? I don't think any musical era was filled with epic saga albums as a majority...

Janelle Monáe probably has the biggest popular concept albums currently. Have you listened to those?

Luigison

  • Old Person™
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2018, 07:18:44 PM »
Yes, I should have worded that better.  I'm saddened by the fact that most people don't buy or listen to entire albums anymore. 

No, but I will.  Thanks
“Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don’t need to know."

« Reply #3 on: February 01, 2018, 03:49:24 AM »
One star for Tommy? Explain yoself foo
YYur  waYur n beYur you Yur plusYur instYur an Yur Yur whaYur

Luigison

  • Old Person™
« Reply #4 on: February 04, 2018, 05:23:14 PM »
LD,
I gave her a listen (actually watch a few YouTube videos) and think that the concept(s) are great and require multiple listens.  I've add them to my list. 

WeeGee,
I should have stated the the ratings were relative to my opinions on other albums listed only.  Overall I think Tommy should get a least a 3 star rating. 
“Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don’t need to know."

« Reply #5 on: February 04, 2018, 09:44:11 PM »
astro lounge?
Bowser impostor in 5-4, Japanese god in real life!

ShadowBrain

  • Ridiculously relevant
« Reply #6 on: February 09, 2018, 09:45:55 PM »
If you've any taste for emotional power pop, I highly recommend the "Broken Bride" EP by Ludo.
"Mario is your oyster." ~The Chef

« Reply #7 on: April 18, 2018, 07:04:44 PM »
Two progressive metal concept/thematic albums, both of which I brought up in a recent college essay, are Voivod's Dimension Hatröss and Toxik's Think This.

Dimension Hatröss is musically very technical and angular, and lyrically tells a sci-fi story about an entity (who appears on the covers of Voivod's first five albums in different forms) who creates his own dimension with a particle accelerator, only to discover that it's fraught with similar social divisions and conflicts to the world he comes from. Ultimately, he gets into battles with other psychic beings and ends up escaping from the world of his own creation before deeming it a failed experiment and destroying it. Think This is musically more straightforward, but still complex in places. It's less of a "story" type concept album and more a thematic piece. Almost all the songs are themed around various social problems, but with an emphasis on how mass media (in 1989, that would be TV and radio) helps exacerbate these problems. Owing to that, there are a couple songs directly about TV, and nearly every song begins with a sample of a radio or TV broadcast, usually an advertisement but sometimes a speech from a religious leader or politician. Full of Reagan-era countercultural rage; even the album cover is pure 80s.

Going in a completely different direction musically, there's A Crow Looked at Me and its recent sequel Now Only, two incredibly sad folkish albums from Mount Eerie, a project of Phil Everum (formerly of The Microphones). They'll hit you like a ton of bricks. To make it short, Phil's wife died a year after being diagnosed with cancer, and those two albums are themed around his grief over her passing (as well as meditations on death in general), with A Crow Looked at Me being particularly heartwrenching since it was entirely written mere months after her passing.
Relics.

Luigison

  • Old Person™
« Reply #8 on: April 22, 2018, 06:54:41 AM »
Thanks Thor!  I gave a short listen to each and added them to my list.  I'll give them a good listen when I have more time.  Thanks again! 
“Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don’t need to know."

« Reply #9 on: April 26, 2018, 12:35:53 AM »
Will you be starring them and adding them to the OP list?
Relics.

« Reply #10 on: April 26, 2018, 11:19:25 AM »
Another one is
Alice Cooper  The Last Temptation (1994)

Which even had a comic by Neil Gaiman made to help tell the story.

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