20 best CONCEPT lps

Hi,

Here we go ... this was not easy for me!

Aphrodite's Child - 666
Hawkwind - Space Ritual
Nektar - Remember The Future
Yes - Tales From Topographic Oceans
ELP - Pictures At An Exhibition
Ange - Emile Jacotey
Jon Anderson - Olias of Sunhillow
Robert Calvert - Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters
Banco - Darwin
Gentle Giant - In A Glass House
Horslips - The Tain
Jethro Tull - A Passion Play and Thick as a Brick
Grobschnitt - Rockpommel's Land

Alan Stivell - Symphonie Celtique (import was out before the 1980 listing when I got it! Excellent work all around, but folks think other harp players are better or easier to listen to!!!!)

The Who - Tommy (Was originally said to be a "rock opera")(Not sure how Quadrophenia fits and need to listen to it!)

Magma - Lots of stuff, however, I really think that we believe there is a "concept" only because we do not exactly know what the lyrical content is!

Paul Kantner - Blows Against The Empire (A great album but we will probably think it is way too unfocused and all over the place!)

Godley & Creme - Consequences (Great album but it ended up killing itself with too much Peter Cook)

Spirit - Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus (Great album and very progressive, though some stuff in it, was probably meant to satirize a lot of the music on radio ... and it was better!)

Amon Duul 2 - Made in Germany (Sadly the album suffered from too many ideas and not enough fooing!)


Bunch of songs, believed to be "concept" in my book:
Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (You could tell it was just a bunch of songs easily enough, and the story was incidental, and only because the LP had a nice fold out bunch of details and such. Genesis, was NOT, ever, a concept band! And PG never again did a "concept")

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of The Moon (Concept was not that well defined or clear, and what started as something possibly about Syd and ended up about anything else you could think of. However, the whole album was outstanding and wonderful and plays way better if you non stop from the start to the end, which makes it feel like a concept album.)

Roger Waters - (I am of the opinion that RW is the only person in the world that thinks his work is a "concept" ... and it might be, but I think The Wall might fit as a concept, but it was, instead, Oink Floyd bringing all their sound effects together, more than a concept, which helped create a nice illusion and story. None of RW's work since has been a "concept" ... more of an idea that we're supposed to fall in line for!)

Pink Floyd - DSOTM was the first time they put together their sound bits into a complete "story" augmented by the music. And these effects and bits, became the STORY for The Wall, which was gracefully inspired by the cartoons, much better than the music, though many think that 2 or 3 cuts are the stink ... I mean hit!

Gong - Their trilogy would fit as a concept, but it goes through so many girations that we get dizzy discussing it! And a cup of tea and a toke is not what it is about! But sex, music and some toking makes it look like it is a major concept. In essence it is just a story that is augmented by songs ... a story/concept that the all-male version of Gong nowadays, can not wrap its mind around ... and think they are hiding from the openness of the spirit of women which the story includes very well, but this new version of the band, ignores ... it's just cheap progrock and should not be using the name/title of "Gong" at all! In my book, and Daevis specified it so, he wanted it all to continue,but he stated immediately that's how life works ... it never stops for no one! Good bye mystic sister ... by some folks that consider themselves magic brothers ... they might be musicians but they are not magical at all!

Edited by moshkito - April 25 2025 at 01:05

Neal Morse must be the king of prog concept albums:

Testimony
One
Question Mark
Sola Scriptura
Testimony 2
Sola Gratia
Jesus Christ The Exorcist
Joseph parts 1 and 2

Not to mention Snow with Spock's Beard and The Whirlwind with Transatlantic!

I'll mention what comes to mind. It's more of - my favorites rather than "the best". Also trying to not put like 10 albums of one band (Trying is a key word) Both strict and broader variations of concept.

In a Glass House - Gentle Giant
The Power and the Glory - Gentle Giant
The Lamb - Genesis
Joe's Garage - Zappa
Every single album of Nuova Era
De Loused in the Comatorium - The Mars Volta (And the next two studio albums, but I'm trying)
Subterranea - IQ
Tales of Topographic Oceans - Yes
Days of Future Passed - The Moody Blues
Olias - Jon Anderson
The Six Wives of Henry the 8th - Rick Wakeman
666 - Aphrodite's Child

DoobieBrother6 wrote: Let's keep it to 70's.

Aphrodite's Child (GR) - 666
Banco (I) - Darwin!
Camel (UK) - The Snow Goose
Canarios (ES) - Cycles
Clearlight (F) - Clearlight Symphony
De De Lind (I) - Io Non So Da Dove...
Eloy (D) - Ocean
Genesis (UK) - The Lamb
Bo Hansson (S) - Sagan om Ringen
Harmonium (CA) - Les Cinq Saisons
Il Balletto di Bronzo (I) - Ys
Jethro Tull (UK) - Thick as a Brick
Metamorfosi (I) - Inferno
Museo Rosenbach (I) - Zarathustra
Mike Oldfield (UK) - Ommadawn
Le Orme (I) - Felona e Sorona
Pink Floyd (UK) - Wish You Were Here
Pulsar (F) - Halloween
Rick Wakeman (UK) - The Six Wives
Älgarnas Trädgård (S) - ”Framtiden är ett svävande skepp...

Edited by David_D - 7 hours 27 minutes ago at 06:38

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ... If you think of these as "pedestrian efforts" then you are simply a musical buffoon.

Hi,

At least I don't go around saying ... bad things ... about you! I do have some appreciation for a few things, but your way, seems to be lacking! I, do not do "religion" per se, and find the stories from a badly translated book, actually being somewhat misused ... but what do you care about the truth of things?

Neal Morse is fine and a very good musician, though I find that his religious side is not as good ... that's all.

moshkito wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: ... If you think of these as "pedestrian efforts" then you are simply a musical buffoon. Hi, At least I don't go around saying ... bad things ... about you! I do have some appreciation for a few things, but your way, seems to be lacking! I, do not do "religion" per se, and find the stories from a badly translated book, actually being somewhat misused ... but what do you care about the truth of things? Neal Morse is fine and a very good musician, though I find that his religious side is not as good ... that's all.

Nice try. Please go back and read your own post, you were talking about the music, not the religion. Let me jog your memory:

moshkito wrote: musically or aesthetically, I look at many of these as simple pedestrian efforts and not exactly musically important.

So I'm sorry if I offended you, but you displayed some musical buffoonery there. And for the record: I'm an atheist

Edited by MikeEnRegalia - 10 hours 60 minutes ago at 03:05

So here's my list, built with a brand new AP feature to enable release polls for tags (in this case, concept album). Kept it to one release per artist, otherwise it would have been a lot more Ayreon and Neal Morse ...

1. (S) Pain of Salvation - The Perfect Element Part 1 (2000, listened extensively) [BC, SPO]
2. (S) Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory (1999, listened extensively) [SPO]
3. (S) Pink Floyd - The Wall (1979, listened extensively) [SPO]
4. (S) Ayreon - 01011001 (2008, listened extensively) [BC, SPO]
5. (S) Symphony X - V: The New Mythology Suite (2000, listened extensively) [SPO]
6. (S) Queensrÿche - Operation: Mindcrime (1988, listened extensively) [SPO]
7. (S) Kevin Gilbert - The Shaming of the True (2000, listened extensively)
8. (S) Neal Morse - One (2004, listened extensively)
9. (S) Magma - Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh (1973, listened often) [BC, SPO]
10. (S) Haken - Virus (2020, listened extensively) [BC, SPO]
11. (S) Blind Guardian - Nightfall in Middle-Earth (1998, listened extensively) [BC, SPO]
12. (S) The Decemberists - The Hazards Of Love (2009, listened often) [SPO]
13. (S) Between The Buried And Me - Coma Ecliptic (2015, listened extensively) [BC, SPO]
14. (S) Shadow Gallery - Tyranny (1998, listened extensively) [SPO]
15. (S) Frank Zappa - Joe's Garage (1979, listened extensively) [SPO]
16. (S) Kamelot - The Black Halo (2005, listened extensively) [SPO]
17. (S) King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation (2023, listened extensively) [BC, SPO]
18. (S) Beyond Twilight - Section X (2005, listened extensively) [SPO]
19. (S) Porcupine Tree - The Incident (2009, listened extensively) [BC, SPO]
20. (S) Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick (1972, first listen) [SPO]

Edited by MikeEnRegalia - 10 hours 38 minutes ago at 03:27

Älgarnas Trädgård , Garden of the Elks, is a concept? How so.