One album that I've thought would be cool would be something post-apocalyptic, but NOT about rock & roll saving the world like so many silly albums, it'd instead be more a collection of stories with a loose connecting threat of trying to find a legendary haven. It'd be multigenre-ish although the songs would probably me or less normal length up to 6 minutes or so, no epics and I pictured it using a storyteller as a framing device. Something like this, no one steal my idea ;P:
Songs From The Wasteland
1. Wasteland Overture: Instrumental. Opens as a soundscape with wooshing wind and stuff and the instruments slowly come in, at first mellow before building up energy and ending in a big crash.
2. The Storyteller I: Short folk song that introduces the "storyteller". Standard "come gather around and I'll tell you my stories" sort of thing.
3. Haven?: Segues directly from The Storyteller and thus starts off in the same mellow folk mood. The song concerns a husband and wife who leave their crappy home to search for the mythical haven. The couple think they find it, but it turns out to be a city of bandits and they get killed. The mood would start off quiet and folky and raise in exuberance as they come closer to their goal before quickly falling back to somber when they're killed.
4. The Storyteller II: A little longer than the first, but still short. Concerns the storyteller commenting on the last story and introducing the next. Musically it would reprise the theme from the first storyteller, but with a less sparse feel to it.
5. Junkyard Jack: An energetic and somewhat quirky poppish proggish rock song. It's about a scavenger who hits the jackpot when he finds a bunch of empty houses with stuff in them. He sells all the stuff and ends up not having to scavenge any more, although he continues to vaguely wonder about why the houses were empty in the first place. The song would incorporate samples of machinery, banging on metal, and other junkyard-y sounds.
6. Force of Good: A heavy but sluggishly paced rocker with a constant consuming marching beat. The song would be from the point of view of a soldier organizing a ragtag army to wipe out some bandits and such, however the soldier is obsessed with vengeance and righteousness and leading his army to Haven almost to the point of insanity.
7. The Storyteller III: This reprise of the theme has a much fuller arrangement with a soothing pop rock sound to it. The song concerns the Storyteller warning that the next story is long and intense.
8. Calling All Stations: An atmospheric and vaguely threatening track with more synths and electronic-ness than had previously appeared on the album. The song is about a lone radio broadcaster stuck in the middle of nowhere attempting to contact someone for help as an undefined threat descends upon him. Right as the threat reaches him, you can faintly hear what sounds like someone responding to him saying they're from Haven.
9. Ghost: This song segues directly from Calling All Stations and is a screaming heavy rocker. The song is from the point of view of a lunatic serial killer hunting the broadcaster from the above song. The killer believes he is a spirit of vengeance who has to kill people because they destroyed the world.
10. The Storyteller IV: Another mellow reprise of the Storyteller theme, this one is instrumental except for some spoken dialogue. It has a much warmer sound than most of the other songs and includes the sound of a crackling fire.
11. Happiness: Continues the comforting vein of the last track and provides ironic contrast to Haven? with a song about a couple who have accepted that the world sucks but they have managed to eek happiness from it.
12. Wanderer: A sparsely orchestrated song with more wooshing wind effects about a wanderer who's been searching for Haven his entire life. At the end of the song, he finds it.
13. Haven: The wanderer from the previous song enters Haven. Starts off hopeful and optimistic as the wanderer enters, but then becomes more angry as he realizes that Haven is crowded and stinky and really not all it's cracked up to be. The album as a whole reaches its climax as the song rapidly ping pongs between upbeat music and the wanderer considering staying and angry music with the wanderer wanting to leave. The song ends with the wanderer shouting "I GIVE UP" and the music suddenly stops as more wooshing is heard.
14. The Storyteller V: This Storyteller is sadder than the rest, with the storyteller musing on disappointment and how nobody knew what Haven was and yet they were all disappointed. He considers that maybe the trick is to be happy with what you have.
15. Heaven: A soaring proggish song with more keyboard usage than in previous songs. The song abandons the characters of the rest of the album and is instead about happiness as a whole and how if you build things up in your mind you'll often be disappointed.
16. The Storyteller Exits: A very short reprise of the first storyteller in which the storyteller says goodbye.
17. Wasteland Symphony: Instrumental. The opposite of the Wasteland Overture. Starts off bombastic and upbeat and slowly decreases in energy until it's just the sound of wind slowly fading out.
That was fun, I'll have to do it again sometime.
Edited by Gazoinks - March 20 2012 at 20:41
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Ideas for Concept Albums That Ought to Exist
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Nightshine wrote:
. How about a concept album about the unwillingness to control own desires.
