The best concept albums are those that aren't spoon fed to us.

Dark Side still has many interpretations, whereas something like Animals, to use an example from the same band, is a bit too "this is what this album is about.... look how clever our observations are".......

I do love the music on Animals but I feel that the concept is so easy and simple to understand that it may as well be a book and not an album! Of course you could say the same about say, The Six Wives of Henry VIII or Holst's The Planets, but what makes them good is that they are just musical (ie. no lyrics) interpretations of related things.

When you try and tell a story, I think it's possible that you can go too far.... and end up writing a book with some quite-frankly unrelated music going on in the background. And when that is the case, you will have more success making a film of it than an album (see: The Wall).........!

I think what I'm trying to say is that Rock Opera should be confined to the stage or the big screen. The stuff that goes onto our CDs and records should only musical interpretations (ie. actual concept albums)....... and they should be in their pure medium, music. Not theatrics or narrative or, god forbid, giant inflatable pigs!

Of course there's nothing wrong with a good "collection of unrelated songs" either.

JS19 wrote: Dedicated concept albums that focus on the story, tend to lose a bit on the music front (Lamb Lies Down, The Big Red Spark), but can still have great moments, but most albums work best when the story is turned down slightly (Contagion, Frances The Mute) The best kind of concept albums either musically linked, thematically linked, or both (Misplaced Childhood, Tick Tock).

I missed your post but you have basically said the same thing as me.

It's impossible to say that a concept album by definition is better than a non-concept album. You can have so many different approaches, and many modern prog bands try too hard to do a "real concept album" with 20 minute songs involving dramatic changes, the music doesn't evolve naturally but is stuck to a preconceived idea of "long songs" and a "concept".

All it takes is for the artist to want to make an album where all the songs work very well together

Steve Hackett often uses musical thematicness, and has the kind of approach to an album that I was talking about. Defector isn't a concept album as far as I know, but feels very unified. The whole album starts with a solo flute melody, but you could say it's two melodies tied together. The drums comes in, the groove starts, and the main melodic theme of the song is the same as the second part of the intro flute melody. In "Leaving", track 4, there is an instrumental theme where the first flute melody reappear, played by synth with harmonic arrangement. "Two Vamps as Guests", track 5, begins with the second flute melody played by solo acoustic guitar. After some improvised stuff the first flute melody is also played.

So he uses melodic themes which reappear in different ways, with different harmonizations and arrangement. This is very common in classical music. Gentle Giant also does this in very interesting ways. take Mister Class and quality as an example which has a strange intro section with a swingy feel. The bass part of that intro, which is a long melody, comes again in the next song "Three Friends", but with a different tempo and totally different harmonies. Also, by the way, in Genesis Wind and Wuthering a melodic theme of Eleventh Earl Of Mar (which opens the album) reappears in "In that Quiet Earth".

That way you feel that there are connections between the songs, they aren't totally independent of each other within the same album.

In conceptual albums there can often be reprises of musical sections which are practically identical, just that the lyrics are different, or there is some small difference in the arrangement. This a different thing than the musical thematicness I talked about, and can be a bit tedious. For example "La Princess Perdue" in Camels snow goose is a musical medley of some of the stuff already heard earlier in the album - I think its a bit redundant actually. I love the album otherwise. Genesis has a similar thing in "Los Endos" where an instrumental version of Squonk reappears. I don't know if it was the perfect way to end "Los Endos". Saga's "Generation 13", a "real" concept album also has recurring music sections, and it's the only complaint I have about the album, because they reappear a bit too much which makes the album slightly inconsistent. I think it's great anyway, though.

So that way a non-conceptual album may have more subtler thematic ingredients. If wanting to make one album with songs that have some relation to each other, you don't necessarily have to make some "grandiose concept". But if making a story that spans the whole album, it of course becomes conceptual.

Admin edit: Despamified.

his is the Wiki definition of concept album. I agree with most of it, although there must be progressive rock concept albums which involve improvisation:

"In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical". Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing to a single overall theme or unified story. This is in contrast to the practice of an artist or group releasing an album consisting of a number of unconnected (lyrically or otherwise) songs performed by the artist."