Rock Opera / Concept Albums

[Gatorgod]

Me? like Opera? .. I guess so, if it's a Rock Opera! So many to choose from, so much good stuff!
What speaks to you? Do you like the newer politically charged stuff like Green Days - american idiot -or- Huge hit classics like The Wall?
Thread Inspired by steamed_hamms resurrecting Jeff Wayne's "War of the Worlds" album back into the open,.. good stuff!

For my first offering, I bring to light something that's totally dropped off the radar.. Aphrodite's Child's "666" album. A freaky "End of the world", Revelations, Rock Opera,.. It's story: A tent concert is being held where a band is playing the songs from the album? about the biblical end of the world, while at the same time, outside the tent, the Real Revelations has started also.. at the albums finale, the wind of the worlds destruction lifts the canvas off into the air.. then the audience of the pretend Apocalypse and the real one sync in horrific harmony.. the End!

Here's the last song on the record.. makes me sad every time I hear it.

 

[bias]

american idiot is a perfect rock opera

 

[Egg]

The Wall is a killer rock opera.

 

[Nicky]

Where to begin?

Tommy (1968)- The Who

Berlin- Lou Reed

Jesus Christ Superstar (1969)- Andre Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice

The Wall (1979)- Pink Floyd

And for smaller pieces there is
----------------------------------------------------

'Une Nuit in Paris' by 10cc

'A Quick One While He's Away' by The Who

Abbey Road Medley by The Beatles

'The Black Side' by Queen (side 2 of Queen II, plays out pretty much like one single track)

 

[Gatorgod]

Spirit - Twelve Dreams of Dr Sardonicus

Haven't checked it out yet, but the old burnout that gets drunk in the backyard picnic shelter overheard my talk about rock operas & concept albums,.. and was quite excited about us adding this one?.. claiming "it was the top concept album of his young day"?? ... his enthusiasm was such that I'm posting this without having first heard it.. anyone else know of this? .. Youtube, here I come!

 

[Steve]

American Idiot is great. Hard to believe it's 11 years old already. I listened to it CONSTANTLY in 2004/2005 and I still enjoy it. Just listened to it the other day, actually.

Within Temptation's "The Unforgiving" is pretty great too. Probably my favorite of theirs. It's a really fun symphonic metal album:

And then there are the "History Repeating: Blue and Red" albums by The Megas. They're incredibly elaborate covers of the music from Mega Man 3, and they're possibly the best video game cover songs I've ever heard. Excellent pair of albums. The rest of their music is great too, but these are definitely their magnum opus.

 

[The Thompsons]

This one has always popped up in my top 10 albums of all time.

Progressive metal band Dream Theater offers up a fan driven sequel to their 1992 song Metropolis Part I: The Miracle and the Sleeper.

Fans were clamoring for a part II but for years DT mentioned it was more of a joke tag to the title of their song than anything meant for an intentional sequel let alone a concept album. In 1996 they did record a demo version in the multi movement epic song format which they shelved for three years.

In 1999 they revisited the song and decided to expand it into a full concept album. It does take some musical themes from both the Wall and Tommy set to a story of murder and the idea of reincarnation.

A man named Nicholas is having trouble dealing with weird dreams and flashbacks so he decides to go through past life regression therapy. During his meditation sessions he sees a girl named Victoria who's life is very familiar. He learns she was murdered and that in fact he is the reincarnated Victoria. He feels Victoria is coming to him in dreams and flashbacks so the truth can be revealed about her murder. Victoria had a boyfriend named Julian ("The Sleeper") who she left due to drinking and gambling addiction for his brother Edward ("The Miracle".) Nicholas then researches through old newspapers and finds that Julian murdered Victoria out of jealousy. He then finds an old man who lived through the events and he has a very different take on what happened. Nicholas realizes he can't get on with his life until he reveals the truth about Victoria's murder.

After visiting Edward's old house and through old letters, Nicholas discovers Julian tried to clean himself up and tried to get back with Victoria. Victoria accepted Julian's apology and started seeing him again in secret. Edward finds out eventually and murders both Julian and Victoria then sets it up to make it look like Julian committed murder/suicide with a very convincing suicide note. Edward then tells the newspapers the story and that's how it went down in history.

After his hypnotherapy sessions and discovering the truth, Nicholas goes home to relax and puts on a record (the overture of the entire concept album.) However the hypnotherapist followed Nicholas home and reveals himself to be the reincarnated Edward before he murders Nicholas, aka the reincarnated Victoria and completing the cycle. On the album though it just cuts to static from the record player. It's on the live DVD version where the full ending is revealed.

This album was recently ranked by readers of Rolling Stone (I know) as the greatest progressive album of all time, even outranking heavyweights like the Wall and 2112.

 

[Gatorgod]

After his hypnotherapy sessions and discovering the truth, Nicholas goes home to relax and puts on a record (the overture of the entire concept album.) However the hypnotherapist followed Nicholas home and reveals himself to be the reincarnated Edward before he murders Nicholas, aka the reincarnated Victoria and completing the cycle. On the album though it just cuts to static from the record player. It's on the live DVD version where the full ending is revealed.

That's trippy! just like in my first post.. I love it when the album becomes an element in the story.. of the Album its in??

 

[The Thompsons]

That's trippy! just like in my first post.. I love it when the album becomes an element in the story.. of the Album its in??

It gets better, the static heard at the end of the album carries over to their next release Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence. In total the "meta album" carried on for 4 releases before being wrapped up a decade later in 2009 with the same static heard at the end of Scenes From a Memory. It was pretty cool hearing them all inked together even though the content itself had nothing to do with each other.

 

[goodfella]

Husker Du- Zen Arcade

 

[comeau]

great record that one

 

[LosTickaToeRest]

Nine Inch Nails have a few - The Downward Spiral and The Fragile are two concept albums seen as an autobiographical story about depression/bipolar II. And Year Zero is a dystopian sci-fi kinda thing. All pretty great.

On the other side of that coin, Trent Reznor's ex-BFF Marilyn Manson gets too little credit for the amount of cool concept-album stuff he used to do. He released a trilogy of surprisingly complex interconnected concept albums at the height of his career - Antichrist Superstar, Mechanical Animals, and Holy Wood, which are most of his best work.

Buzz Osborne of the Melvins is known for bullshitting a lot, but depending on how much you trust his word, their album Hostile Ambient Takeover is a concept album about relationship troubles, with each song being based on different arguments he's had with his wife on different subjects. This interpretation works out fairly welll for me and the outtakes lend credence to this, several being covers of songs with relationship-oriented lyrics, also considering the Melvins aren't usually a band to have lyrics that are clearly 'about' anything.

Tomahwak isn't my favorite of the six hundred bands Mike Patton has been lead singer for but I think their self-titled album is pretty interesting in that it's an ongoing narrative about a serial killer trying to avoid getting caught.

Of course there's the rest of the Floyd concept stuff but as far as 70's concept/rock opera stuff I can't believe nobody's mentioned JOE'S FUCKIN' GARAGE, especially on this, a Simpsons forum, considering the Zappa connection/influence.

 

[Gatorgod]

Nine Inch Nails have a few - The Downward Spiral and The Fragile are two concept albums seen as an autobiographical story about depression/bipolar II. And Year Zero is a dystopian sci-fi kinda thing. All pretty great.

 

[The Thompsons]

Quensryche's Operation: Mindcrime is a rock opera about a comatosed heroine addict named Nikki. In snippets he is able to remember how angry he was at the corrupt society around him and how he was brainwashed into joining a secret revolution. The leader of this group, Dr. X, has brainwashed Nikki into becoming an assassin for the group. By using the word "mindcrime" Nikki becomes the doctor's puppet and is ordered to carry out any murder the doctor wishes. An associate of Dr. X, the corrupt priest Father William, offers the services of ex-prostitute turned nun Sister Mary to Nikki. Through this relationship Nikki begins to question the motivation of his leader and the sinister agenda he is a part of. Dr. X starts to sense that Sister Mary is a threat to his hold over the group so he orders Nikki to kill both Priest William and Sister Mary. Nikki kills the priest but resists the urge to kill Mary.

Nikki tells Dr. X they are out of the organization but the doctor reminds Nikki that he is the only source for his heroine fix. Conflicted Nikki leaves anyway only to return to find that Mary is dead. He then starts blaming himself for Mary's death and starts to become insane (in reality she killed herself over Nikki's potential death.) Nikki runs through the streets calling Mary's name but the police subdue him and they find a gun on Nikki. They charge him with Mary's murder plus the rash of political assassinations in the city. However due to loss of memory, Nikki is sent to a mental institution. It is here he sees a news report on TV about the political murders which jogs his memory. We are back to the beginning where he remembers his ordeal and starts to tell his story.

 

[Kang's Bastard Spore]

Spirit - Twelve Dreams of Dr Sardonicus

Haven't checked it out yet, but the old burnout that gets drunk in the backyard picnic shelter overheard my talk about rock operas & concept albums,.. and was quite excited about us adding this one?.. claiming "it was the top concept album of his young day"?? ... his enthusiasm was such that I'm posting this without having first heard it.. anyone else know of this? .. Youtube, here I come!

I still haven't figured out the love for that album/band. I picked it up back around 2006 and was very underwhelmed.

Surprised to not see Quadrophenia on here yet.

Iced Earth has Something Wicked This Way Comes, though it is oddly split between multiple albums but quite good (and built,around an earlier track which was the title track of it's album, giving them three albums called SWTWC).

 

[Gatorgod]

I still haven't figured out the love for that album/band. I picked it up back around 2006 and was very underwhelmed.

I have a theory bout that.. Back in his day, 50' 60's Radio was plagued with "Payola" scams.. so a 20/20 article tells me.. Not so much a thing anymore.. but record labels unfairly manipulated the the top 100 list with cash bribes.. DJ's put total shit at the top of their play list after getting envelopes stuffed with cash..

if you look through the history of the top 10.. you'll see many songs that last the ages, but a few are on there that make No sense.. and quickly vanished from history.. (the payola songs) .. i fig once the payola promotion ended, and people were no longer told on a daily bases "This is what you like".. it crawled back to obscurity were it had allways belonged in the first place.

A few real music fans were unhappy with this, but the average sheeple willingly let corporations tell them what they liked instead of doing the extra work to decide for themselves.. We're so luck to have the internet today, we have options that allow us to cut through the bullshit that my old wino friend never had. .. I guess product manipulation still exist today in other forms tho,..

 

[Fat Psychopathic Wife]

The Wall is absolute perfection. Pink Floyd's swan song, in my opinion. Whenever I'm out and about and got about 2 hours of travel time, I queue it up. Anyone who hasn't listened to the live version, check it out. It's called Is There Anybody Out There: The Wall Live.

Their last performance together until '05.

 

[Walid]

I don't listen to a lot of music but American Idiot is really great. probably the only Green Day album I know all the songs to

 

[Smiling Politely]

I adore concept albums. The more outlandish the concept, the more you have my attention. I'm a prog fan though, so it comes with the territory. Since everyone else is mentioning specific albums (including some I am very fond of), I will toss in a few off the top of my head.

Haken - Aquarius

This is a concept album about a couple who has a mermaid child in the 22nd century. The parents are initially happy until they realise what she is. They release her into the wild. She is free and happy, living in the streams, until she is captured and placed in a freakshow. We learn that the captors do feel guilty about this but eventually a disaster occurs and the child dies saving them. The end of the album is essentially the child being memorialised.

Haken has other concept albums (aka all of their albums) but this one has a special place in my heart forever and always.

Devin Townsend - Ziltoid The Omniscient

I'd really love to see more albums in which an alien travels through time and space to obtain coffee from Earth and then finds that coffee inferior and therefore decides to start a war. Good thing he made a sequel too. This is one of the first albums that had me properly interested in metal. This album's concept doesn't even require further explanation, you either think that sounds awesome or stupid (and if it's the latter it's because you're boring, no fun, and wroooong).

 

[The Thompsons]

It's really a very loose concept album with no real story. All the songs deal with the legend of the seventh son born of a seventh son with no sisters in either case to break the lineage having "Damien" like powers.

All of Rush's albums from 1980-2007 are thematic albums as well dealing with our impact on the environment, adjusting to fame, communication with each other and technology, facing the pressures of a potential nuclear holocaust, the thirst for power both literally and in a status sense, passion for dreams and goals, trying to change things for the better, the element of chance, dealing with relationships, dealing with loss and the negative and positive effects of religion.

Of course they top it off with a travelling steampunk concept album in 2012 with Clockwork Angels.

As Metallica comes on my IPod I'm reminded that their monumental trifecta in the 80's (Ride The Lightning, Master Of Puppets, ...And Justice For All) had themes of death, manipulation and corruption running through them as well.

 

[Gatorgod]

I've almost overlooked the Beatles, unintentionally "diss'n" them just because they're Too popular.. but I do believe they were the very first concept album band? and they did it scary good! Sgt Pepper wins top honors with a concept of a band that is Sooo popular, they decided to toy with the concept of fame and made a album pretending to be another band? .. The "White Album".. We're so well known, I'll bet if we put out a record with Nothing on the cover.. Everybody will still know its us regardless.. Mystery Tour might not count to some Beatles purist because its considered just the soundtrack album to a old TV special.. but it belongs.. thats what I say!

 

[The Thompsons]

In interviews John Lennon always emphasized that just the Sgt. Pepper's tracks at the beginning and end are related and downplayed the concept album narrative.

Here's an early example, and one of the forerunners of prog:

It actually is, to borrow from Sgt. Pepper's, a day in the life of a man.

 

[LosTickaToeRest]

The Who Sell Out is an underrated one. The whole album plays out under the theme of a radio broadcast, complete with sarcastic, patronizing fake commercial jingles by the band sprinkled around as interludes.

Fantômas is one of those 'supergroups' I could never really get into despite being a big fan of all the individual players (Mike Patton of Faith No More/Mr. Bungle? Buzz Osborne from the Melvins? Trevor Dunn from The Melvins/Mr. Bungle? Dave Lombardo from Slayer? Occasional contributions from Zappa drummer Terry Bozzio? Sounds like a recipe for success) but even though I rarely listen to them, I like the ideas behind their albums; their self-titled album, for example, is a series of short, weird, grindcorish songs with page numbers for titles, each meant to evoke the emotions/atmosphere and progressions of events of the respective pages of an old pulp adventure comic. Or their album Delìrium Còrdia which is a single 75-minute dark-ambient track meant as the 'score' to a nonexistent film about a scary surgeon who performs surgery without anesthesia on unsuspecting victims.

The Residents are all over the place in style and subject matter but they've produced a lot of concept albums; one of my favorites in particular being Gingerbread Man, a creepy and kinda depressing rock-opera about a spiritual entity representing childlike happiness and whimsy peeking in on the miserable lives of a diverse bunch of desperately unhappy people from all walks of life.

The Smashing Pumpkins' pair of 00's albums, Machina and Machina II, are meant to be a concept narrative about a rock star in an apocalyptic/cyberpunk setting going insane, and there was even an animated web series being developed to tell the story, but that never came to pass and that interpretation doesn't really come through outside of a few songs.

Billy Idol's hilarious failure at a reinvention/comeback in the early 90s, the overhyped and hideously-received industrial-tinged Cyberpunk, is a clumsy attempt at a concept album based on the book Neuromancer. Idol started wearing dreads, made an apocalyptic music video where he turned into a stop-motion cyborg, made early use of the internet to promote himself and look hip and cutting-edge to the nerds on Usenet, the works. Best part is, Idol made demands that anyone who interviewed him during that period was required to read Neuromancer beforehand, but then every interview from the period he makes it clear that he himself has never actually read the book, and defends himself by saying he "doesn't need to" because he "absorbed it through cultural osmosis". Didn't help that the album was a piece of shit and pretty much nuked what was left of his career and credibility from the sky.

A lot of people don't realize Alice Cooper has made a lot of concept albums. The most notable one probably being Welcome to My Nightmare, a huge downer of a semi-autobiographical album co-written/produced with Bob Ezrin in a similar vein to his later collaboration with Pink Floyd, The Wall. It's about Steven, a recurring character in Cooper's albums and stand-in for his childhood self, trapped in a nightmare where he has to face what a horrible, abusive, hopelessly-depressed alcoholic he will become as an adult; much of it being Cooper trying to own up to some of the terrible things he had done since becoming a big rock star.

Also, I am shocked - shocked - that nobody has mentioned any of David Bowie's wealth of concept albums yet.

 

[Gatorgod]

A lot of people don't realize Alice Cooper has made a lot of concept albums. The most notable one probably being Welcome to My Nightmare, a huge downer of a semi-autobiographical album co-written/produced with Bob Ezrin in a similar vein to his later collaboration with Pink Floyd, The Wall. It's about Steven, a recurring character in Cooper's albums and stand-in for his childhood self, trapped in a nightmare where he has to face what a horrible, abusive, hopelessly-depressed alcoholic he will become as an adult; much of it being Cooper trying to own up to some of the terrible things he had done since becoming a big rock star.

Thanks for reminding me! I love Alice Cooper - On The Inside - A concept album about Cooper’s stay at a New York loony bin due to his alcoholism. Each of the characters in the songs were based on actual people Cooper met in the sanitarium. I can listen to this again & again!

People who never seen the LP album miss a Fold-Out treat. .. I like the digital age, wouldnt wanna turn back the clock, but we did lose a lot of fun album art surprises along the way.

 

[Egg]

I've almost overlooked the Beatles, unintentionally "diss'n" them just because they're Too popular.. but I do believe they were the very first concept album band? and they did it scary good! Sgt Pepper wins top honors with a concept of a band that is Sooo popular, they decided to toy with the concept of fame and made a album pretending to be another band? .. The "White Album".. We're so well known, I'll bet if we put out a record with Nothing on the cover.. Everybody will still know its us regardless.. Mystery Tour might not count to some Beatles purist because its considered just the soundtrack album to a old TV special.. but it belongs.. thats what I say!

None of those are concept albums.
Sgt Pepper only has the two title tracks connected, Magical Mystery Tour has no connection.

 

[Egg]

In interviews John Lennon always emphasized that just the Sgt. Pepper's tracks at the beginning and end are related and downplayed the concept album narrative.

Here's an early example, and one of the forerunners of prog:

It actually is, to borrow from Sgt. Pepper's, a day in the life of a man.

I've heard Nights In White Satin from that album.
Damn, what a beautiful song...

 

[Gatorgod]

None of those are concept albums.
Sgt Pepper only has the two title tracks connected, Magical Mystery Tour has no connection.

I'll gladly drop MMTour, but the pro & con for Sgt Pepper is so wide I'm going to still stick by it.. because John & Paul told me to!...kinda

Here's one of many arguments I've read...
David Demery writes: (edit)
Sgt. Pepper the first concept album? ...This will probably give rise to many different answers, but the credit either goes to Frank Sinatra or Frank Zappa..Macca said, the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" and The Mothers of Invention's "Freak Out" were the pattern they were imitating. And John said "Sgt. Pepper is called the first concept album, but it doesn't go anywhere. All my contributions to the album have nothing to do with this idea of Sgt. Pepper and his band; but it works 'cause we *said* it worked." Actually, the album *does* work as a "concept" album, an idea, encompassing a multiple and complex musical personality...almost the birth of a tangible entity. One way the album communicates this is via its *apparent unity*---something those tight segues do much to impress upon the listener---while the actual thematic arrangement is bold in its dissimilarity.

Who are we listening to, really? Not Billy Shears' band? And where are the Beatles themselves? That's the central question. Where, indeed, have they gone? What have they become? Will they ever come back in a form remotely recognizable? Will we know them by their past or by their future? Paul explained it much later as "a complete thing that you could make what you liked of---just a little magical presentation." For the first time, they weren't touring. They had time to use the studio as their musical laboratory, experimenting with what were, new equipment and techniques. They had time to experiment-- bold new drug dreams, vague ancient and remote histories, simple classless domestic tragedies...and an ardent wish to share it all with listeners, no matter who or in what era that listener might be found.

I can't think of a more miraculous "concept" than that!

 

[LosTickaToeRest]

I haven't listened to it yet (I want to though because it's very acclaimed, plus the band has David Witte from Melt-Banana and Municipal Waste) but the grindcore band Discordance Axis released a record in 2000 called The Inalienable Dreamless that's a concept album based on the storyline elements from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Also, singer-songwriter Poe's album Haunted, also from 2000, is meant to be a concept album/companion piece related to her brother Mark Z. Danielewski's book House of Leaves

 

[Gatorgod]

The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast - 1974

produced by Roger Glover of Deep Purple. Using his connections, Glover recruited a large cast of noted rock musicians to perform on it, with a different vocalist for each animal character, The single "Love Is All", with vocals from Ronnie James Dio, made a minor impression in the UK but reached number one in The Netherlands. Its accompanying animated short also gained unexpected success in France.

 

[The Thompsons]

Since In The Heart Of The Sea is coming out next week, here's a concept album about the story of Moby Dick from the prog/metal group Mastodon:

EDIT: Their first four albums in fact all have to do with the elements of earth, fire and water and air .