# Are concept albums dead? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 4, 2018, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185 "2018-02-04T20:30:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/1 "2018-02-04T20:30:54Z")
This from a friend of mine, David D. Levine: "“What kind of monster listens to a concept album on shuffle?!”, and I tend to agree with him. From the 40’s with Guthries’s _Dust Bowl Ballads_ to to the 50’s with Sinatra’s _In The Wee Small Hours_ to the 60’s with The Beatles’ _Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band_ to the 70’s rock opera _Tommy_ by The Who to…what? MTV is what-singles promoting easily visualized 3 minute stories, neither supported by the song before it nor supporting the song after it. What(if any) are the great concept albums of this generation? ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/2 "2018-02-04T21:17:04Z")
Queensryche’s Operation:Mindcrime > **[Operation: Mindcrime](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation:_Mindcrime)** > > Operation: Mindcrime is the third studio album by American heavy metal band Queensrÿche. Originally released on May 3, 1988, the album was reissued on May 6, 2003, with two bonus tracks, and again in 2006 as a deluxe box set. > Operation: Mindcrime is a concept album and a rock opera. Its story follows Nikki, a drug addict who becomes disillusioned with the corrupt society of his time and reluctantly becomes involved with a revolutionary group as an assassin of political leaders. In January 1989... And My Chemical Romance, The Black Parade. Maybe different generations, there… ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/3 "2018-02-04T21:19:49Z")
Janelle Monae m[ade a good one in 2010](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_ArchAndroid). ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/4 "2018-02-04T21:26:34Z")
Beyoncé’s [_Lemonade_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemonade_(Beyonc%C3%A9_album)). From waaaay back in 2016. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/5 "2018-02-04T21:35:07Z")
_Southern Rock Opera_ > **[Southern Rock Opera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Rock_Opera)** > > Southern Rock Opera is the third studio album by the American rock band Drive-By Truckers, released in 2001. A double album covering an ambitious range of subject matter from the politics of race to 1970s stadium rock, Southern Rock Opera either imagines, or filters, every topic through the context of legendary Southern band Lynyrd Skynyrd. The record was originally self-released on Soul Dump Records. The album was re-released on July 16, 2002 by Lost Highway Records. The album was financed by is... ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/6 "2018-02-04T22:09:42Z")
It may be a stretch to call it a concept album but Marty Stuart’s 2017 album [“Way Out West”](https://www.amazon.com/West-Marty-Stuart-Fabulous-Superlatives/dp/B01MZB5QDA/ref=ntt_mus_ep_dpi_1) is a self-described love letter to the California desert. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/7 "2018-02-04T22:17:03Z")
Heavy Metal is overflowing with concept albums at the moment. Mastodon’s 2017 album [_Emperor of the Sand_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og39iIBeOHI&list=PLBzBwYhHpqLJo8sZm-_84Z5lxCD20sb9y) was their 4th concept album and prolly last year’s highest profile release. Like their previous efforts, [this album was well-recieved](https://www.allmusic.com/album/emperor-of-sand-mw0003017546): > [@](#): > > Mastodon set the bar high with Emperor of Sand. It was written in difficult circumstances emotionally and creatively. Like their first three albums (and unlike their last two), this is a concept album. Its dominant theme is of time running out, and its 11 tracks offer an allegorical story of a man handed a death sentence by a desert sultan. To escape, he flees into the expanse of the geography’s emptiness, but the further he goes, the more lost he becomes in the sand as an unrelenting sun begins to claim his energy and ultimately his body – think radiation poisoning. Desperate, he attempts to communicate telepathically with tribes of various races and historical periods to make rain fall and stop that progression. The concept is poignant: guitarist Bill Kelliher’s mother passed away from brain cancer in 2016. The music grew out of long jams intended to address his grief and help him heal. The notion of time’s eternal passage haunts every song here. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/8 "2018-02-04T22:27:46Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > This from a friend of mine, David D. Levine: "“What kind of monster listens to a concept album on shuffle?!”, and I tend to agree with him. It’s at least theoretically possible for a concept album to be intended to be listened to on shuffle, though I can’t think of any examples. > [@](#): > > What(if any) are the great concept albums of this generation? There are some suggestions in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=817821) from a year ago. ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/9 "2018-02-04T22:40:50Z")
One which has been a recent and justifiable success in the UK is by Steven Wilson: [Hand Cannot Erase](http://stevenwilsonhq.com/sw/recordings/hand-cannot-erase/). It is wonderful. It got brought to my attention when there was reports and confusion from the mainstream press when he filled the Albert Hall in London, and they were asking why this prog artist they’d never heard of was doing this. [Guardian Article on that](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/aug/24/steven-wilson-the-prog-rocker-topping-the-charts-without-anyone-noticing) The album is based on the story of a young popular attractive woman who died in her flat and wasn’t found for three years. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/10 "2018-02-04T22:47:11Z")
Nightwish’s \*\*Imaginaerum \*\*is a concept album and is from 2011. Also one of the great albums of the last decade, too. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/11 "2018-02-05T01:16:26Z")
Last one I bought was Neil Young’s Greendale from the early 2000s. > **[Greendale (album)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greendale_(album))** > > Greendale is the 25th studio album by Neil Young. Young and Crazy Horse's Greendale, a 10-song rock opera, is set in a fictional California seaside town. Based on the saga of the Green family, the musical "audio novel" has been compared to the literary classics of Thornton Wilder's Our Town and Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio for its complexity and emotional depth in exploring a small town in America. > Greendale combines numerous themes on corruption, observation of the passing of time, envir... [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgvuBPlAKEA) ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/12 "2018-02-05T01:27:26Z")
I’ve been drinking. Here’s a live version. Let’s see how long Neil allows these to stay on Youtube. 🙂 [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/PzSr0GpUeEk/hqdefault.jpg "Be the Rain - Neil Young e Crazy Horse") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzSr0GpUeEk) ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/13 "2018-02-05T01:33:57Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Nightwish’s \*\*Imaginaerum \*\*is a concept album and is from 2011. Also one of the great albums of the last decade, too. And yet I hear various songs from it on Pandora and have no problem with it compared to the horror I imagine when I hear a single song from Dark Side of the Moon on the radio or whatever. I believe what’s happened is that the album as a format may still be used by artists, but it’s increasingly difficult to get people to engage it that way, especially if the artist in any way allows the different parts of the album to be played out of context from each other. Are Nightwish’s albums better if listened straight through instead of being shuffled around with individual songs from Within Temptation, Epica, Kamelot, etc. that may have also been initially intended to be listened as an album straight through? Maybe, but I don’t particularly like half the songs in general, and I can enjoy them plenty while disconnected from each other much better than when I have to put up with the songs that I can’t stand. ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/14 "2018-02-05T04:20:23Z")
Dream Theaters last album was a concept album called The Astonishing, released in 2016. Slee ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/15 "2018-02-05T04:23:55Z")
> [@glowacks](#): > > And yet I hear various songs from it on Pandora and have no problem with it compared to the horror I imagine when I hear a single song from Dark Side of the Moon on the radio or whatever. I believe what’s happened is that the album as a format may still be used by artists, but it’s increasingly difficult to get people to engage it that way, especially if the artist in any way allows the different parts of the album to be played out of context from each other. > > Are Nightwish’s albums better if listened straight through instead of being shuffled around with individual songs from Within Temptation, Epica, Kamelot, etc. that may have also been initially intended to be listened as an album straight through? Maybe, but I don’t particularly like half the songs in general, and I can enjoy them plenty while disconnected from each other much better than when I have to put up with the songs that I can’t stand. Yes, I think so, though I prefer more recent Nightwish to the older stuff. I would listen to their last two albums, Imaginaerum and Endless Forms Most Beautiful and see if you like them. ---
**Author:** ![Clawdio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d07c76/32.png) [@Clawdio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clawdio)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2018, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/16 "2018-02-07T22:01:42Z")
Have to post about one of my favorite bands: Coheed and Cambria. All of their albums (except the most recent) were a part of the Amory Wars saga. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2018, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/17 "2018-02-07T23:53:01Z")
> [@Clawdio](#): > > Have to post about one of my favorite bands: Coheed and Cambria. > > All of their albums (except the most recent) were a part of the Amory Wars saga. Great username/post combo, eh. 😃 I mentioned the same thing in last year’s thread: > [@Decline of the 'concept album' as an art form](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/decline-of-the-concept-album-as-an-art-form/778592/20): > > Coheed & Cambria pretty much only exists to tell about The Amory Wars. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2018, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/18 "2018-02-08T00:18:31Z")
NIN’s “Downward Spiral” is essentially a concept album. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2018, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/19 "2018-02-08T00:59:15Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Janelle Monae m[ade a good one in 2010](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_ArchAndroid). That’s what I came in to say. Love it! ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2018, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-concept-albums-dead/808185/20 "2018-02-08T01:08:26Z")
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