at least out of the groups I like, their concept albums always seemed the weakest to me. the songwriting always seems to suffer when it has to bend to fit the story.
Maybe sometimes it’s the other way around?
It will also be 25 years old soon. I feel old!
Rhapsody and Rhapsody of Fire(two different bands now) make concept albums almost every time. They are not all great, but I do recommend:
Symphony of Enchanted Lands II – The Dark Secret - Christopher Lee sings a great song on this one.
Into the Legend(2016) - great album
Jay Munly’s Petr & the Wulf
Is it ok to listen to songs from a concept album on shuffle if they’re mixed with other things?
What about show tunes?
Am I allowed to listen to “Eternal Youth is Worth a Little Suffering” by itself, or does it have to be the whole of Sunset Boulevard’s BSO every time?
Inquiring heretics want to know.
More in tune with the OP’s question, I just read today an interview with Basque accordeonist Kepa Junkera, whose last record (Fok, a KJ-spelled foc or “fire”) is dedicated to songs from Catalan-speaking areas and sounds damn interesting. He collaborated with a ton of people and would ask each of them “name me your favorite traditional song”.
“David Comes to Life” (2011) by the band Fucked Up is a terrific punk metal rock opera.
[quote=“glowacks, post:13, topic:808185”]
Are Nightwish’s albums better if listened straight through [ /QUOTE]
I am no fan of Nightwish but generally speaking, metal is album, not single orientated and the average metalhead will listen to an album from beginning to end, irresepctive of whether its a concept album or not.
Its no surprise, as Snowboarder Bo, pointed out, that there are a fuckload of concept albums in metal. Indeed, one of my perennial favourites, Therion, will release a 3 CD (!) conceptual album tomorrow.
I cant speak to mainstream / pop acts; others will have to fill you in.
I think the example of “Lemonade” has to be returned to here; it’s one of the most popular albums of the last few years. How can one ask if there’s still concept albums around when such a huge album, released just two years ago, is a concept album?
I mean, concept albums are not just the domain of white guys. There are a LOT of concept albums in hip hop - not just “Lemonade,” but also Jay-Z’s “American Gangster,” “Undun” by The Roots, “Good Kid MAAD City” by Kendrick Lamar, “Speakerboxx/The Love Below” by OutKast, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year and had two #1 singles, and of course “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,” which is one of the greatest albums ever made. I’m just citing the more famous examples.
It’s probably a big stretch to call it a concept album, but They Might Be Giants’ Apollo 18 was specifically intended to be played on shuffle. The CD booklet says: “the indexing of this disc is designed to complement the Shuffle Mode of modern CD players.” It includes a series of about 20 short songs called “Fingertips” that get interspersed throughout the “normal” songs when listened to on shuffle, creating a unique listening experience every time.
Yes, and I thought of that and actually considered mentioning it. 
That was one of the first albums I bought on CD.
I will say that for an album to be a concept album absolutely does not (necessarily) mean that none of its songs “make sense” outside the context of the album.
I just came here to mention my favorite concept album, Ween’s The Mollusk. From 1997 though, it’s over 20 years old now.
And am I the only one who’s sad that Coheed ditched their “concept band” gimmick? Their newest album is fantastic though, so it lessens the sting. Still, they’re the only band I know that did something like that, and now they’re just another regular band.
Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” was released within the last two years and reached #1 in the U.S. for a period of time. I think that would qualify.
I can corroborate this: metal is still very much album oriented and yes, most headbangers IME will listen to whole albums rather than singles (at least until the album is burnt into our brains pretty thoroughly).
It’s not particularly recent, but Rasputina released the rather bizarre concept album Oh Perilous World in 2007. If you want to hear a Bin-Laden speech put in the mouth of a nineteenth century rebel leader fighting against evil Mary Todd Lincoln, it’s the album for you.
For the metal-minded among you I can recommend King Diamond who has done a number of concept albums:
1986 Fatal Portrait
1987 Abigail
1988 “Them”
1989 Conspiracy
1990 The Eye
1995 The Spider’s Lullabye
1996 The Graveyard
1998 Voodoo
2000 House of God
2002 Abigail II: The Revenge
2003 The Puppet Master
2007 Give Me Your Soul…Please
All telling a horror story of some kind. Best ones are “Them” about sinister cups of tea and “The Puppet Master” about sinister, errr, puppets.
I should also put in a plug for the mighty Public Service Broadcasting and The Space Race: essentially Mogwai-style post-rock with Eno electronics and broadcast samples to tell the story of the space race of the 50s, 60’s, and 70’s, and it is epic and beautiful. This is “Go!” live, and I so want to see these guys in concert. Also the guitarist looks like Doctor Who.
Not exactly “the current generation,” but three top-drawer rockers–Warren Zevon, David Bowie and Gregg Allman–released albums about their impending deaths, all since 2000. Are there some specific generational and calendar cutoffs you’d like to impose, like albums that postdate iPods and Napster, and artists born after MTV became a network?
Hell yeah!
Filling in the gaps, Hüsker Dü released Zen Arcade back in 1984.
A great album, agreed, but I’m not sure what the concept is besides “we just got a kick-ass keyboard player.” 
(I’m kind of kidding – there’s a nautical theme going on through some of the songs. Lots of others, like “Waving My Dick in the Wind,” have nothing to do with the ocean, though. But McClelland’s keyboards are really the x-factor that ties the whole thing together.)
Another example: The Magnetic Fields are still putting stuff out, and most of their albums are concept albums. (Example concepts: songs about love, songs about travel, songs with titles beginning with the letter “i,” songs that sound like they came off of Jesus & Mary Chain’s Psychocandy, and last year’s 50 Song Memoir, containing one song for each year of Stephin Merritt’s life so far.)