Are concept albums dead?

[Voyager]

@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. 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?

Since I don’t do streaming, I have a question about the concept albums mentioned. Do people download the whole thing and listen to them complete, like we did in LP days, or do people stream the good bits, as if someone just listened to “Pinball Wizard?”
I shuffle everything when I walk, so that includes the concept albums I have, but I know the complete album so I can tell where it fits. It is frustrating to listen to “Good Morning” from Sgt. Pepper’s without the next track being the Sgt. Pepper reprise. But that also goes to listening to the Third Movement of Beethoven’s Fifth and then being wrenched away from the Fourth Movement. Kind of a concept album too.

[digs]

@Voyager

Since I don’t do streaming, I have a question about the concept albums mentioned. Do people download the whole thing and listen to them complete, like we did in LP days, or do people stream the good bits…?

When I pull that sword out of that stone (or that stylus out of that vintage Stones album) and am acclaimed King of All That Is Listened To…

1. Thou shalt be forbidden to produce a cover song unless it be a) different and b) better than the original.

and

2. A concept album may only be listened to in its entirety. All downloads will retroactively adjusted. If you have “Uncle Ernie” on your iPod… lo and behold, you now own all of Tommy, and must listen to it in order.

bonus!..

2a) This listening my be used as an excuse to get out of any onerous task. “Sorry, Mom, I’d love to re-shelf-paper your cabinets, but by royal decree I have to finish American Gangster first. Now, if you want to listen to an hour of Jay-Z with me… yeah, didn’t think so. Maybe next week.”

3. Even ordinary albums must be downloaded in their entirety. And the “deep cuts” listened to before you play “the hits” for a fifth time.

but…

3a) An exception shall be made for Neil Young’s Comes a Time album.
Being a benevolent monarch, I have no wish for my loyal subjects to suffer through “Motorcycle Mama”.

[Rick_Kitchen]

@digs

When I pull that sword out of that stone (or that stylus out of that vintage Stones album) and am acclaimed King of All That Is Listened To…

1. Thou shalt be forbidden to produce a cover song unless it be a) different and b) better than the original.

Somebody needs to carve this into River Cuomo’s chest with a rusty blade. Weezer’s new cover of “Africa” is practically note for note the same as Toto’s version.

Weezer - Africa

[digs]

If only they’d somehow rewritten the line:

I know that I must do what’s right /
As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti…

Surely someone could change it so it scans, and doesn’t sound like someone shoehorned a paragraph into one line.