In the thread that inspired me to post, the OP asks for songs that invoke a vivid imagery. I’d like to go a step beyond that, and ask for bands that define a consistent mythology/universe across songs and albums.
My defining example here is the Hold Steady. Craig Finn, the band’s singer/songwriter, is incredibly self-referential, to the point that the band’s fans have started a wiki to serve as a concordance for the band’s material. More importantly for what I’m interested in here, he uses the same characters repeatedly in different songs, expounding on their stories.
What I’m looking for in this thread are similar bands/singers. Genre is relatively unimportant, but I’d like to keep it to pop music (broadly construed so as encompass rock, metal, country, rap, etc.) The other requirements for the music:
There must be storylines/characters that appear in multiple (3 or more) songs. The three or more is to help avoid answers like the Beatles, since, for example, Lady Madonna appears in “Glass Onion.”
The songs must be distributed on multiple albums. In particular, I’m trying to avoid single concept albums here. Concept albums are allowed to be part of the mythology, however. I would consider Queensrÿche to be borderline acceptable, since the Operation: Mindcrime albums establish a consistent story across albums.
The story must actually be developed and furthered by multiple songs. Throwaway references are allowable, but there still must be other songs with character/storyline development. For example, I don’t see that the character of Major Tom is sufficiently developed in “Ashes to Ashes” to warrant Bowie’s inclusion here.
To tell the truth, I’m not sure how broad this category is, so I’d like to see if anyone has any ideas beyond those mentioned.
I’ll start with the mentioned Hold Steady. The characters of Holly/Halleluiah, Charlemagne, and Gideon are established on the band’s first album, and make appearances on subsequent albums and unreleased tracks. Holly is a Catholic girl who falls in with a fairly rough crowd, and her life spirals out of control. She has obvious appearances in well over a dozen songs covering 3+ albums, and might actually appear on all of their albums (the references aren’t always clear). A good chunk of the band’s work revolves around the stories of those who encounter her.
But…Grandaddy, on a 1999 EP, had a brief song/poem written by a robot, “Jeddy’s 3 Poem,” which is a paean to alcohol.
Then on their 2000 LP we get “Jed the Humanoid,” a song about that same Jed drinking himself to death. So sad!
Later on that same LP we get “Jed’s Other Poem”, which starts “Apparently before Jed had left us/He wrote some poems/Wrote them for no one/But I guess I’ll show them/Here’s one of Jed’s poems.”
So…evolution of subject…3 songs…multiple albums. There ya go.
The Stranglers released five separate songs, and leaked a demo of a sixth, concerning the misadventures of one Vladimir. These weren’t album tracks, but single B-sides.
The entirety of Magma’s first three albums, plus various sequels, concerned the story of refugees from earth who settled the planet Kobaia before returning to earth to bring about its spiritual salvation. Or something. Since what lyrics there are are entirely in an invented language, you have to read the liner notes to follow the story.
I would venture a guess that a lot of the Concept Albums from the 70s meet these requires. Rush did them and so did The Who. As did many others. It was a trend at the time.
Would you allow the “character” of the father of Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters?
At the very least – and off the top of my head – he features in “When the tigers broke free” (released on Echoes (?) and The Wall soundtrack, though not album), and the “Fletcher Memorial Home” (on the Final Cut)… but I’m sure more knowledgable people could name other references (rather than just serving as the inspiration for the bitterness of the Final Cut).
He’s also mentioned in “Free Four” on the album More. The line is “you are the angel of death / and I am the dead man’s son / he was buried like a mole in a foxhole / and everyone’s still on the run.”
There are probably more, but that’s all I can think of.
Bruce Springsteen must have at least a dozen songs with a character named “Mary” (though I don’t think there’s anything to indicate any are necessarily intended to refer to the same person).
Although it doesn’t meet the “3 or more” requirement, I think Harry Chapin deserves credit for “Sequel”, which has the same characters as his earlier song “Taxi”.
Iron Maiden has Charlotte the Harlot on 3-4 different albums through about 10 years. Though I’m not 100% sure it’s supposed to be her most people agree that it is. I can’t remember them all off the top of my head though.
“Three or more” is the hard part. If two occurrences were enough…
David Bowie resurrected Major Tom, the junkie from “Space Oddity,” in the 1980 song “Ashes to Ashes” from the Scary Monsters album.
Ray Davies and The Kinks brought back Lola on the track “Destroyer” from their 1981 Give the People What They Want album. Allegedly, Davies was inspired by what Bowie had done.
Heck, going waaaay back, Buddy Holly wrote and sang the sequel song “Peggy Sue Got Married.”
Another oldie: Chuck Berry’s “Memphis, Tennessee” had a sequel called “Little Marie,” in which the caller finally gets through to his daughter, and is able to reunite with her and her Mom." (George Thorogood used to perform both songs together as one long song.)
Although the title of the OP didn’t mention the same artist, so you can get the third with Major Tom by Peter Schilling. In addition to the fact that I hear Willliam Shatner will soon be coming out with a theme album entirely devoted to Major Tom :eek:
A better Kinks example: their Preservation Act 1 and Preservation Act 2, the latter a double album, share a plot and characters; and the title character of their Schoolboys in Disgrace supposedly grows up to become “Mr. Flash,” one of the main characters from the Preservation albums.
One other example I’m aware of, though not really familiar with, is the “Saturn 5 Trilogy” of albums by the band Brave Saint Saturn.
Za Frumi has a series of neofolk albums that are essentially a set of radio plays about a band of orcs, goblins, and whatnot.
Hypatia Lake has a series of spacerock albums explicitly framed as biographical stories about the lead character in the albums.
The third part isn’t out yet, but the Protomen have a trilogy of rock operas set in the same city and featuring the same group of people.
Pete Townshend had three rock operas which featured his author-stand-in character Ray High - Psychoderelict, Lifehouse, and Wire and Glass (the latter being the only one released under the name of the Who).
Rush had fear, which is made up of four songs released on four different albums (and intentionally released out of order). BOC also had a character called “Suzy” who got referenced in four different songs on four different albums.
Blue Oyster Cult had its Imaginos myth-arc, elements of which appeared on almost every one of their albums that Sandy Pearlman wrote lyrics for.
Andrew Ratchin was the front man for Uncle Bonsai in the 80’s. He was in a short-lived sextet in the 90’s called Mel Cooleys, and also performs solo (under the name Electric Bonsai Band (it’s not electric, it’s not a band)). Uncle Bonsai has occasionally reunited, and they replaced one of the members and released a new CD about a year ago.
Throughout it all, he has written songs about a guy named Doug. There have been Doug’s Birthday Song, Doug’s First Job, Doug Gets Married, Delilah Gets Married (Delilah was Doug’s wife), Doug’s Greatest Christmas Ever, Doug at the Gates of Hell, Where’s My Puppy (Doug’s Resurrection: Part One), and more.
There was a reunion concert at one point, released on CD as Doug, but it’s no longer definitive since more Doug songs have come out since then.
Some of the songs are funny, some are serious, all are good. (Which could be said about the whole Uncle Bonsai catalog, too.)
The Residents did a series of albums back in the eighties called The Mole Show. It was supposed to be an ongoing story about a war between two societies, the Moles and the Chubbs. The series was supposed to eventually compromise six albums but only three were released.
