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Originally Posted by Urban Hatemonger
50 : Concept Albums With Shitty, Boring Or Unoriginal Concepts
It was so tempting to put concept albums in full stop , but if I did that I would be slating some of my favourite albums. I think it's fair to say I prefer themed albums rather than concept albums. For example Primal Scream's Screamadelica technically could be considered a concept album but I prefer to think of it as a themed album , the theme being of course the high you get from E and the inevitable comedown afterwards.
Everybody praises The Who's Tommy album. I F ucking hate it. The whole concept is idiotic , the pinball part of it was added in at the last minute and goes on to become virtually half the focus of the album. Which just goes to show how paper thin the whole thing was already. They did a much better job on The Who Sell Out , A simple concept (A pirate radio station , with faux adverts in between songs ) done well that doesn't intrude at all in the songs. They managed to make an album with a central concept where you could also take each song individually and it loses nothing. Something that both Primal Scream did on Screamadelica , Husker Du did it on Zen Arcade which just happen to be two of my favourite albums of all time. Compare that to Iron Maiden's Seventh Son album which I found so dull I didn't listen to them again for about 5 years , and i've never really regained the love I once had for them since , which brings me on to my next point.
Concept albums brings this horrible image of horrible wannabe rock operas writing songs about epic quests. What I hate about them most is that there's no release from it. Once your saddled with this idiotic theme you have to endure it for the whole album , which is why I hated Seventh Son & Tommy so much.
None of the songs stand up on their own. The album will almost certainly begin with ridiculous opening song title such 'Prelude To The Magical Quest Of Blarnathog' followed by 'The Magical Quest Of Blarnathog Begins' and you just know at some point there will be a song about water. I think there's an unwritten rule saying all concept albums must have a song about the sea or an ocean. Usually after about 4 or 5 songs I just want it to get to the final song (Usually titled on concept albums as 'Finale' ... amazing originality huh!)
And you know that once your favourite band has made a dull concept album the next time you see them live they'll play THE WHOLE FUC KING THING IN ORDER. I mean have you heard some of The Who's 70s bootlegs? , the whole of the Tommy album , a bunch of early rock n roll / blues standards and an extended version of My Generation that lasts about 15 minutes. By the time you get through that your lucky if you even hear one song from any other album they've done , and thats during a 90/120 minute long show. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just the tour they did for Tommy but they did this up until about 1974.
Concept albums .. Fuc k em |
Well I disagree with this one strongly, for one, the pinball thing isn't that relevant to the story of Tommy, it's not really referenced outside of the Pinball Wizard, it became more relevant in the movie, but I never cared for the movie anyway. The album is just a straightfoward story about a deaf, dumb and blind kid who becomes a religious cult figure. I don't get the criticism of it being incoherent, you want a confusing concept album try A Passion Play by Jethro Tull.
I think concept albums are great, I certainly don't get the hate for the idea, people tell stories through songs, so telling one through the length of an album is a great idea IMO. It's almost like saying writers should only write short stories but never write actual novels. As long as concept albums are done right I think it's a very credible form of art.
Tommy is a great album IMO, there are some lame really short tracks here and there that don't stand out on their own and only serve to tell part of the story, but other than that I think most of the songs hold up and it's actually my favorite Who album (though between it and Leeds it's close).
I know you also hate The Wall but whatever. Those are two albums that always come to mind when people think of concept albums, but the 60s and 70s had a lot of great concept albums IMO. Ziggy Stardust, Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Days of Future Past, Arthur, 2112, Aqualung, Lizard, Quadrophena, Relayer and everybodies favorite Tales From Topographic Oceans. I know you hate most of these albums too but, meh, I love it, I like musicals, it's the same thing, I'm all for bloated and pretentious concept albums as long as the music is good. If anyone, I would target Journey or Styx for doing concept albums, going after Floyd and The Who to me is just an obvious attempt at going after the sacred cows and it's really tiresome now because it's been done many times before, to the point that I don't even consider Tommy or The Wall sacred cows anymore because of how much popular opinion has changed over the years. Criticizing something and using only the most popular example (and one I'll almost certainly disagree with) isn't really enlightening to me, sorry.
It all depends on who does concept albums, to me it's really a prog thing for the most part, prog bands already have rock opera like elements in their music, so they have a better idea of how they should work. Nowadays when people think of concept albums it's all these power metal bands (who unlike prog bands actually DO write songs about dragons and wizards) who pretty much just do what you said, I take that's what most of your post was referring to. And now everyone thinks they can do a concept album because it will automatically make them artistically credible or something.
Prog bands still do concept albums, The Mars Volta and Porcupine Tree in particular, and they're great. Indie kids praise Zen Arcade (which I flat out don't like) as one of the best concept albums, but I never would have known it was a concept album until people said it was, having heard it and albums like Penis Envy I can certainly say I prefer the prog approach to the punk approach. Our opinions are so opposite. Anyway one thing I know you can agree with is that we should certainly ban f*cking metal bands (except Mastodon) and pop punk bands from doing them. Good Charlotte doing a concept album was the last straw for me.