Your favourite Rock Operas?

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 Cristi wrote:

 MikeEnRegalia wrote:

 Cristi wrote:

so what's the difference between a rock opera and a concept album? 

Concept and vocals. I think the main aspect of a Rock/Metal opera is having a concept involving a narrative with several characters who are singing dialogues, usually with different vocalists. 

oh, got it. 
By this definition, Tommy is not a rock opera. 
But most of Ayreon are rock operas.  

Hi,

And, in general, the majority of "concept" pieces are sung by one person, and it becomes a "make believe" thing for the audience. An opera does has a fairly strong and complete story to tell, and the different vocalists are the various characters in it.

In general, "rock opera" is a term that is slightly mis-used, since just about everything listed here is sung by one person with the exception of a choir/chorus type of moments added. It doesn't exactly, make for a "rock opera" ... since rock bands have very limited use of vocals, by more than one person.

The idea, is good ... the reality is bad and not on par with the music history and its story, where opera has been, generally, very strong and with excellent voices carrying it. I still think of TURANDOT as the best one as it features (in recordings) some insanely beautiful work by Renata Tebaldi and Birgit Nilsson. I don't think that a rock band will ever come close to creating something like that ... in general, rock music is way too simplistic to make the grade.