Concept albums not on PA (including Prog related)

I actually started thinking about this because I’ve decided to give Carole King a try this week. So I stumbled over «Fantasy». Which to me feels like her gentle and rather exquisite «What’s Going On» sort of album. It’s a worldview as seen through her lens and one song flows into the next. Sure it doesn’t hit as hard as Gaye’s masterpiece, but it’s very enjoyable.

Anyway: I’ve collected 24 albums that are normally thought of as concept albums (alternatively «Rock Operas»), that either has a concept explained by the artist - or I simply experience the album as conceptual or having a storyline, myself. I left out some albums I personally like, that's often considered conceptual in one way or another, but I’m unable to connect the dots in any meaningful way (such as Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and Songs For The Deaf)

-With some of these artists like Tom Waits, The Caretaker and Sufjan Stevens… most of their albums have a concept, so I chose one I felt was representative. I suppose scores for movies such as Superfly, The Virgin Suicides or… Amelie - and music made for a play or a ballet (as with several by Waits) might as well have been included. But I didn’t. As I would suddenly have hundreds - if not thousands of releases to consider. I broke my own rule of only allowing one album per artist, as Sinatra’s 1955-entry is often considered the very first concept album, and Watertown is just too essential to leave out.

If you vote for «Other» please let me know which one. Well, let me know which one regardless. It’s not so much about the poll, really. An idea or a thought that unifies an album as a whole usually lift the listening experience for me, which is why this is an interesting topic to me.


Edited by Saperlipopette! - April 02 2024 at 23:02

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs. One of my all-time favourites. 

Grumpyprogfan wrote: Skylarking for me. Todd Rundgren is a great producer and the way he arranged the songs to segue together is perfect. Of course "Dear God" is a masterpiece.

But actually not on the original release of the album.

XTC - Skylarking

Illinois > XTC, John Coltrane, PJ Harvey, Tom Waits.

The only one I can think of is The Tubes - Remote Control (produced by Todd Rundgren). It's about Television as apparently they were obsessed with it at the time. Fun album.

Logan wrote: Saperlipopette! wrote: Logan wrote: Over the last few years I have listened so much to Histoire de Melody Nelson. More recently I really got heavily into Sufjan Stevens' Illinois and PJ Harvey's Let England Shake, A Love Supreme is an older favourite. It;s tough for me to choose between them. A minute ago I was going to vote Illinois, right now I'll vote for the Gainsbourg. Those are all really great album per my tastes. And I like Hayter's Saved! a lot too. Although I listened to it for the first time over twenty years ago, only recently have I really gotten into Histoire de Melody Nelson. Sometimes, or should I say quite often when I come back to albums that didn't register as something out of the ordinary - but I know are supposed to be: they click. I have to be in the right mood or maybe I'm at the right age. Or maybe I needed some more listening experience first. It;s the Jean-Claude Vannier connection, and my love of choral type vocals. that first got me really interested. I adore Vannier's L'enfant assassin des mouches (also could count as a concept album) which was based on a Gainsbourg idea. Vannier was the arranger for Histoire de Melody Nelson. I now find I like various Gainsbourg music from various albums, like Initials B.B (with the iconic Bonnie and Clyde track) and Cannabis.... I loved Cargo Culte especially at first off Histoire but then founmd I really like the whole album. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars by David Bowie is an other that could fit. I am a very big fan of Bowie.

Absolutely. Both LL'enfant assassin des mouches and Ziggy Stardust.. would have been included in the poll if Vannier and Bowie weren't represented in Eclectic and Prog-Related on PA

^ Ys is yet another album I love (but haven't listened to in years) that I never really figured out what the unifying concept was supposed to be. And btw: If Joanna Newsom doesn't qualify as Progressive Folk, I don't know what does.