As one of the people who has pointed out some of overblown, overambitious , indulgent and pretentious efforts of our prog heroes I'd say in defense of our prog musicians that the concept album is a challenge that the  artist is game to take up. If he meets the challenge he is a superhero but if his results are less it will seem they have their heads up their asses. So it is a bold move.In general though an album around a theme would seem superior to an album of random tracks

 

Totally agree, I am even close to thinking Animals is the best album ever.

 

Why do you keep putting jejeje's and jajaja's in your posts?

 

Anyway, just because it says `ghost reveries an observation by opeth', doesn't mean it's a concept album - if i recall correctly, there's similar things to that in every opeth album, it's like a neat little novelty thing they do instead of just saying `this album was recorded' or whatever.

 

Ghost reveries is like half a concept album, up until harlequin forest, i think. It's about a man who kills his mother, i think, or witnesses his mother's death, and the emotional trauma that follows.

in music, one is pretentious when wanting to be complex and only becoming non-musical, when wanting to be in the avantguarde and only getting cacophonic, when wanting to be "true" and only being "pseudo". there is pretentious classical, jazz, rock, etc. music, and it's normal to be so.

 What upsets me about concept albums is this: everyone has their own ideas about what albums are concept albums. Even though people seem to agree on what a concept album is, they don't agree about what albums actually are true concept albums. Sometimes it seems that a lot of people just list their favorite albums as concept albums because it makes them feel sophisticated. I'm convinced this is why Dark Side of the Moon and Moving Pictures are frequently cited.

 

i don't know what about Moving Pictures, but i can tell you that DSOTM is quoted as a concept album because an album is not a "concept album" only when the songs have a narrative (musical and/or lyrical) line of continuity which is interrupted only for having "songs" instead of "suites" (and sometimes not even interrupted), but also when behind all the songs there is a main concept which is followed musically and/or lyrically regardless of the way songs relate to each other. in the case of DSOTM the concept is alienation and it's forms ("I've always been mad, I know I've been mad, like the most of us...very hard to explain why you're mad, even if you're not mad...", remember?): emotional blocking ("Don't be afraid to care"), lack of trust, fear ("Run, rabbit run"), akedia (i don't know how to translate this term, but "You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way"), the feeling of unacomplishment ("you're older,/Shorter of breath and one day closer to death"), and the feeling of spiritual entropy ("The time is gone, the song is over"), despair ("quiet desperation is the English way" - one of the greatest lines of all time), social alienation through conformism ("Get a good job with good pay and you're okay") and greed ("Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash"), the anxiety of getting the pure feel of alterity ("who knows which is which and who is who"), madness ("There's someone in my head but it's not me"), which gets a great anxious feel in "Brain Damage" because of the dialogued roleplaying and of the story getting personal: And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes/I'll see you on the dark side of the moon, and, finally, because of the climatic hopeless ending: everything under the sun is in tune/but the sun is eclipsed by the moon. "There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark." --> what an optimist conclusion, isn't it ? all this achieved through floyd's trademark and almost painfully melancholic sound that gives unity to the whole.

 

i would say this is pretty decent concept album and i quote it as so. not my favourite at all though, way behind Animals and Wish... .

 

I do not disagree that lyrical thematic unity can define a concept album. It just seems like this is shakey ground. I mean, someone somehwhere will be able to find some obscure connection between any group of 8-12 songs on an album. Does that make it a concept album. Honestly I think any Roger Waters album is going to have melancholy and alienation as themes. I guess the ultimate decider should be the intent of the artist. Except even that doesn't put the status of some albums to rest. Recall Thick as a Brick!