A concert stage in front of a wall with 2 levels. Five men stand on a balcony, including Roger Waters, who is saluting with his arm and is lit by a spotlight. On the lower level is a drum kit and a man playing guitar.
Roger Waters (saluting on top) leading a live performance of Pink Floyd's The Wall, one of the best-known concept albums of all time.[1]

A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually.[2][3] This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical.[4] Sometimes the term is applied to albums considered to be of "uniform excellence" rather than an LP with an explicit musical or lyrical motif.[5] There is no consensus among music critics as to the specific criteria for what a "concept album" is.[3][6]

The format originates with folk singer Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads (1940) and was subsequently popularized by traditional pop singer Frank Sinatra's 1940s–50s string of albums, although the term is more often associated with rock music.[7] In the 1960s several well-regarded concept albums were released by various rock bands, which eventually led to the invention of progressive rock and rock opera.

Definitions

There is no clear definition of a "concept album".[6][8] Fiona Sturges of The Independent stated that the concept album "was originally defined as a long-player where the songs were based on one dramatic idea – but the term is subjective."[6] A precursor to this type of album can be found in the 19th-century song cycle,[9] which ran into similar difficulties in classification.[10] The extremely broad definitions of a "concept album" could potentially encompass all soundtracks, compilations, cast recordings, greatest hits albums, tribute albums, Christmas albums, and live albums.[10]

The most common definitions refer to an expanded approach to a rock album (as a story, play, or opus), or a project that either revolves around a specific theme or a collection of related materials.[10] AllMusic writes, "A concept album could be a collection of songs by an individual songwriter or a particular theme – these are the concept LPs that reigned in the '50s ... the phrase 'concept album' is inextricably tied to the late 1960s, when rock & rollers began stretching the limits of their art form."[11] Author Jim Cullen describes it as "a collection of discrete but thematically unified songs whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts ... sometimes [erroneously] assumed to be a product of the rock era."[2] Author Roy Shuker defines concept albums and rock operas as albums that are "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical. ... In this form, the album changed from a collection of heterogeneous songs into a narrative work with a single theme, in which individual songs segue into one another."[4]

Speaking of concepts in albums during the 1970s, Robert Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), because "overall impression" of an album matters, "concept intensifies the impact" of certain albums "in more or less the way Sgt. Pepper intended", as well as "a species of concept that pushes a rhythmically unrelenting album like The Wild Magnolias or a vocally irresistible one like Shirley Brown's Woman to Woman, to a deeper level of significance."[12]

History

1940s–50s: Origins

In the 2016 BBC documentary When Pop Went Epic: The Crazy World of the Concept Album, narrated by Rick Wakeman, it is suggested that the first concept album is Woody Guthrie's 1940 album Dust Bowl Ballads.[13] The Independent regards it as "perhaps" one of the first concept albums, consisting exclusively of semi-autobiographical songs about the hardships of American migrant labourers during the 1930s.[14] In the late 1940s, the LP record was introduced, with space age pop composers producing concept albums soon after. Themes included exploring wild life and dealing with emotions, with some albums meant to be played while dining or relaxing. This was accompanied in the mid 1950s with the invention of the gatefold, which allowed room for liner notes to explain the concept.[15]

Frank Sinatra in Capitol Records Studio A, 1956, during the recording of his album Songs for Swingin' Lovers!

Singer Frank Sinatra recorded several concept albums prior to the 1960s rock era, including In the Wee Small Hours (1955)[16] and Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely (1958).[2] Sinatra is occasionally credited as the inventor of the concept album,[17] beginning with The Voice of Frank Sinatra (1946), which led to similar work by Bing Crosby. According to biographer Will Friedwald, Sinatra "sequenced the songs so that the lyrics created a flow from track to track, affording an impression of a narrative, as in musical comedy or opera. ... [He was the] first pop singer to bring a consciously artistic attitude to recording."[18][nb 1]

Singer/pianist Nat "King" Cole (who, along with Sinatra, often collaborated with arranger Nelson Riddle during this era) was also an early pioneer of concept albums,[20] as with his Wild Is Love (1960), a suite of original songs about a man's search for love.[21]

1960s: Rock and country music

In the early 1960s, concept albums began featuring highly in American country music, but the fact went largely unacknowledged by rock/pop fans and critics, who would only begin noting "concept albums" as a phenomenon later in the decade,[22] when albums became closely aligned with countercultural ideology, resulting in a recognised "album era" and the introduction of the rock concept album.[23] The author Carys Wyn Jones writes that the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds (1966), the Beatles' Revolver (1966) and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), and the Who's Tommy (1969) are variously cited as "the first concept album", usually for their "uniform excellence rather than some lyrical theme or underlying musical motif".[24]

Other records have been claimed as "early" or "first" concept albums. The Beach Boys' first six albums, released over 1962–64, featured collections of songs unified respectively by a central concept, such as cars, surfing, and teenage lifestyles.[25] Writing in 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music, Chris Smith commented: "Though albums such as Frank Sinatra's 1955 In the Wee Small Hours and Marty Robbins' 1959 Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs had already introduced concept albums, [the Beach Boys' 1963 album] Little Deuce Coupe was the first to comprise almost all original material rather than standard covers."[26] Music historian Larry Starr, who identifies the Beach Boys' 1964 releases Shut Down Volume 2 and All Summer Long as heralding the album era, cites Pet Sounds as the first rock concept album on the basis that it had been "conceived as an integrated whole, with interrelated songs arranged in a deliberate sequence."[27]

The 100 Greatest Bands of All Time (2015) states that the Ventures "pioneered the idea of the rock concept album years before the genre is generally acknowledged to have been born".[28] Writing in his Concise Dictionary of Popular Culture, Marcel Danesi identifies the Beatles' Rubber Soul (1965) and the Who's The Who Sell Out (1967) as other examples of early concept albums.[29] Brian Boyd of The Irish Times names the Kinks' Face to Face (1966) as the first concept album: "Written entirely by Ray Davies, the songs were supposed to be linked by pieces of music, so that the album would play without gaps, but the record company baulked at such radicalism. It's not one of the band's finest works, but it did have an impact."[30]

"Popular consensus" for the first rock concept album, according to AllMusic, favours Sgt. Pepper.[11][16] According to music critic Tim Riley, "Strictly speaking, the Mothers of Invention's Freak Out! [1966] has claims as the first 'concept album', but Sgt. Pepper was the record that made that idea convincing to most ears."[31][nb 2] Musicologist Allan Moore says that "Even though previous albums had set a unified mood (notably Sinatra's Songs for Swinging Lovers), it was on the basis of the influence of Sgt. Pepper that the penchant for the concept album was born."[34][nb 3] Adding to Sgt. Pepper's claim, the artwork reinforced its central theme by depicting the four Beatles in uniform as members of the Sgt. Pepper band, while the record omitted the gaps that usually separated album tracks.[35] Music critic and journalist Neil Slaven stated that Frank Zappa's Absolutely Free, released the same day as Sgt. Pepper, was "very much a concept album, but The Beatles effortlessly stole his thunder", and subsequently Sgt. Pepper was hailed as "perhaps the first 'concept album' even though the songs were unrelated."[36]

1960s–70s: Rock operas and progressive rock

Genesis recreating their concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974) for a live performance. Band member Peter Gabriel is wearing a costume for one of the album's characters.

Author Bill Martin relates the assumed concept albums of the 1960s to progressive rock:

In discussions of progressive rock, the idea of the "concept album" is mentioned frequently. If this term refers to albums that have thematic unity and development throughout, then in reality there are probably fewer concept albums than one might first think. Pet Sounds and Sergeant Pepper's do not qualify according to this criterion ... However, if we instead stretch the definition a bit, to where the album is the concept, then it is clear that progressive rock is entirely a music of concept albums—and this flows rather directly of Rubber Soul (December 1965) and then Revolver (1966), Pet Sounds, and Sergeant Pepper's. ... in the wake of these albums, many rock musicians took up "the complete album approach."[37]

Popmatters' Sarah Zupko notes that while the Who's Tommy is "popularly thought of as the first rock opera, an extra-long concept album with characters, a consistent storyline, and a slight bit of pomposity", it is preceded by the shorter concept albums Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake (Small Faces, 1968) and S.F. Sorrow (The Pretty Things, 1968).[38] Author Jim Cullen states: "The concept album reached its apogee in the 1970s in ambitious records like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and the Eagles' Hotel California (1976)."[2] In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked Dark Side of the Moon at number one among the 50 greatest progressive rock albums of all time, also noting the LP's stature as the second-best-selling album of all time.[39] Pink Floyd's The Wall (1979), a semi-autobiographical story modeled after the band's Roger Waters and Syd Barrett, is one of the most famous concept albums by any artist.[1] In addition to The Wall, Danesi highlights Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974) and Frank Zappa's Joe's Garage (1979) as other culturally significant concept albums.[29]

According to author Edward Macan, concept albums as a recurrent theme in progressive rock was directly inspired by the counterculture associated with "the proto-progressive bands of the 1960s", observing: "the consistent use of lengthy forms such as the programmatic song cycle of the concept album and the multimovement suite underscores the hippies' new, drug-induced conception of time."[40] Progressive soul musicians inspired by this approach conceived concept albums during this era reflecting themes and concerns of the African-American experience, including Marvin Gaye (1971's What's Going On) and George Clinton (the 1975 Parliament album Mothership Connection and Dope Dogs).[41][42]

1980s–present: Decline and return to popularity

With the emergence of MTV as a music video network which valued singles over albums, concept albums became less dominant in the 1980s.[2][6] Some artists, however, still released concept albums and experienced success in the 1990s and 2000s.[6][16] NME's Emily Barker cites Green Day's American Idiot (2004) as one of the "more notable" examples,[1] having brought the concept album back to high-charting positions.[43] My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade (2006) is another example of a modern concept album. Dorian Lynskey, writing for GQ, noted a resurgence of concept albums in the 2010s due to streaming: "This is happening not in spite of the rise of streaming and playlists, but because of it. Threatened with redundancy in the digital era, albums have fought back by becoming more album-like."[44] Cucchiara argues that "concept albums" should also describe "this new generation of concept albums, for one key reason. This is because the unison between the songs on a particular album has now been expanded into a broader field of visual and artistic design and marketing strategies that play into the themes and stories that form the album."[9]

In the 21st century, the field of classical music has adopted the idea of the "concept album", citing such historical examples as Schubert's Winterreise and Schumann's Liederkreis as prototypes for contemporary composers and musicians.[45] Classical composers and performers increasingly adopt production and marketing strategies that unify otherwise disparate works into concept albums or concerts.[46] The classical music magazine Gramophone includes a special category for "concept album" in its annual "Recordings of the Year Awards", to celebrate "albums where a creative mind has curated something visionary, a programme whose whole speaks more powerfully than its parts. A thought-through journey, which compels to be heard in one sitting."[47]

In a year-ending essay on the album in 2019, Ann Powers wrote for Slate that the year found the medium in a state of flux. In her observation, many recording artists revitalized the concept album around autobiographical narratives and personal themes, such as intimacy, intersectionality, African-American life, boundaries among women, and grief associated with death. She cited such albums as Brittany Howard's Jaime, Raphael Saadiq's Jimmy Lee, Jamila Woods' Legacy! Legacy!, Rapsody's Eve, Jenny Lewis' On the Line, Julia Jacklin's Crushing, Joe Henry's The Gospel According to Water, and Nick Cave's Ghosteen..[48]. Edison's Children also released their 3rd concept album, an Apocalyptic warning from Mother Nature... "The Disturbance Fields" in 2019 in the form of a 180g limited edition Double LP in a very similar vein to Pink Floyd's The Wall with 16 page "lyrics and images" booklet which was released at the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon during the celebration of NASA ASF's Apollo 11 concert series as Edison's Children stars Neil Armstrong's son Rick Armstrong.

Edison's Children starring Marillion's Pete Trewavas, Hollywood FX artist Eric Blackwood and Rick Armstrong, son of Astronaut and 1st man on the Moon Neil Armstrong have been a driving force behind bringing the concept of the "concept album" fully back to life, writing 3 double albums: 2011's Alien Abduction saga "In The Last Waking Moments..." in which the protagonist is trying to differentiate whether this "happening" was reality or a "descent into madness". The original CD (jewel case) included a 20 page "Lyrics & Images" insert combining the extraterrestrial psychedelic based artwork of Wendy Darling Blackwood giving each song its own "album cover" in the style of the old booklets found in the LPs of "The Wall" and other great concept albums of the 1970's. It was this sci-fi concept album that attracted the Neil Armstrong family to the band and Neil's son Rick requesting to join the band full time. Edison's Children followed up "In The Last Waking Moments..." with a haunting epic "The Final Breath Before November" consisting of just 3 songs totaling exactly 80 minutes of the CD (which would have been a double LP in the vinyl era) this time focusing on the supernatural with the 67 minute suite Silhouette of 14 parts involving a ghostly encounter in the final seconds before Samhain... the end of Halloween. This album again featured a 20 page "images and lyrics" booklet with the CD which gave each musical passage its own "album cover" complete with the lyrical content and haunting artwork by Wendy Darling Blackwood. After their 3rd release of "spare parts" (Somewhere Between Here and There) that didn't fit the concept album concept, 2019 saw a return of Edison's Children to the concept album format, this time with "The Disturbance Fields"... a Double 180g LP and accompanying CD both featuring 20 page "images and lyrics" inserts by Wendy Darling Blackwood which turned Mother Nature into a supernatural entity using everything in its power such as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, wildfires and flooding storm surges to apocalyptically remove the virus plaguing the earth... humans. This concept album with its important message of ecology and how humans have unbalanced the earth to the point of apocalyptic retribution is Rick Armstrong's biggest contribution to date with Edison's Children and due to that, the album was released during NASA ASF's 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 and Rick Armstrong's father taking "one great step for mankind" at a celebration concert in Cocoa Beach Florida co-starring Alan Parsons OBE band, the Alan Parsons Live Project which had Edison's Children preforming songs from each their concept albums starting with the chilling extra-terrestrial "Fracture" from "In The Last Waking Moments..." and ending on the finale of "The Surge/Resurgence" from "The Disturbance Fields". Both Alan Parsons and his band returned to the stage for an encore with Edison's Children for the finale of the night... the Alan Parsons Project's Games People Play.

Along with Edison's Children other bands have recently become involved in trying to revive the concept album experience over recent years including Maynard James Keenan's two Tool band Side Projects.. A Perfect Circle's "Eat The Elephant" which focuses on Right Wing Christian Fundamentalism causing the opposite of what Jesus probably intended and helping to create a divide in the United States utilizing religion as a way to spread anti-LGBTQ/racial tensions while Maynard's other project Puscifer joins Edison's Children in exploring the UFO / UAP phenomenon and combining that message with of our over indulgent social media intake to the point that we no longer understand what is reality and what is being forced upon us by forces looking to direct our attentions away from what's "really happening"... to where we no longer can tell what is actual "truth". Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds meanwhile has also released a 3 album set "Push The Sky Away", "Skeleton Key" and the double album "Ghosteen" which looks upon the sorrow of Nick Cave losing his young son to an accidental fall from a cliff in Brighton UK and going through the stages of grief and how much this is something affecting a great many people where in his final song after the intense spoken word piece "Fireflies", 'Hollywood" deals with his sense of loss in perhaps the most intense moment of his career revisiting his studio catching fire in the wildfires of Los Angeles while they were in the middle of recording the Ghosteen album and burning to the ground and integrating that with a fable of Kisa ... a young woman who seeks help for her dying child and is told to collect mustard seeds from homes where no one has died. The child dies as Kisa is unable to find any home that has not also been struck by grief. The album "Ghosteen" gives Nick Cave an outlet to explain that despite everyone's current leaning towards atheism, that he still wants to truly believe that God exists in some very profound "universal" sort of way. Nick Cave who is known not only for extreme post-punk influences such as Stagger Lee and his current Grinderman project as well as his former career as a full on punk singer... gives his perhaps most intensely heartfelt moments in this finale of his trilogy which evokes not only grief and pain but connection to perhaps an otherworldly continuation of life as the soul becomes another surviving entity in a way different from "life itself".

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ In the late 1940s, boogie-woogie and stride pianist Pete Johnson recorded an early concept album, House Rent Party (1946), in which he starts out playing alone, supposedly in a new empty house, and is joined there by other players. Each has a solo single backed by Johnson, and then the whole group plays a jam session together.[19]
  2. ↑ Frank Zappa said that within Freak Out!, "It wasn't as if we had a hit single and we needed to build some filler around it. Each tune had a function."[32] The Beatles' John Lennon commented: "Sgt. Pepper is called the first concept album, but it doesn't go anywhere ... it works because we said it worked."[33]
  3. ↑ He continues that: "Things might have looked different had Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys managed to complete the album Smile at the time. ... it would have suggested an entirely different possible line of development for the concept album, wherein parts of tracks reappeared in others producing a form frankly far more sophisticated than any of its contemporaries."[34]

Although concept albums have only been popularized and somewhat defined recently, the concept has existed far longer than rock. For example, Vivaldi's 'The Four Seasons', and Camille Saint-Saëns 'Le Carnaval des Animaux' (The Carnival of the Animals) are built upon the same idea of an overarching theme or concept, though they are not traditionally thought of as albums.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Barker, Emily (8 July 2015). "23 of the Maddest And Most Memorable Concept Albums". NME. Retrieved 23 January 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Cullen 2001, p. 98.
  3. 1 2 Elicker 2001, pp. 227–229.
  4. 1 2 Shuker 2012, p. 5.
  5. ↑ Jones 2008, p. 49.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Sturges, Fiona (1 October 2009). "The return of concept album". The Independent. Retrieved 25 April 2016.
  7. ↑ Luhrssen, David; Larson, Michael (24 February 2017). Encyclopedia of Classic Rock. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-4408-3514-8.
  8. ↑ Elicker 2001, p. 227.
  9. 1 2 Cucchiara, Romina (10 November 2014). "The Concept Album As a Performative Genre". PopMatters.
  10. 1 2 3 Elicker 2001, p. 228.
  11. 1 2 "AllMusic Loves Concept Albums". AllMusic. 10 February 2014. Retrieved 25 April 2016.
  12. ↑ Christgau, Robert (1981). "The Criteria". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 0899190251. Retrieved 6 April 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
  13. ↑ Rick Wakeman (narrator) (6 May 2016). When Pop Went Epic: The Crazy World of the Concept Album (BBC documentary).
  14. ↑ "The return of concept album". The Independent. 2 October 2009. Retrieved 16 November 2012.
  15. ↑ McKnight-Trontz 1999, p. 10.
  16. 1 2 3 Black, Johnny (5 March 1991). "A-may-zing". Q Magazine. 55: 33.
  17. ↑ Rojek 2004.
  18. ↑ Friedwald 1995.
  19. ↑ Silvester, Peter, A Left Hand Like God, A Study of Boogie-Woogie, pp. 98-99
  20. ↑ "Cole developed the art of the concept album, a song collection consciously built on a single theme..." John Swenson (1999). The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide, University of California Press, ISBN 9780679768739, p. 1957
  21. ↑ Will Friedwald (2020). Straighten Up and Fly Right: The Life and Music of Nat King Cole, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780190882051, p. 305
  22. ↑ Elicker 2001, p. 234.
  23. ↑ Danesi 2017, p. 15.
  24. ↑ Jones 2008, p. 44.
  25. ↑ Leaf, David (1990). Little Deuce Coupe / All Summer Long (CD Liner). The Beach Boys. Capitol Records.
  26. ↑ Smith 2009, p. xix.
  27. ↑ Starr 2007, pp. 253–254, 265.
  28. ↑ Moskowitz 2015, p. 689.
  29. 1 2 Danesi 2017, p. 72.
  30. ↑ Boyd, Brian (4 June 2016). "The Beatles, Bob Dylan and The Beach Boys: 12 months that changed music". The Irish Times.
  31. ↑ Riley 1988, p. 11.
  32. ↑ Zappa & Occhiogrosso 1989, pp. 65–80.
  33. ↑ Sheff 1981, p. 197.
  34. 1 2 Moore 2016.
  35. ↑ Black, Johnny (April 1991). "Concept Albums: A-may-zing!". Q. Available at Rock's Backpages (subscription required).
  36. ↑ Slaven, Neil (2009). Electric Don Quixote: The Definitive Story Of Frank Zappa. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-85712-043-4.
  37. ↑ Martin 2015, p. 41.
  38. ↑ Zupko, Sarah. "The Pretty Things: S.F. Sorrow". PopMatters. Archived from the original on 23 June 2008. Retrieved 18 January 2009.
  39. ↑ "50 Greatest Prog Rock Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. 17 June 2015.
  40. ↑ Macan 1997, p. 13.
  41. ↑ Keister, Jay (2019). "Black Prog: Soul, Funk, Intellect and the Progressive Side of Black Music of the 1970s" (PDF). American Music Research Center Journal. 28: 5–22. Archived (PDF) from the original on 24 November 2020. Retrieved 29 January 2021 – via colorado.edu.
  42. ↑ Amadour (16 December 2022). "15 Minutes with George Clinton". Lamag - Culture, Food, Fashion, News & Los Angeles.
  43. ↑ "The Top 10 Concept Albums of All Time". Guitar World. 26 October 2015. Archived from the original on 2 August 2017. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
  44. ↑ Lynskey, Dorian (13 July 2015). "Why everyone from Beyoncé to Daft Punk is releasing a concept album". GQ. Retrieved 25 April 2016.
  45. ↑ Shuker 2017, p. 10.
  46. ↑ Bennett, Dawn and Diana Blom. "Pinching (or taking back) ideas from popular music: Placing the concept album in contemporary classical music". Academia.edu. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
  47. ↑ Cullingford, Martin. "Concept Album". Gramophone. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
  48. ↑ Powers, Ann (17 December 2019). "The album is evolving". Slate. Retrieved 15 September 2020.

Bibliography

Further reading

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