Thread: Concept Albums

I love concept albums, i find they set a better mood for the album as a whole a lot better than just a 10 track ep.

Scenes from a Memory by Dream Theater is fantastic. Widely recognized as one of their best.

They had a few other "concept" albums, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence is one gigantic song for the second disc and deals all about insanity. Train of Thought was just a "balls to the wall" album. Octavarium had 8 songs, each written in different Keys.

I believe Sgt. Peppers is accredited as being one of the first Concept albums. which i don't really understand except for the fact that Sgt Peppers opens and closes the album.

An album I've talked about on these site the last few days is Black Ribbons by Shooter Jennigs. It wasn't well received but i'm in love with it!

Sola Scriptura by Neal Morse is one of my all time favorite albums. It deals with the life of protestant reformationist Martin Luther. ( I don't know about you guys out there but where i come from religious music has a bit of a stigma to it, never mind that this album is a perfect 10 in my books)

Steve Morse created a cool concept for 2 instrumental albums. Instead of doing covers of his favourite artists, he wrote originals that sound like that are done by ZZ Top, Cream, Aerosmith, Jeff Beck, etc. Really cool stuff.

Real Illusions: Reflections by Steve Vai has it's moments.

Blood on Ice by Bathory is pretty epic. If you're into metal, check this one out! you can't get more metal than a high energy metal album about VIKINGS!

Coheed and Cambria use mulitple albums to tell a very elaborate Sci-Fi story. Which the singer is putting to comic books or graphic novel thing? I dunno, not much into them.

if you check out any of these let me know what you think!

Originally Posted by Iota

This is by far the best that The Mars Volta have released. Every other album sounds pretty much the same.

I think they upped it with Francis the Mute but I pretty much agree with the latter comment, didn't stop me buying them all though

There are a several worthy concept albums in the rock / metal genres that I don't believe have been mentioned:

SAVATAGE - Streets
AVANTASIA - Metal Opera 1&2
AYREON - The Human Equation is my fave, but just about everything from Arjen Lucassin is conceptual. If you are unfamiliar with Ayreon, check it out. Arjen is an amazing composer and he pulls influences from many different areas and genres from The Beatles to heavy metal.