Concept Albums

ITT: story driven concept albums that are good

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>good
Oops

I'll post a couple to get the thread started. Both hip-hop and released in 2016

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Not really a concept album, but most songs are stories

Celtic folk melodic death metal album about the Roman-Gallic wars from the Gauls' perspective.

Melodic death metal album about a Viking who is exiled from his town for killing a noble dude who wanted to steal his prospective waifu and tgen he becomes a member of this (semi-fictional) Jomsviking crew and does a lot of Viking stuff.

wtf im a metalhead now

This should be Sup Forumscore, honestly.

This is great, thanks user

Literally fedoracore.

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DON'T EVEN TRY
TO SORT OUT THE LIE
IT'S WORSE TO TRY AND UNDERSTAAAAAAND

literally a buzzword

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I'm surprised by how well this album held up for me. I listened to it on a whim a few months back because I remembered I loved it in high school and it still sounded good.

Technical/progressive death metal album about ANCIENT ALIENS and basically the type of shit on this conspiracy theory website. truthism.com/
These kinds of conspiracy theories became really vogue in progressive metal for a minute after they released this, but the real draw for me is how they combine the unpredictability/intricacy of tech death with a kind of unique melodic sensibility that doesn't sound conventional, yet is still very consonant, and some cool cynic-derived vocoder parts.
Glad to hear it. I undersold those albums cause phone but I'll give a little more info on what they're about and what I like about them.
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The Eluveitie album, while not paced very well, includes a lot of heavy and real themes and events, including forced migration, deceit in war, bravery, tribalism, slavery, cultural preservation, and things like that. The folk elements are well done, with the guitars used more texturally than anything, with the vocals and folk instrumentation trading focus. The instrumentation includes violin/hurdy gurdy, a bunch of flute/whistle type instruments, some kazoo sounding thing, and plenty others. Eluveitie have used folk melodies in their music before, and I think there's some of that in Helvetios as well. This song in particular hits you with a one-two punch of folky melodies that seem too good to be true.
youtube.com/watch?v=vBZCmIBmuF4
It's the only music I know in Gaulish as well.
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The Amon Amarth album isn't that "deep" or anything. It has a really cinematic feel to it though, and it shows a lot of classic metal influence. Some of these songs seem like they could be iron maiden songs if they just changed up the rhythm and vocal style.
The huge sound of the intro to this, augmented by some low brass, might be the best example of what I mean by it being "cinematic" sonically. The lyrics are also very visual. "Whirling dust in morning air, two warriors in the ring" is immediately evocative, at least to me.

yea im not a huge metal fan but pth has one of my favorite discographies top to bottom. the stuff they put out this year is just as solid as

All are good albums. Great contributions, guys!

Love this album, but never knew there was a story. What is it?

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No problem, user. Don't know how it's not more talked about. Justin Vernon, and a bunch of other musicians sing in it. Not to mention it's recent stage adaptation.

How the fuck is this fedoracore?

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This is a concept album? Since when?

Any more hip hop albums?

BTBAM's parallax is a one of a kind clusterfuck narratively, but gets a mention from me due to the scope and storytelling across multiple albums. There are at least four albums with tracks relating to the story of The Parallax, and one album and one EP is all Parallax stuff.
It's really unnecessarily hard to follow though, even reading lyrics. Only listen to it if you like BTBAM.
This song is on the album that preceded the "real" start of The Parallax, and introduces the "big brother" of the series, the night owls. It also has that Donkey Kong-ish piano melody. The story itself is this sprawling sci-fi epic with elements of totalitarianism, apocalypse, suicide, mirror characters, and shit like that I guesws. I can't follow it really, or tell what's literal.
youtube.com/watch?v=1IYK9avoc_Q
This was always one of my favorites and I still love it, although it's hard to not feel weird about the naive feminism now. "NO WOMAN IS A WHORE". What is that even supposed to mean? The songwriting is great though, and has a lot of emotional twists and turns The splitting of the perspectives was a really great thing about it, and is something I'm really into. The last track is weird and unnecessary on a few levels. I'm probably sounding overly critical, just know that I love this thing. I haven't heard it in a while.
Overly long but pretty fun. I liked "A Little Green Rosetta" a lot. I played "why does it hurt when I pee" at work expecting my brother and the other guy to maybe find it funny but they looked really unimpressed.

i agree with your comments about the overtly political messages, its present in their other early songs too (youtube.com/watch?v=L6DAs4FMQu0) but the music sounds good enough that I can ignore it.

And afaik, Kezia was three songs each telling three perspectives on the story they were telling, and the last was just a b-side

To Pimp a Butterfly is a really good Hip-hop concept album. It uses symbolism well and there are double and triple entendres extrapolated into story elements, which is a really hip-hop way of making something impressive, but it's not ever done so grandly outside of TPAB. It has to do with getting out of the ghetto (on an individual and collective level) and the character making something out of himself, or something. I don't really remember the story as much as how certain symbols were used that were really striking. I feel like I'm beating a dead horse praising this thing, and it seems to be the common belief that everyone on Sup Forums has heard it already, but maybe not. There's some black power-ish stuff on there that's kind of cringey.

Look up "Interstellar 55555", the accompanying movie to the album.

This is the best answer

One of the greatest masterworks of all time.

I can't think of any other concept albums, so here's a Tamagotchi.
I'm a fan of their early stuff as well. I used to kind of vaguely agree with what they were espousing, but looking back it's lacking in nuance, and full of typical "if it sounds cool, it doesn't matter if it's applicable to actual situations" stuff. I love Rody's voice back then though. I wish teenage bands would be more promoted when they're not striving for a Jonas Brothers type thing. A few of my favorite artists started releasing music when they were teenagers.

popular alien rock band gets kidnapped and brainwashed by a money grubbing entrepreneur who disguises them as humans and makes them the next superstar Earth rock band
lone alien fanboy saves them

>uses symbolism well

HuRRR DURR EVILS OF LUCY LIKE LUCIFER GET IT

literally atmosphere-tier

obligatory

too bad its shit

Sup Forums obligatory

op

so if you guys like concept albums, do you also listen to musicals

or does the adaption to stage make it too gay for the manly men here on Sup Forums

It's about a night out

i cant tell if everyone knows about this album or has never heard of it

regardless its fookin gr8 m8 if u dont agree ill sok u in ya gabba innit

it's one of my favorites
that's the thing about opinions
I could say your opinion sucks and I'd be equally as correct as you

there's a difference in musical style between show tunes and rock/pop songs
there are a few notable crossovers like pic related, but they are by design

singles are great and i like the concept, but some of the album tracks are insufferably boring

pic related is sort of the modern version of Arthur
less cohesive, but I don't think Parklife was intended as a concept album, it just developed that way as a result of the times and the Britpop movement

The walls and the metamorphosis was cool.
Every time I see this album I think it's outbound by Bela Fleck even though they don't really look that alike.
I don't listen to musicals. Musicals, especially broadway, have a certain theatrical (no duh) style with a lot of loud and harmonized vocals and conversational singing. It's not the same thing. I like some of the songs on the soundtrack to Evita a lot though, and it was a musicial. My mom played it a lot.
youtube.com/watch?v=mGwLgov8Bkk
Why do you need to shit on masculinity to make this point?

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>difference in style

Fair, but rock/pop operas are a thing and they're pretty good. Try out Jesus Christ Superstar, Repo! The Genetic Opera, and/or Natasha and Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812

Same to you.

>shit on masculinity
shit was jokes son.

What did you like about Evita? I might be able to recommend something

Is it actually worth listening to? I love their first album but this came out right when their singles dropped immeasurably in quality (in my opinion).

I think it's more just the fact that it was pounded into my ears as a kid. I still hate some of the songs like "don't cry for me Argentina" that are overly sentimental, but the faster ones were nice. I don't know if I could actually stomach listening to the full thing intentionally now, and I don't really know how I feel about it as a whole.

as pointed out, it's the theatrical style involving conversational singing and lots of over the top numbers that differentiate musicals from concept albums

I'm not particularly interested in getting into musical theatre so trying to convince me is probably just gonna make me annoyed and belligerent

the music is fine if you're a fan of the streets, but the lyrical content really is top notch, and the direction that they take the story in is really novel imo. last track is my favorite

Don't forget the greatest concept band of all time.

That's fine, I'm not some sort of Broadway crusader. I just want to find people to talk to about musical theater who aren't fucking faggots.

Like, I'm unironically a fag, and I can't stand most of these fucking people.

Shit you listen to as a kid man. I'm still into really edgy punk music because of my dad.

Ziggy and the Spiders but sideways

My dad listens almost exclusively to sports talk radio. He's true patrician.

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>not posting this

This is one of my all time favorites but i seem to have missed the concept here. I know that it's a tribute to fennesz, but is there an actual concept?

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>deltron
>good

Probably my fav rap album oat. Better then madvillany imo, not in word play but i love the smooth flowing beats

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youtube.com/watch?v=MnBOaYBIQO0

not all concept albums are based on a narrative

even though i'n no longer an naive 21 year old and consider michael franti to be an huge moron, it's still one of the best concept albums i've heard

Surprised this isn't on here yet

How do you put Mastodon on here and not include this album? A paraplegic kid in Tsarist Russia uses astral projection to experience walking loses the link to his body and gets guided back by Rasputin. Also, they fight the devil which is pretty cool.

I thought the paraplegic kid was from today and when he astral projects he goes back in time...

Do you have any friends?

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Concepts albums are literally all I listen to.

Story Driven:
Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds (pictured)
Rick Wakeman - Journey to the Centre of the Earth
Frank Zappa - Fillmore East June 1971
Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick (hard story to follow)
Gong - Radio gnome trilogy

Just flowing albums but most songs have connections:
Daft Punk - Interstellar 5555 (movie containing the album Discovery)
Steve Hillage - Green
PharaOm - Shelter 10
Alan Parsons Project - I Robot
Rick Wakeman - The Six Wives of Henry VIII