HAS DIGITAL MUSIC KILLED THE CONCEPT ALBUM?
How many of us remember the excitement of picking up The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway by Genesis? Or Tommy by The Who? Pink Floyd's The Wall? Operation Mindcrime by Queensryche? I Robot by The Alan Parsons Project? And Ocean by ELOY?
We Are Legend by Magenta is the newest concept album, but one of only a handful I can think of from the last decade. Vinyl especially seemed to be the perfect medium for the concept album, especially those double gatefold albums that lent themselves, through their size and weight- their sheer physicality- to the idea that THIS album has substance and meaning. Now in the age of digital downloads, where kids just want to spend 99p on the latest Ed Sheeran single, all that seems lost, and music has lost its value.
Or has it? Do you agree that the art of the concept album is dying out? What is/are your favourite concept album/s and why? Share your thoughts here!
I think the first concept album I ever heard was either ELOY's Dawn, or Tales of Mystery & Imagination by The Alan Parsons Project. Certainly I bought them both the same day based on recommendations from my German exchange pupil when I was in Bonn. I can't remember which I played first, but oh man, I was hooked. He also introduced me to The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway by Genesis, although I didn't buy that for some years after. Soon after followed War of the Worlds by Jeff Wayne, not to mention of course all the ELOY & APP albums released up to that point. This was 1978 and I was 13.
Of course my all time favourite concept album is Silent Cries & Mighty Echoes by ELOY about no less than the end of the world.
This album is still one of my most prized possessions!
My all time favourite concept album has to be Thick As A Brick. Ian Anderson wrote it in response to critics' calling Aqualung (their previous release) a "concept album." Anderson disagreed with this label, saying, "If the critics want a concept album we'll give them a concept album, and we'll make it so bombastic and so over the top." 1 track of 43 minutes long, oblique lyrics from the fictional Gerald Bostock, a fictional newspaper (St. Cleve Chronical), musical time changes....... all intended to be a spoof of Prog Rock at the time but, instead, served to define the genre. A true masterpiece.