Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Main / ConceptAlbum

Go To

1->''Times were when the term "concept album" meant having to phone in sick to wade through some four hour long metaphysical prospectus on flying Nepalese goatherds performed by men in long capes.''
2-->-- '''Kevin Maidment''', reviewing Saint Etienne's ''Tales From Turnpike House'' on Amazon.co.uk
3
4Some albums are just a random assortment of songs that are only linked by being recorded/written at around the same time. Other albums are arranged so that the songs flow together without sudden MoodWhiplash between tracks. Then we have the Concept Album, which goes even further than that. Similar to {{Rock Opera}}s, concept albums are albums unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative or lyrical. Most often, they are meticulously planned, with all songs contributing to a single overall theme or unified story; this plan or story is the concept. Given that the suggestion of something as vague as an overall mood often tags a work as being a concept album, the precise definition of the term is up for debate.
5
6Put it blunt, it's a musical work of art with a CentralTheme.
7
8In the world of musical theatre, there is a separate and distinct form of concept album known as the album musical, in which the performers are playing characters in a story, a type of recording which encompasses such [[RockOpera rock operas]] as ''Music/{{Tommy}}'' and ''Music/{{Quadrophenia}}'' by Music/TheWho and ''Music/TheWall'' by Music/PinkFloyd.
9
10These often feature an AlbumIntroTrack and/or AlbumClosure.
11
12Compare and Contrast KayFabeMusic where the music is more about theatrics or performance, and may or may not have overlap with stories told through their music.
13
14'''Note''': The following albums are referenced by decade, with multiple artists (such as Music/FearFactory, Music/AliceCooper, and Music/JethroTull) straddling multiple decades. This was done intentionally, to display the progression of concept albums through the past seventy years in scope, detail, intensity, subject, and variety. If you just want to find concept albums by artist, please expand all folders and use your browser to search the name of the artist. While adding examples, please separate multiple albums by the decades during which they were released. ([[SelfDemonstratingArticle In this way, the page can become a Concept Page!]])
15----
16!!Examples
17
18[[foldercontrol]]
19
20[[folder:Concept Artists]]
21* Music/CelestialNavigations has each "song" tell a short story.
22* Every album by Music/TheMechanisms tells a story.
23* Music/{{FEMM}} is a duo chronicling two sentient mannequins sent into society to liberate other mannequins from human oppression. Mannequins begin to suddenly disappear all around Japan...
24* Music/FrankZappa made a number of these over his career: ''Music/FreakOutAlbum'', ''Music/AbsolutelyFree'', ''Music/WereOnlyInItForTheMoney'', ''Music/LumpyGravy'', ''Music/CruisinWithRubenAndTheJets'', ''Film/TwoHundredMotels'', ''Music/FrankZappaMeetsTheMothersOfPrevention'', ''Music/CivilizationPhazeIII'',... Furthermore, there is a lot of [[ContinuityNod continuity nods (nicknamed ''conceptual continuity'' by Zappa)]] between songs and albums; sometimes a BrickJoke spans several albums; ''almost all'' of Zappa's albums are part of the same universe.
25* Music/{{Gorillaz}} are technically a [[BandToon concept]] [[VirtualCelebrity band]], but many of their music videos follow a narrative thread, such as rappers being kidnapped for experiments.
26* Most of the ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' albums which aren't Volumes are concept albums, concentrated on exploring a specific topic, theme or group of characters from the series. Perhaps the straightest example is M.G. Bowman's ''[[http://homestuck.bandcamp.com/album/mobius-trip-and-hadron-kaleido Mobius Trip and Hadron Kaleido]]'', themed around the origin and purpose of Sburb and presented as a series of cryptic clues to its true nature, yet not a specific tie-in to any group of characters in particular.
27* Most of The Hold Steady's albums also feature the same characters and themes, so they can be considered a Concept Band (in the same vein as Craig Finn's previous band, Lifter Puller).
28* Neal Morse of [[ProgressiveRock Prog Rock]] groups, Spock's Beard and Transatlantic. After converting to Christianity, Morse produced the Christian themed concept album, ''Snow'', with Spock's Beard, after which he focused on a solo career focused on his new found faith, often deviating from his prog rock roots, though he has produced several prog rock Christian concept albums, including ''?'' about the tabernacle and ''Sola Scriptur'' about Martin Luther.
29* Right Away, Great Captain! is essentially a concept band by Manchester Orchestra lead singer Andy Hull.
30** The first album, ''The Bitter End'' tells the story of a man finding his wife sleeping with his brother, so he leaves his children behind to go live as a sailor for three years, where he befriends his Captain, and the two talk about the existence of love.
31** The second album, ''The Eventually Home'' tells of the man, now the Captain of the ship after the death of the Captain from the first CD, returning home to either forgive or murder his wife and brother. At the end of the album, he is still unsure what he wants to do.
32** The story is expected to be resolved by the planned third album.
33* Every release from Pain Of Salvation is a concept album.
34* Many of the albums from the intergalactic metal band Music/{{GWAR}} are concept albums. Almost every album has an accompanying DVD, which is either a concert, or a movie that more details the album's plot.
35* Music/TheProtomen more or less exist to make their ''VideoGame/{{Mega Man|Classic}}'' RockOpera concept albums, with a focus on tragedy, the psychology behind fascism, and robot destruction.
36* Music/TheMegas' music and concept albums are based on the original Mega Man games, with their ''The Belmonts'' EP drawing on the ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' mythos instead.
37* Music/RhapsodyOfFire has their ''ten-part'' (as in, [[DoorStopper ten sequential albums]]) epic "Symphony of the Enchanted Lands" (itself split into two five-album sagas), telling a Tolkien-esque HighFantasy tale which is sometimes narrated by Creator/ChristopherLee. And it is '''awesome'''.
38* Each of the three studio albums by ''Music/KendrickLamar'' tells a story:
39** ''Music/GoodKidMAADcity'' (2012) is a fictionalized version of his own teen years. K-dot is dating a girl named Sharane his parents don't like. He goes over to her house one day to hookup and her cousins jump him. He and his friends come back to retaliate and one of them dies in the shootout. He decides he wants to give up his old life, find God, and work on his music.
40** His 2015 album, ''Music/ToPimpAButterfly'' is also a fictionalized version of his own life. He starts off a metaphorical caterpillar, rough around the edges in his new found life, and finally blossoms into the butterfly as he grows used to his fame.
41** 2017's ''DAMN'' is about what it means to be a black man in America and Kendrick's own path to understand what that means.
42* Music/{{Epica}} base most of their albums upon themes and concepts. Usually abstract and existential or based in myth and religious ideals.
43* Not only is every Music/CoheedAndCambria album a concept album, but every album ties in to a single story, called the Amory Wars, which the lead singer has adapted into a comic book series.
44* Most albums by Music/{{Tool}} tend to fall under this classification. The themes presented in the albums are also further represented with visual motifs in the music videos and album art. Whether they [[MindScrewdriver clarify or confuse]] those themes depends on the listener and the listener's [[MushroomSamba level of sobriety]] at the time though.
45* Every Music/SoundHorizon album. Each and every one of them.
46* Music/{{Haken}} has done this to an extent on every album. ''Aquarius'' is a RockOpera about a fisherman who finds a mermaid and sells her to the circus, ''Visions'' is about a man who sees his own death and his haunted by it, and ''The Mountain'' isn't a RockOpera, but has some interwoven themes about pride, hubris, and giving insignificant things significance (as well as some repeated musical concepts).
47* Music/{{Devo}} as a band are a concept in itself. Almost every piece of media that they produce - music, live shows, video, stage characters, merchandise, video game (''Adventures of the Smart Patrol''), book (''My Struggle''), and even various commercial spots - have some sort of social commentary or subversion to their unifying concept of "de-evolution".
48* Every one of Music/{{Gackt}}'s non-compilation albums, as well as singles. Even his concerts are designed to be visual interpretations of his albums and singles, if not a continuation of their story.
49* All of [[Music/{{Minutemen}} Mike Watt]]'s solo albums, so far. His first, ''Ball-Hog Or Tugboat'', is notably the only one where the "concept" is purely musical, with no real running theme in the lyrics - the album is meant to be based around collaboration, with a different lineup of musicians appearing on every song and most of the lead vocals being performed by someone other than Watt.
50* The Music/InsaneClownPosse have spent the better part of their career doing a concept album ''cycle'' - the Dark Carnival. The concept was that the six Joker's Cards were harbingers of TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, to be revealed one by one. The last two albums, ''The Wraith'' and ''Hell's Pit'', were based around {{Heaven}} and {{Hell}} respectively. They returned to this concept in 2009, with ''Bang! Pow! Boom!'', about a continuous explosion which cleanses evil souls from the carnival grounds, and the first of a series of new Joker's Cards.
51* Several albums by Music/{{Rush|Band}} fit this category to varying degrees, usually with titles that are a play on words for the central concept. Their final studio album, 2012's ''Music/ClockworkAngels'', is the strongest example.
52* All of Music/{{Avantasia}}'s albums are this.
53* All of Music/{{Ayreon}}'s albums are concept albums with several different singers, and they all tell different parts of the same weird sci-fi/fantasy story.
54* ''All'' of ''Mägo de Oz'' albums with the exception of ''Belfast'' and ''La Bruja'' qualify.
55** The album ''Finisterra'' tells the story of a technologically-dependent future {{dystopia}}. ''Gaia'' also qualifies.
56* Other than the very earliest of their work, just about everything that Music/FearFactory have ever written is thematically close enough that you might even call it a concept ''career''.
57* All of Classical-[[ChristmasSongs Christmas]]/Rock fusion group Music/TransSiberianOrchestra's albums are concept albums, as they all have a story built into them. The narrations can be found in the liner notes for each album. this makes their concerts VERY entertaining, as they go through the story, complete with narration, accompanied by some of the [[GreatBallsOfFire best light shows known to mankind.]]
58* Music/TheAlanParsonsProject lived and breathed this trope; nearly all of their albums were concept albums. They explored a wide range of concepts:
59** Musical adaptation of Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's works (''Tales of Mystery and Imagination'').
60** The effect of robots and technology on human culture (''Music/IRobot''); pyramid power & Egyptian mysticism (interest in which was widespread in the US and UK in the 1970s) (''Pyramid'').
61** Relationships between women and men (''Eve'').
62** Gambling and risk-taking (''Turn of a Friendly Card''), the public perception of industrial & scientific developments (''Ammonia Avenue''); the worship of money and celebrity (''Vulture Culture''); the pressures of fame and the ways in which famous people are shaped by them (''Stereotomy'').
63** The works of architect Antoni Gaudí (''Gaudi'').
64** ''Eye in the Sky'' was originally not intended to be a concept album, as such. Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson, in reaction to criticism that the whole idea of "concept albums" was becoming stale and cliche, began work on the album with the idea that they would simply write a bunch of songs, make an album, and ''then'' decide what (if anything) it was about. Despite that, the album ended up being a loose exploration of the influences of religious and political belief systems.
65** And their solo works after the band's break-up:
66*** Alan Parson's ''On Air'', about aeronautics.
67*** Eric Woolfson's ''Freudiana'', about UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud, and two more albums about Poe.
68* Pick an album by Music/TheResidents. They've released over 100, and chances are that the one you pick is a concept album. Some of their most popular examples include ''Music/TheCommercialAlbum'' (one-minute pop songs), ''Music/{{Eskimo}}'' (documenting the lives of Polar Eskimos, and told almost entirely through grunting and wind noises), ''God in Three Persons'' (a cowboy exploits Siamese twins as faith healers), ''The King and Eye'' (bringing new meanings to classic Elvis songs) -- also an example of TheCoverChangesTheMeaning, and ''Wormwood'' (retelling some of the Bible's more disturbing stories).
69** ''Music/TheThirdReichNRoll'' is a concept album about a conspiracy theory that the Nazis wrote 1950s and 1960s rock and roll songs to corrupt the youth. In reality its an excuse to make a CoverAlbum.
70** "Music/TheCommercialAlbum" might be the most rigorously-excuted concept album ever. Not only did they record 40 "pop" songs, each exactly a minute in length, but also bought up 40 one minute add spaces on San Francisco radio, effectively creating their own payola Top 40!
71* Music/JohnZorn has recorded many concept albums that pay tribute to a particular artist, including his famous ''Music/{{Spillane}}'', a homage to Creator/MickeySpillane, most famous for the ''Literature/MikeHammer'' novels.
72* ''Erdenstern'' is a German group producing 'music for your head cnema' - sound tracks usable in role-playing games. Each album by Erdenstern followes a certain theme, such as seafaring (Into the Blue), cold and ice (Into the White) or high-tech SF (Into the Grrey). The separate tracks are seamlessly loopable, but just having them sorfted by themes is very useful.
73* Music/GloryHammer:
74** Their debut album is titled ''Tales from the Kingdom of Fife''. The contents of the album is a HighFantasy story about the fall of Dundee (to an army of undead unicorns), Angus Mcfife's quest for revenge and ultimately reconquering Dundee. All songs come in chronological order, and listening to the album in any other order than that pretty much ruins it all.
75** Their second album is called ''Space 1992: Rise of The Chaos Wizards''. This album is set ten centuries later in 1992, where the fantasy setting has developed into a space setting similar to'' TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. This is about Zargothrax being released from his prison by the Chaos Wizards, and the events that ensue. As with the first album, listening to it in any order other than chronological ruins it.
76** The third album is titled ''Tales from Beyond the Galactic Terrorvortex''. It's set in the alternate universe that Angus and Zargothrax end up in after going through a wormhole created by the EarthShatteringKaboom at the end of the previous album.
77* Over half of Music/SufjanStevens's discography is concept music. ''Enjoy Your Rabbit'' is electronic music based on the Eastern Zodiac. ''Michigan'' is all songs inspired by that state; similarly, ''Music/{{Illinois}}'' and its outtake album ''The Avalanche'' were inspired by Illinois. ''The BQE'' is the soundtrack to a film he made about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. ''Music/CarrieAndLowell'' is music he wrote to come to terms with his mother's death (and was supposedly originally conceived as an Oregon album). Sufjan made such a reputation for writing concept albums that his own record label advertised his ''Music/TheAgeOfAdz'' by emphasizing that Sufjan had finally made an album that ''had no concept''. (Ironically, the lyrics of that one lend themselves really well to {{Fan Wank}}ing a concept anyway.)
78** Stevens also collaborated with composer Nico Muhly, Music/TheNational guitarist Bryce Dessner, and drummer James [=McAlister=] to write ''Planetarium'', about the planets and other features of the solar system.
79* Music/{{Cormorant}} usually connects each song with a common theme for their albums, with ''Metazoa'' (animals), ''Dwellings'' (immortality) and ''Earth Diver'' (conspiracy and deceit).
80* Music/JanelleMonae's solo records ''Metropolis: Suite I - The Chase'' (2007), ''The [=ArchAndroid=]: Suites II and III'' (2010), and ''The Electric Lady: Suites IV and V'' (2013) tell the ongoing tale of Cindi Mayweather, a messianic android from the year 2719 hunted by the Metropolis government for falling in love with the human Sir Anthony Greendown. The final chapters of Suites VI and VII (unless the story continues[[note]]In interviews (and on the cover of ''The [=ArchAndroid=]''), Monáe said that the next album would be Suite IV. ''The Electric Lady'' covers Suites IV ''and'' V, and the cover art implies that there will be Suites VI and VII and that will be the end, but there's no knowing if that will change.[[/note]]) will likely be covered in future albums. ''Dirty Computer'' is also a concept album, but it is not related to the Cindi Mayweather storyline.
81* Music/IcedEarth, over their long career, have produced more concept albums than not, to the point that it'd actually be easier to list the albums that ''aren't'' concept albums.[[note]]''Iced Earth'', ''Burnt Offerings'', ''Something Wicked This Way Comes'', and half of ''Plagues of Babylon''[[/note]]
82* The Baseball Project, an alt-rock {{Supergroup}} featuring former members of Music/{{REM}}, the Dream Syndicate and the Minus 5, has recorded three albums about various aspects of UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}}.
83* All of Music/FallOfEfrafa's music is based on their take on ''Literature/WatershipDown'' and its sequel. They disbanded after they had finished telling the story they wanted to tell.
84* Most Music/BigBigTrain releases are concept albums, or have a unifying theme: ''The Underfall Yard'' is about the history's great builders and engineers; ''Folklore'' is about ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.
85* Swedish PowerMetal group Music/{{Sabaton}} are known for HorribleHistoryMetal about warfare and heroism.
86** In a case where the concept album became the concept for the ''band'', ''Primo Victoria''. Their earlier [=EPs=] and actual first album ''Metalizer'' were more standard HeavyMetal on varied topics, but were sent into DevelopmentHell by their first label. Then their second label actually let them release an album, which happened to be themed on HorribleHistoryMetal about war (mainly UsefulNotes/WorldWarII -- the title track is about D-Day -- and the two Iraq Wars, also including a song each about the UsefulNotes/SixDayWar and the UsefulNotes/VietnamWar). War songs have comprised the lion's share of the band's output ever since.
87** ''The Art of War'' has one song for each of the thirteen chapters of UsefulNotes/SunTzu's magnum opus on military science, quoting from it directly on several songs.
88** ''Carolus Rex'' is about the rise and fall of the Swedish Empire in the 17th century, starting with the ascension to the throne of [[UsefulNotes/NotableSwedishMonarchs Gustav II Adolf]] (a.k.a. [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Gustavus Adolphus]]), and ending with the death of [[UsefulNotes/CarolusRex Charles XII]] and the Carolean Death March.
89** ''Heroes'' is themed after specific war heroes, mainly lesser-known ones such as Franz Stigler[[note]]a Luftwaffe AcePilot who escorted a damaged B-17 to safety rather than [[CoupDeGrace finishing it off]], and then became close friends with its pilot 40 years after the war[[/note]] and Witold Pilecki[[note]]a Polish Resistance leader who infiltrated Auschwitz to lead an uprising, but was later executed by the postwar pro-Soviet government due to his loyalty to the prewar regime[[/note]].
90** ''The Last Stand'' is about, well, {{last stand}}s, some of which the side [[HoldTheLine holding the line]] actually won. These range from the Battle of Thermopylae (with multiple references to ''Film/ThreeHundred'') to the Battle of Vienna ([[TheCavalry "THEN THE WINGED HUSSARS ARRIVED!"]]) to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Castle_Itter "strangest battle of World War II"]] where a couple dozen [=POWs=], German defectors, American soldiers, and a tank held off a 200-man Waffen SS death squad until reinforcements arrived.
91** ''The Great War'' is about UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, its battles and the extraordinary men who fought in it, such as Manfred von Richthofen the AcePilot known as "[[RedBaron/RealLife The Red Baron]]" and Francis Pegahmagabow who was the most successful sniper of the war.
92* Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling were themed around ''Series/ThePrisoner1967'', as all their original songs were written about and named after a specific episode of the series: The songs were released in AnachronicOrder over the course of multiple singles and [=EPs=], and once they had a song for every episode of the show, they compiled them into a full album re-organized in the same order of the episodes, then dissolved the project. They've also recorded some non-''Prisoner''-related {{cover version}}s, although even those seem to engage in TheCoverChangesTheMeaning to loosely fit the themes of the show.
93** An offshoot called Darling Pet Munkee was dedicated to mail order ads found in comic books. Part of the concept is for the lyrics to stick to the hyperbole of the ad copy, as the actual product was usually disappointing in comparison - e.g. "Monster S-I-Z-E Monsters" is about having a FrankensteinsMonster for a pet, when the purposely vague ad was really just selling a large glow in the dark poster of the monster. The "darling pet monkey" ad they named themselves after really ''was'' a [[https://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence/mail-order-monkeys-other-crazy-comic-book-ads-1.4536179 live squirrel monkey sent through the mail though]].
94* All of Music/{{Panopticon}}'s full-length albums except the first one are concept albums; many are explained by their titles. ''Collapse'' is about [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the collapse of society]]. ''...On the Subject of Mortality'' is about death and religion. ''Social Disservices'' is about the abuses in the foster care system. ''Kentucky'' is essentially a history of the labour activism associated with coal mining in the eponymous state. ''Roads to the North'' and ''Autumn Eternal'' are tough, because sole band member Austin Lunn hasn't released the lyrics, and they're largely indecipherable due to the vocal style, but they evidently form a trilogy with ''Kentucky''. (The liner notes do explain some of the concept, but Lunn feels the lyrics are too personal to release.) ''The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness'' relates to man's impact on the environment and the difficulty of finding genuine silence in the modern era.[[note]]The lyrics for this album actually weren't released either, but all eighteen songs have explanatory text explaining their concepts, and since the lyrics to the second half are entirely sung or spoken rather than screamed, most of them are easier to decipher.[[/note]] More information can be found on the band's page.
95* Every album by Music/{{Isis}} is a concept album, and most of them explicitly relate to one another in some fashion, though few of them have RockOpera-style narratives per se. Details can be found on the band's page.
96* Planet P Project by Tony Carey, keyboarder of Music/{{Rainbow}}, was made by him for his SF stuff. The self-titled first album is probably no concept album in itself (rather it's all the surplus he couldn't use with the band).
97* Most of Music/TheOhHellos' discography comes in this form:
98** ''Through the Deep, Dark Valley'' is told from the perspective of a single character, chronicling their early life, fall from grace, and later redemption. ''Dear Wormwood'' continues the story of that same character, now a LoveMartyr writing messages to their beloved depicting how their relationship fell apart and their efforts to pick up the pieces and move on.
99** Their follow-up is a four-part series named after Greek mythology's "four winds" and themed after their respective seasons-- ''Notos'' (summer), ''Eurus'' (autumn), ''Boreas'' (winter), ''Zephyrus'' (spring) --centered around a common theme of change, renewal, and personal growth.
100* Music/IDontKnowHowButTheyFoundMe is an indie synth-pop/rock band played as "a band out of time", one that was active during The80s but never got their big break and were promptly forgotten. Their {{retreaux}} music videos and other supplementary materials are framed as coming from old cassette tapes that were recently rediscovered and shared online, additionally with a trail of sinister mysteries surrounding [[TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness the Tellex Foundation, an ominous corporation whose presence looms over the band's history.]]
101* Most of Christopher Tin's orchestral works each revolve around a particular theme, often drawing from a wide range of vocal traditions with lyrics sourced from famous works of poetry and literature from around the world:
102** His debut album ''Music/CallingAllDawns'' -- based on ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}} IV'''s main theme, "Baba Yetu" -- centers on a cycle of Day (life), Night (death), and Dawn (rebirth).
103** ''The Drop that Contained the Sea'' is inspired by the water cycle and how it connects the world. In Tin's own words: "Taken as a whole, the album essentially traces a single raindrop as it transforms from clouds to snow, mountain streams to rivers, oceans to rain, and back to rain again, in a perfect cycle."
104** ''To Shiver the Sky'' -- based on ''Civilization VI'''s main theme, "Sogno di Volare" ("The Dream of Flight") -- centers around the history of aviation from depictions of flight in classical works, to developments in technology and astronomy, to air travel and spaceflight.
105** A series of [=EPs=] featuring music from the above three albums, grouped by theme: ''The Inspiration Thread'', ''The Mythology Thread'', and ''The Celebration Thread''.
106** ''The Lost Birds'' is a tribute to extinct bird species. In contrast to ''Shiver'', which focused on human achievement, this album is an examination of the natural beauty that mankind has destroyed along the way, [[GreenAesop and a warning about the fragility of nature and mankind alike]].
107* Basically all of Music/VyletPony's albums are concept albums.
108** ''[[Music/CarouselAnExaminationOfTheShadowCreekflow Carousel (An Examination of the Shadow, Creekflow, and its Life as an Afterthought)]]'' is about a lot of things according to WordOfGod[[note]]Though [[https://twitter.com/VyletPony/status/1621718588251078656 here]] is a tweet from her clarifying what it's [[{{Jossed}} not]][[/note]], but sea has left it up to viewer interpretation. The basic plot, however, is this: Vylet finds a magic carousel at the fair that lets her talk to her "shadow", who is evidently ''not'' happy with her.
109** ''Music/CanOpenersNotebookFishWhisperer'' follows a neurodivergent unicorn named Canni who dreams of being a musician while their parents disapprove.
110** ''Music/CutiemarksAndTheThingsThatBindUs'' follows the lives of various WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic characters, and focuses a lot on interpersonal relationships and identity.
111** The "Starship Ponyville" series [[note]]''Music/MysticAcoustics'', ''Music/{{Homeward}}''[[/note]] is a sci-fi series that follows the character Vylet Featherdance. It has a corresponding fanfiction.
112** ''Music/LoveLetters'' and ''Music/LoveLettersColourless'' follow the different sides of a relationship between Rarity and Rainbow Dash respectively.
113** ''Music/QueenOfMisfits'' is a moody synthpop album that follows the character Trixie Lulamoon.
114* Music/{{Jhariah}}:
115** In ''The Great Tale of How I Ruined It All'', the protagonist is that last one standing on a world AfterTheEnd. Everyone else has been brainwashed by a cult, so he finds a safe place to hide. This instills a sense of SurvivorGuilt in him, wondering if his resistance and desire to save everyone are really the right things to do.
116** In ''A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO FAKING YOUR DEATH'', a man [[FakingTheDead fakes his death]] on a whim and escapes to a better life. However, he fears that the people he left behind will catch on to what he did and get their revenge.
117* Most Korean Music/{{BTS}} albums are concept albums:
118** The School Trilogy (''2 Cool 4 Skool'', ''O!R U L8?2'', ''Skool Luv Affair'') had the concept of [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin youth and school.]]
119** ''Dark&Wild'' (an epilogue of sorts to The School Trilogy) follows the concept of the first half of the album being "Dark", and the second half being "Wild".
120** ''The Most Beautiful Moment in Life'', pts. 1 & 2 and ''The Most Beautiful Moment in Life Epilogue: Young Forever'', were focused on the beauty and struggles of being young.
121** ''Music/{{Wings|BTSAlbum}}'' follows a {{coming of age|Story}} concept, with heavier and more mature themes and a WholePlotReference to Creator/{{Hermann Hesse}}'s ''Demian''.
122** The Music/LoveYourselfSeries tells the story of what loving oneself truly means, going from [[LivingEmotionalCrutch relying on another person]], to truly finding love in learning to accept all sides of yourself. Depending on interpretation, it might also be a commentary on BTS' (and idols in general's) relationship with their fans. The installments of the series have their own sub-concepts:
123*** ''LOVE YOURSELF: Her'' features themes of newfound, fated love, but with the implication that the person is not being true to themself and the other and is hiding their darker side.
124*** ''LOVE YOURSELF: Tear'' is about discovering how the "love" experienced in ''Her'' is fake, since the person, too afraid to show their true self, hid under a mask and therefore wasn't loved for who they were, losing their identity trying to please the other.
125*** ''LOVE YOURSELF: Answer'', being a compilation album, registers the entire journey from ''Wonder'' to ''Tear'', plus the development of the person now slowly finding happiness in slowly learning to accept and love themself.
126** ''MAP OF THE SOUL: PERSONA'' and ''Music/MapOfTheSoul7'' include a WholePlotReference to Carl Jung's psychological treatise of the same name, referencing the concepts of Persona, Shadow, and Ego.
127[[/folder]]
128
129[[folder:2020s]]
130* Music/DorianElectra's ''My Agenda'' is built around observing toxic masculinity through the POV of a man practicing it, but observed through a [[PlayedForLaughs tongue-in-cheek]] queer lens. The album follows a loose narrative of the protagonist's regressive views on [[EntitledToHaveYou gender]], [[HeteronormativeCrusader sexuality]], and [[ConspiracyTheorist reality in general]] while gradually deconstructing his own [[RealMenHateAffection deeply-conflicting]] and inconvenient [[DesperatelyCravesAffection desire for affection]].
131* A video game example: ''VideoGame/{{Foamstars}}'' has a large number of original lyrical songs, ranging from jazz to funk to electronica, and all but one have to do with baths, soap or foam. Even the emotional song about a man upset with his limited and repetitive life quickly turns to him taking a bath to drown his sorrows.
132* Harumaki Gohan's ''Music/FutariNo'' is an album exploring a futuristic ChildlessDystopia, where the inhabitants are robots known as "Adults" and most humans have moved onto other planets. The only known human children are two girls named Lili and Nana, who become tightknit ChildhoodFriends and promise to always be with each other, but are forced apart by Lili moving away. The album further explores what their relationship as they get older, how they lose their childhood innocence, and what growing up looks like for them.
133* Music/{{Grimes}}' ''Miss Anthropocene'' has a loosely connecting thread of mankind's relationship to technology mixed with GaiasLament in the form of an "anthropomorphic goddess of climate change", particularly from the track "Violence", which imagines the Earth's relationship to humanity as a mutually abusive romantic relationship through natural disasters and pollution respectively.
134* Music/{{Keldian}}'s ''The Bloodwater Rebellion'' in stark contrast to previous albums follows a common thread with it being based on an unpublished novel co-authored by Christer Andresen set in a not-so-distant future where fresh water has become the rarest resource.
135* Music/{{Lovejoy}}'s second EP, ''Pebble Brain'', revolves around the story of lead singer Wilbur breaking up with his home country of England. Sure enough, the album is a blend between relationship drama, political commentary, and [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs relationship drama used as an allegory in political commentary]].
136* Music/NineInchNails' released the instrumental albums ''Ghosts V: Together'' and ''Ghosts VI: Locusts'' on the same day in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and are sort of twin albums. ''Together'' is described as being for "when things seem like it might all be okay" and is the more hopeful of the two, while ''Locusts'' is more bleak. Even the covers reflect this, with ''Together'' being light gray and ''Locusts'' being black.
137* Music/{{Qbomb}}: ''Hyperpunk'' has a loose story. The protagonist, who's very abrasive and questionably stable, wants to start a band and make loud music that proves that he's worth something. Someone spreads controversy about his band to defame him, and his aggressiveness leads him to "fuck it up" and lose all hope that his music will work. He goes insane and is convinced that he needs to be a "damaged legend" to make an impact, so he builds a giant robot to destroy life on Earth, but has another breakdown. He realizes that the problem is inside him, how he lies to make himself feel better, and as long as that's still happening, he'll never be satisfied. So he sets his aspirations for his band low... [[DownerEnding and still feels like it'll never be good enough.]]
138* The Secret Chord's ''Fermi Paradox'' is about a HomeworldEvacuation in the wake of GaiasLament.
139* Music/{{Xiphos}} released ''"Music/TheRiseAndFallOfAthens"'', which retells the history of the eponymous city through nine of its most prominent figures.
140* ''Nisemono'' -- a 2022 EP by indie/city pop joint Ginger Root -- features tracks based on a story where in a fictional [[The80s 1983]], [[IAmTheBand project frontman Cameron Lew]] was set to produce for an up-and-coming idol who suddenly quits out of pressure before her live debut, with Lew being thrust in her place as he already knows the songs. Appropriately, the EP is thematically about imposter syndrome and the journey to overcome not "being yourself".
141* Bunny X's ''[[https://bunnyx.bandcamp.com/album/love-minus-80 Love Minus 80]]'' consists of FanMusic based on various sci-fi works, primarily from the '70s and '80s, such as Joe Halderman's ''Literature/TheForeverWar'', Will [=McIntosh=]'s ''Love Minus Eighty''(in the TitleTrack), and William Gibson's ''Literature/{{Neuromancer}}''(in "Chiba City Blues").
142* Betamaxx's ''Sarajevo'' is themed around the 1984 Winter Olympic Games in the eponymous Yugoslav (now Bosnian) city.
143* Music/AliceCooper's ''Detroit Stories'' is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin exactly what it says on the tin ]] - stories about Detroit, including the connection between Alice Cooper, (the man and the band), and Detroit.
144[[/folder]]
145
146[[folder:2010s]]
147* At least three of Music/{{Bastille}}'s albums so far have been concept albums.
148** ''Bad Blood'' focuses on the past: memories, regrets, old relationships, and the necessity to continue living despite these and make amends for them. Most of the songs seem to be addressed to a romantic partner or friend.
149** ''Wild World'' concerns how an ordinary person deals with political and societal turmoil - which turns out to be mostly through escapism and relying on his significant other.
150** ''Doom Days'', the most obviously conceptual, is an "apocalyptic party album" telling the story of a couple who spend a night in debauchery to distract themselves from the increasing bleakness of world events. Not only are two of the songs, "Quarter Past Midnight" and "4 AM," titled with the times when they take place, but the images on the Platform/YouTube official audio versions of the songs give each song a canonical time.
151** ''Give Me the Future'' concerns, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the future]], not only the problems created and exacerbated by modern technology but also whether any hope remains for the protagonist/singer and his significant other to create a future together.
152* The {{Vaporwave}} album [[https://radioactivehi5.bandcamp.com/album/90-megathrust 9​.​0​水​面​下​Megathrust]] indirectly retells the events of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_disaster Fukushima nuclear disaster]].
153* ''Music/NewsAt11'' by 猫 シ Corp. is another {{vaporwave}} concept album, sourcing music from American TV broadcasts from September 11th, 2001, [[JustBeforeTheEnd just hours — if not minutes — before]] the [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror you-know-what changed the course of American history forever]]. The soundscapes formed are made as an audio collage of the calm, almost innocent banality of American media at the time, [[ElephantInTheLivingRoom sidestepping mentions of the attacks]] but ironically highlighting their importance in [[EndOfAnAge the end of the nostalgic age]] that vaporwave is built on.
154* Most of the albums Music/{{clipping}} have released are concept albums:
155** CLPPNG focus on telling stories from a third person perspective (there' no "i" in the album, get it?).
156** Splendor and Misery is a slave song/gospel/hip hop space opera about an escaped slave being the SoleSurvivor on the slave ship he's commandeered, fighting off loneliness and detection by the slavers.
157** There Existed an Addiction to Blood is a horrorcore album with a 70s/80s horror movie aesthetic, each track preying on typical horror tropes (ranging from [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampires being a metaphor for violent black revolution]] and {{snuff film}}s).
158** The Wriggle EP is all about sex in some way, ranging from the hard-and-fast life of lower-class strippers off the title track, to meaningless, degrading sex to fill a void.
159* Music/MarinaDiamandis created ''Electra Heart'' (2012) as "basically a vehicle to portray part of the American dream, with elements of Greek tragedy." She makes it clear that the titular character "Electra Heart" is not an alter ego, but rather an exemplification of the dark sides of the American Dream.
160* Music/RabbitJunk has two from the 2010s - ''Project Nonagon'' (2010) is a three-part album that tells three different stories about struggles for freedom, occult summonings, and cycling crime (''Nonagon'''s parts are all sequels to 2008's ''This Life Is Where You Get Fucked''), featuring radically different musical styles in each. Meanwhile, ''Rabbit Junk Will Die!'' (2018) is a looser concept album themed around mortality and making the most of life.
161* Music/ArcticMonkeys' ''Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino'' is centered around a luxury hotel located on the moon. Many tracks focus on certain people in the hotel, such as the lounge act singer in "Star Treatment", two potential lovers in "Golden Trunks", one of the hotel's receptionists in the title track, and so on.
162* Music/TheCaretaker's ''An Empty Bliss Beyond This World'' is an album inspired by a study in which it was revealed that people with Alzheimer's disease are able to remember scenarios better when they heard music in those scenarios. The album is an ambient album made of pre-World War II vinyl recordings looped and spliced in order to give the listener the feeling of trying to recall memories while suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
163** His later and final project, ''Everywhere At The End Of Time'', is a [[DoorStopper six-album trek exceeding six hours in length for the entire thing.]] It goes more into depth into the feeling of Alzheimer's progressing, starting from the pre-World War II records, then slowly progressing into a terrifying mess of electronic sounds and record noises, culminating in the final album, which reportedly [[TakeOurWordForIt "is without description"]] where every other [[CallARabbitASmeerp stage]] has at least a paragraph describing it. It goes from music and terror to only echoes, [[NothingIsScarier a reverbating white noise]], and uncertainty, a representation of the final degenerative states of dementia.
164* Music/TheMountainGoats released several concept albums in a row starting with 2009's ''The Life of the World to Come'', themed after various Bible verses. They followed this with ''All Eternal's Deck'' in 2011 about a deck of tarot cards, and 2012's ''Transcendental Youth'', about mental illness. Then in 2015 they made the album ''Beat the Champ'', which, for a change, was about ProfessionalWrestling.
165* Given that one of their guitarists is nicknamed Kungen - Swedish for "(the) King" - Avatar's 2018 album ''Avatar Country'' decides to build upon it by creating the story of the titular nation-state. Led by a king - naturally played by Kungen in the music videos - Avatar Country is embroiled in a bitter war that, if scenes from the video to ''The King Wants You'' are to be believed, entirely stemmed from, of all things, a ''disagreement on music tastes''. The King, angered by one of his courtiers suggesting that dubstep/EDM be used in place of ThePowerOfRock, sends the courtier into exile, where he's captured by Avatar Country's enemies and - in a colossal bit of backfiring - is made to switch sides, eventually becoming the leader of their military.
166* Music/LinkinPark gets in on this with ''Music/AThousandSuns''. It's basically about the fears of war. Naturally professional opinions and [[BrokenBase fan opinions]] are divided.
167* While Music/FearFactory's 2010 album ''Mechanize'' doesn't have a specific plot, you can hear the oppressive government lying to the regular people, a violent uprising against them, and the final collapse of the revolt and most of the track would fit into the ''concept'' albums easily.
168* The Enid's ''Journey's End'' is about ecological threats and the possibility of space colonisation and ''Invicta'' concerns questions of religious faith and morality..
169* Music/{{Coldplay}}'s ''Mylo Xyloto'', which is a romance about the two titular protagonists, a boy and a girl, living and falling in love in a dystopian society.
170* Music/BetweenTheBuriedAndMe's ''The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues'' and ''The Parallax II: Future Sequence'' make up two parts of a very confusing Concept Album. Even more confusingly, some of the band's songs going back as far as the band's second album ''The Silent Circus'' can be interpreted as relating to the concept in some way (at the very least, "Swim to the Moon" from ''The Great Misdirect'' explicitly relates to the ''Parallax'' storyline). Beyond that, ''Automata'' is a concept album about a company that steals people's dreams and sells them as entertainment, and ''Coma Ecliptic'' has a story about its central character's experiences while in a coma.
171* Music/TylerTheCreator's first three albums formed a trilogy:
172** ''Bastard'' features rapping done in response to questions from his school psychiatrist, dealing with his personal issues like being a literal bastard.
173** ''Goblin'' is a direct sequel about another session with his psychiatrist and dealing with new issues and the lifestyle that fame brings, eventually ending with him [[spoiler:breaking down, killing the other members of Odd Future and realizing his psychiatrist and all his alter egos are a figment of his imagination.]]
174** ''Wolf'' acts as a prequel to both of these, involving a Summer Camp for Youths with mental issues named Camp Flog Gnaw run by the same psychiatrist, and revolving around a psychopathic drug dealer named Sam, a new addition to the camp named Wolf, and a girl named Salem who acts as a love interest to both characters.
175* The latest album by Music/MeatLoaf, ''Hang Cool, Teddy Bear'', is narrated from the perspective of a soldier lying half-dead on a battlefield. The first track represents his thoughts at the moment, and each subsequent song presents a different possible scenario of his future.
176* Music/{{Avantasia}}'s ''The Wicked Symphony'' and ''Angel of Babylon'' continue "The Wicked Trilogy" begun by their 2008 album ''The Scarecrow''. ''The Mystery of Time'' is a softspoken steampunk paranormal mystery.
177* Music/BritneySpears' ''Femme Fatale'' is about toxic relationships and clubbing and ''Britney Jean'' discusses a break up and recovering then finding love again.
178* In Music/ChildishGambino's ''Camp'', all of the songs on it work by themselves, but when listened to in order they tell an autobiographical story: his difficult childhood ("Outside"), his rise to fame ("Fire Fly"), the contrasting narcissism ("Bonfire") and self-loathing ("All the Shine") that accompany it, his difficulty having actual relationships now that he's successful ("Heartbeat," "L.E.S.," "Kids"), and finally facing his problems ("That Power"). Plus some epic BoastfulRap interludes here and there (which still relate thematically to the overall story).
179** His 2013 album ''because the internet'' centers around social media's role in tightening relationships between people, but not necessarily for the best reasons. The album came with its own [[http://becausetheinter.net/ screenplay]] that, if read at a steady pace, lines up with events heard in the audio.
180* Music/{{Cold 187um}}'s album ''The Only Solution'' is an album-length story about an assassin who seeks revenge against his father's killer and performs assassinations for an unnamed company (implied to be Creator/PsychopathicRecords). It even comes with a comic book so you can follow the story.
181* Color Theory's ''Lucky Ago'' is themed after superstitions on a track by track basis, except for the instrumental interlude "Lore":
182** "Shatterproof" - [[RageAgainstTheReflection broken mirrors]]
183** "Unsigned" - {{chain letter}}s
184** "Hand" - the DeadMansHand
185** "Avian" - MagpiesAsPortents
186** "Phobiac" - [[ThirteenIsUnlucky the number 13]]
187** "Dismembered" - LuckyRabbitsFoot
188** "Fingers" - [[GoodLuckGesture crossing one's fingers]]
189** "Sniper" - lighting three cigarettes with one match
190** "Backward" - walking under ladders
191** "Feral" - black cats
192* DockersGuild's album ''The Mystic Technocracy'' is an expanding 5-part album in the vein of Ayreon, about a [[SiliconBasedLife silicon-based]] alien, the [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Technocrat]], from a far-off planet who creates 3 religions(not so secretly Christianity, Islam and Judaism) to drive humanity to become his mindless slaves. Despite the premise, it is not a total ReligionRantSong, but rather against the fanaticism generated by the religions rather than the religions themselves.
193* Music/{{Nero}}'s ''Welcome Reality'' takes place in December the first, 2808 and has a SourceSound feel. Well, except for three songs.
194* Music/CosMo's ''The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku''.
195* ''Music Inspired by The Snow Goose'' by Music/{{Camel}} consists of [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin music inspired by the Paul Gallico novel]] ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Snow Goose]]''.
196* Music/{{Covenant}}'s ''Modern Ruin''. The songs are [[FadingIntoTheNextSong gaplessly crossfaded]], and the physical version (as opposed to the digital download) ends with the HiddenTrack "Modern Ruin Part II", [[BookEnds mirroring the intro track]].
197* Somewhat subverted by ''Born This Way'' by Music/LadyGaga. Many people thought the album had to do with religion due to the sheer amount of religious imagery in it, but she denies this. It also contains references to individuality and self-image.
198* Music/{{Deafheaven}}'s ''Sunbather'' is another example of a MindScrew concept album in BlackMetal. The album is described as a concept album that "deals with the profound sadness found in the quest for one's personal perfection... serving as an artistic lucid dream of warmth despite the stinging pain of life's cruel idealism". Reading the lyrics, though, will still leave you stumped as to what they really mean.
199* Music/{{Hexode}} made a duo of [=EPs=], ''Sleep Sequence A™'' and ''Sleep Sequence B™'' which are loosely based around the idea of falling asleep with the TV on.
200* ''David Comes to Life'', by hardcore/punk band Music/FuckedUp, is a quite elaborate narrative of the relationship arc of two characters, David and Veronica. The story is told from multiple perspectives, sometimes by an UnreliableNarrator, and requires an in-depth read of the lyric sheet to achieve its full effect.
201* Music/TheMarsVolta's latest (possibly last, as the band is on indefinite hiatus) album ''Noctourniquet'' is also a concept album.
202* The Sword's "Warp Riders" is a tribute to the sci-fi novels of the 1940-70's. The lyrics tell the story of an archer banished from his tribe, a [[GratuitousPrincess princess]] in a deep sleep on a distant planet, and a group of [[SpacePirates space pirates]] called the Warp Riders. The singer and lead guitarist, who came up with the story, said it was just to give people something cool to think about while they listened to the album. A sort of "epilogue" song called Farstar was released as the B-side to the last track on the record, sending the Warp Riders off to a distant part of the galaxy with echo-y vocals and organs (As opposed to the [[HardRock hard rock]]/[[HeavyMetal heavy metal]] sound of the rest of the album).
203* Music/MiracleMusical's 2012 album ''Hawaii Part II'' has a rather unclear (due to confusing lyrics prone to multiple interpretations) storyline. The most common guess is that it’s about a person arriving to Hawaii, falling in love, then being wrongly accused of murder, pleading insanity to avoid punishment and actually going insane during electroshock therapy.
204* Music/MyChemicalRomance's ''Music/DangerDaysTheTrueLivesOfTheFabulousKilljoys'', about the adventures of the titular outlaws as they battle the evil {{MegaCorp}} Better Living Industries (BL/ind.).
205* The debut album of Neon Neon, ''Stainless Style'' was based on the life of John [=DeLorean=]. They followed it up with ''Praxis Makes Perfect'', based on the life of Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.
206** Their earlier EP Four Ways To Scream Your Name is a concept EP about the various aspects of failed relationships, though that may be more to do with the generic nature of their lyrics at that point.
207* Music/{{Kamelot}}'s album ''Silverthorn'' is based on a story about a little girl who dies at the hands of her twin brothers.
208* Music/SteeleyeSpan's album ''Music/{{Wintersmith}}'', based on the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel of the [[Literature/{{Wintersmith}} same name]] and the other books in the Tiffany Aching series.
209* Ian Anderson, of Music/JethroTull fame, later made a sequel to the Jethro Tull ''Thick as a Brick'' which he released under his own name. It was, naturally, entitled ''Thick as a Brick 2''. The lyrics focus on five potential scenarios which could have befallen the "author" of ''Thick as a Brick'', Gerald Bostock; the end of the album [[MindScrew appears to show]] all five possibilities, according to Wikipedia, "converg[ing] in a similar concluding moment of gloomy or pitiful solitude".
210** ''Homo Erraticus'' is supposedly written by Gerald Bostock, adapted from a manuscript he discovered. The manuscript was written in the early 20th century by Ernest T. Parritt, who, due to malarial fever, had delusions of past lives in history, as well as dark prophecies of the future.
211* Music/GangOfYouths: ''Go Farther in Lightness'' is about overcoming heavy personal struggles by finding hope and love within oneself and one's loved ones. Another theme common in some of the songs is that they are lyricized as conversations between the singer, Le'aupepe, and whomever is suffering.
212* Music/{{Gorillaz}}'s ''Music/PlasticBeach'' is about the band's adventures on the titular beach. ''The Fall'' is about 2D's SanitySlippage as they tour America.
213* Music/KaizersOrchestra's final trilogy of albums, ''Violeta Violeta'' vol. I-III, who were all written together and later split into three due to the sheer number of songs the writer was able to come up with for the theme. The albums tell the tale of the past, present and future of a young woman called Violeta who has mystical powers and a complicated and tragic family situation.
214* ''VideoGame/{{Cytus}}'':
215** ''Cytus Alive'' is a collection of eleven songs from sta and Cranky that tell a story of humanity being wiped out by a virus and people going through BrainUploading so they can continue to exist as robots, and reliving their human emotions by experiencing them in the form of the songs you play.
216** ''Knight'' by Eyemedia, Hoskey, Nicode, and [=M2U=] is based on the splash screen for "Holy Knight", featuring two childhood friends, Iris and Rosabel. They are eventually separated, with Iris becoming a knight and Rosabel being forced to take the throne of a kingdom after her parents are killed and soon afterwards discovering a mysterious codex. Things...spiral into tragedy after that.
217** ''Timeline'', composed by the Video Game Orchestra, tells the history of UsefulNotes/{{Taiwan}}, where Rayark is headquartered, starting from the Penglai Movement and then covering key points of Taiwanese history such as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Formosa the Dutch Formosa period]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_under_Japanese_rule the Japanese occupation of Taiwan]]. It continues into the future to tell predictions and a GreenAesop about the horrors of nuclear power.
218** ''L'', composed by ICE and made into orchestral arrangements by [=gaQdan=], is about an entity that threatens to destroy Heaven, only to find himself under the control of a boy in Heaven, soon taking over said boy and traveling down to the human realm. He then takes over the boy of a human boy, and the resulting efforts by the forces of Heaven end up triggering a catastrophic meteor shower that destroys the boy's hometown and everyone who inhabits it, including the human boy's parents. The full story can be found translated [[http://iceisgod.tumblr.com/post/135254001122/the-real-story-of-l here]].
219* Post-Hardcore band Defeater has made it a trend to make each album a concept album, all which ''connect together as one story'': The story of a struggling family in New Jersey after World War II. The band's debut ''Travels'' focuses on the younger son of the family who [[spoiler: kills his alcoholic father after an argument, resulting with him fleeing home and traveling around the country, only to returning home to find his [[BigBrotherBully older brother]] waiting for him and to execute him due to his leaving causing [[TraumaCongaLine more suffering to their family]]]]. This leads to a ''heavy'' DownerEnding, if you can say so.
220** The second concept album ''Empty Days & Sleepless Nights'' is actually more of the same story as the first one, but through the perspective of the older brother, showing him more of a JerkAssWoobie and even showing how his life was during the time his brother left.
221** ''Letters Home'' is also connected to the same family, being about the boys's father during his time in WWII.
222** ''Abandoned'' also connects to this trope, being about ''the priest'' the boy speaks to [[spoiler: at the end of ''Travels'']], focusing on his own struggle.
223** Implications now hit that the band's self titled album will focus on [[spoiler: the family's matriarch and her sinful role in their downfall]].
224* Music/MelanieMartinez's "Music/{{Cry Baby|Album}}" is about a woman who comes from a [[HappyMarriageCharade dysfunctional family]]. After [[spoiler:her mother murders her father]], she falls for a boy but it's an unhealthy relationship and they break up. She falls for someone else but is uncomfortable with intimacy. When she finally invites him and friends to her birthday [[OnePersonBirthdayParty no one comes]]. This snaps something in her and she begins to become more confident while at the same time becoming less mentally stable.
225* Music/StoneSour's ''House of Gold and Bones'', is a heavy metal/alternative metal double concept album based on a four-part graphic novel of the same name, written by Corey Taylor (Lead singer of both Music/{{Slipknot}} and Stone Sour), and illustrated by Richard Clark. The story follows a character called the Human, who wakes up in a surreal landscape [[spoiler:which is later revealed to be a manifestation of his consciousness and life experiences]] and is directed by his doppelganger Allen to find the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin House of Gold and Bones]] before an event called The Conflagration happens, all the while on the run from Black John and his gang of Numbers.
226* ''Transgender Dysphoria Blues'' by Music/AgainstMe, about ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. Also a case of WriteWhatYouKnow, since singer Laura Jane Grace is transgender, though some aspects of the album are fictionalised.
227* Music/CultOfLuna has ''Vertikal'', an album based on ''{{Film/Metropolis}}''. ''Mariner'', their collaboration with post-metal vocalist Julie Christmas, has a space exploration story inspired by ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey''.
228* Music/TheOcean came out with Heliocentric and Anthropocentric, a two-part scathing critique of religion. The former is focused on history and the treatment of heretics by the church. The latter is focused on apologetics more.
229** Pelagial is another concept album, originally written as an instrumental depicting diving deeper and deeper into the ocean. When vocals were added, it became a metaphor of exploring the self through some Freud-like themes.
230* [[VideoGame/FrequencyHarmonix Amplitude 2016]]'s campaign mode tracks are an in-house concept album based around brain surgery, synesthesia, and nanotechnology.
231* Music/HotChip's 2010 album ''One Life Stand'' is broadly about love, relationships, companionship and looking for someone to settle down with and accompany you through life, hence the title (often in some odd directions; ''Thieves In The Night'' is somewhat cryptic but appears to be about dating and casual sex, while ''We Have Love'' seems to be from the perspective of a couple who have (or had) nothing else keeping them together beyond some vague notion of love.)
232* Creator/NeilCicierega's first two mashup albums, ''[[http://www.neilcic.com/mouthsounds/ Mouth Sounds]]'' and ''[[http://www.neilcic.com/mouthsilence/ Mouth Silence]]'', runs on the concept that music can transcend time when given enough power. Both albums take place in a universe where Music/SmashMouth's "All Star" did not exist naturally. ''Mouth Silence'' takes place on May 3rd, 1999, and throughout the album there are very subtle hints that "All Star" (which, acroding to the double album's lore, existed in a parallel universe where it grew so powerful that it destroyed all other music) is trying to breach through the barrier between worlds. ''Mouth Sounds'' takes place the day after ''Mouth Silence'', when "All Star" gained enough power to successfully author itself into the "Non-Star universe" (it is also [[MeaningfulReleaseDate the day "All Star" was released as a single in real life]]).
233* ''Music/TallTalesOfMemoria'' by Project Trinity.
234* ''Music/GhostQuartet'' by Dave Malloy.
235* Music/{{Nightwish|Band}}'s 2015 album ''Endless Forms Most Beautiful'' was inspired by the writings of UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin and contains mainly songs about evolution and the beauty and wonder of the natural world.
236* Music/TheMagneticFields' ''50 Song Memoir'' is a musical autobiography of [[IAmTheBand main member]] Stephin Merritt, with each song telling a story about a year in his life from 1965, his birth year, to 2015, the year he turned 50 and started writing the album itself. The style of music also gradually shifts to reflect both changing technology and what Merritt's tastes were like at the time: The first few songs primarily feature acoustic instruments - electric guitars and early drum machines and synthesizers start appearing partway through the first disc of the album, and from there these elements start getting more prevalent.
237* Reed & Caroline's ''Hello Science'' (2018) has a general "science" theme, with songs about such subjects as marine biology, early computers, outer space, and the scientific method itself.
238* Music/{{Vocaloid}} producer Kurage-P/Wada Takeaki has the 2018 album ''Watashi no Miseinen Kansoku'' (''Diary of Underage Observation''), a series of songs dealing with a group of (mostly) unconnected kids and the wide assortment of problems their school has. According to the album and accompanying comic, its main character is a girl reporting on "youth subject" incidents throughout the school year, and ends with her giving a summary of everything that happened [[spoiler:while ending up saving the protagonist of the first track from committing suicide.]]
239* Music/NateWantsToBattle's ''Songs of Time'' is based on the soundtrack and story of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime''.
240* Music/TheWarning with their second album "Queen of The Murder Scene", which tells a story.
241* Music/{{Taylor Swift}}'s ''Music/{{reputation}}'' (2017), surprisingly. Its {{Central Theme}}s include fame and celebrity, self-image, and the dangers of mistaking [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin reputation]] for reality.
242* Music/JarvisCocker's ''Room 29'', billed as "A song-cycle about a piano in a hotel room," centers around events from the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood, written from the point of view of the baby grand piano in Room 29.
243* Music/KayoDot has two definite examples in ''Coyote'', a semi-autobiographical story penned by a friend of the band with terminal breast cancer; and ''Hubardo'', an allegorical story about the sacrifices demanded to create TrueArt. ''Coffins on Io'' may be a third example.
244* Nearly all of Music/TessaViolet's songs are about romance, but ''Bad Ideas'' takes this further by being a recounting of a romantic relationship that quickly slides downhill into emotional abuse, as well as the aftershocks this relationship left in the protagonist's mental state.
245* Rosalía's second album, ''El Mal Querer'' (Spanish for ''The Bad Loving'') tells the story of a woman trapped in an abusive relationship, and uses the various sounds characteristic of Flamenco Music to represent the different parts of the struggle (for example, the iconic claps are used to represent physical violence). It is also based on a 13th century novel titled ''El roman de Flamenca''.
246* Both Albums by Glass Animals are concept albums:
247** Their first album; ''ZABA'', is based on the book ''The Zabajaba Jungle'' by William Steig.
248** Their second album; ''How to be a Human Being'', tells the story of mostly unrelated characters, with each song representing one of the persons depicted on the album cover.
249* Music/NineInchNails' untitled 'trilogy' of the [=EPs=] ''Not The Actual Events'' and ''Add Violence'', and the album ''Bad Witch''[[note]]originally supposed to be an EP as well, but for marketing purposes was re-classified as an album despite being EP length[[/note]] deals with existentialism, the futility of finding the truth, and growing disgust with humanity.
250* The Lumineers have two: their second album ''Cleopatra'', which follows the life of an old taxi driver and her choices leading to the lonely life she leads at present; and their third album ''III'', which focuses on a three-person family and the trials they had to face.
251* Creator/ZachCallison's debut album, ''A Picture Perfect Hollywood Heartbreak'', follows the story of a boy trying to deal with a bad breakup with his girlfriend, Juanita.
252* Music/AnaisMitchell's 2010 album ''Theatre/{{Hadestown}}'' is a retelling of the Orpheus myth.
253* Music/IceNineKills: all the songs in ''Every Trick in the Book'' (2015) are based on works of literature, whereas ''The Silver Scream'' (2018) is themed around horror films.
254* Bedroom pop group the scary jokes' ''BURN PYGMALION!!! A Better Guide to Romance'' (2019) focuses on Jeanine, an entertainment journalist, dealing with her neuroses and reflecting on her relationship with movie star Sylvia, as she tends to the latter's country home.
255* ''[[https://youtu.be/OmcLgpC730A Bikini Bottom]]'' by Creator/{{Worthikids}} is a loving tribute to {{Music/Ween}}'s ''Music/TheMollusk''...by way of motifs from ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants''.
256* Music/DavidBowie: ''Music/BlackstarAlbum'' (2016) -- Bowie's newfound awareness of his mortality in the wake of a liver cancer diagnosis, which would become terminal while promoting the album and kill him just two days after its release.
257* Music/{{Eminem}}:
258** ''Recovery'' is about Eminem's CareerResurrection, allegorised through a loose story about a broke, trailer-park rocker Shady being in a bunch of toxic relationships with women [[FetishizedAbuser who can't resist how horrible he is]], or women who are {{Allegorical Character}}s for the rap game/his fame who [[DomesticAbuse abuse him]] in a mutual DestructiveRomance.
259** ''The Marshall Mathers LP 2'' is about a mature (well, [[PsychopathicManchild by his standards]]) Eminem/Slim being given another chance at life after being murdered by a LoonyFan for [[{{Old Shame}} the fact he built a whole career on being a shitty person]]. He extends forgiveness to his abusive mother, empathises with the wife he had a DestructiveRomance with, embraces his neurodivergency and advancing age, and ends with the conclusion that his HeroicComedicSociopath persona was only ever just the real him, for bad... but also for good.
260** ''Revival'' was conceived around the fact that Eminem had been sent a pop hook by a singer who had died after sending it to him (this hook appears on "Revival (Interlude)". The whole of the rest of the album is based around the idea of death, with Eminem reliving his old [[EraSpecificPersonality personas]] in turn, and the AlbumClosure clarifying that this is his past flashing before his eyes as he dies.
261** ''Kamikaze'' is an entire album of [[TakeThatCritics furious dissing]] of anybody and everybody who mocked his previous album ''Revival'', his frustrations with mediocre modern hip-hop, CopycatMockery of lame modern rap, and a love-hate letter to his own notorious HairTriggerTemper.
262* Tuomas Holopainen's ''The Life and Times of Scrooge'', based on Don Rosa's ''ComicBook/TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck''.
263* Music/TheMechanisms almost exclusively wrote concept albums that told a full story based off of a classic folk tale or myth... [[RecycledInSpace in space!]] ''Once Upon a Time (in Space)'' took classic fairy tales like Literature/Cinderella and Literature/SnowWhite and set them in an intergalactic civil war. ''Ulysses Dies at Dawn'' retold the myth of [[Literature/TheOdyssey Odysseus, aka Ulysses]] in a cyberpunk city, featuring other famous characters from [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Greek mythology]]. ''High Noon Over Camelot'' featured characters from Myth/ArthurianLegend in a SpaceWestern. ''The Bifrost Incident'' set characters from Myth/NorseMythology on an inter-dimensional train in space. The individual songs on the Mechanisms' non-concept-albums were also miniature stories set in the universes of their other albums or in the lives of the characters they played.
264* We Lost The Sea:
265** ''Departure Songs'' (2015) was written in the wake of their vocalist's death by suicide two years prior. Each track is a tribute to a different failed heroic journey in history -- the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Nova_Expedition Terra Nova expedition]] and the death of Lawrence Oates ("A Gallant Gentleman"), a suicide mission during the UsefulNotes/{{Chernobyl}} disaster ("Bogatyri")[[note]]While the three Liquidators were lionized as martyrs and folk heroes in Ukraine, it later turned out that the chain reaction scenario they were sent to prevent was not as bad as initially feared, and all three actually survived the mission. The band was not aware of this at the time the song was written, but have since declared that in an album about heroic stories, [[EarnYourHappyEnding one happy ending isn't a bad thing]].[[/note]], the death of scuba diver [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Shaw Dave Shaw]] during an attempt to [[FinallyFoundTheBody recover the body of a fellow diver]] ("The Last Dive of David Shaw"), and the destruction of the [[UsefulNotes/{{NASA}} Space Shuttle]] ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster Challenger]]'' ("Challenger Part 1 - Flight" and [[RayOfHopeEnding "Challenger Part 2 - A Swan Song"]]) -- arguing that they did not die in vain, and that their deeds would be honored and remembered.
266** ''Triumph and Disaster'' (2019) is presented as a "[[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] children's story" about a mother and son [[TheLastDance spending one last day together]] in an Earth that has been [[GreenAesop destroyed by climate change and pollution]].
267* Music/WillWood's ''SELF-iSH'' is a concept album about reality vs the self.
268* Prince Rama's 2012 album ''Top 10 Hits of the End of the World'' has the band "channeling" various {{Fake Band}}s of different genres who died during the apocalypse, with photos of the duo dressed as the fictional artists appearing in the artwork, and [[AllThereInTheManual an official press release providing lore about each of the ten bands]] including how they were killed. Perhaps because it's packaged as a various artists compilation, there's also heavy use of FadingIntoTheNextSong.
269[[/folder]]
270
271[[folder:2000s]]
272* Music/RedHotChiliPeppers' 2006 double-album, ''Music/StadiumArcadium'', is arguably one of these. The band initially wanted to release three separate albums - titled ''Jupiter'', ''Mars'', and ''Venus'', each with distinctive cover art - but decided instead to combine the first two and release the last one as a series of B-sides. The mood of the songs is mostly spacey and psychedelic, overlapping with the original celestial names of the albums.
273* Music/ArcticMonkeys' first album, ''Music/WhateverPeopleSayIAmThatsWhatImNot'', was not intended to be a concept album; however, vocalist Alex Turner's lyrical subjects mainly deal with a night of partying and the adversity that one often faces while clubbing, leading it to be branded as one.
274* ''Deltron 3030'' is a hip-hop concept album about a sci-fi dystopian future where hip-hop has become a means of underground resistance.
275* Music/{{Opeth}}'s ''Ghost Reveries'' portrays a man wandering about destitute and evading the law after murdering his own mother for Satan. It should be noted that not all of the songs relate to the concept ("Isolation Years" doesn't), but most do.
276* Music/DavidBowie: ''Music/{{Heathen}}'' (2002) -- Portraits of a decaying society in the wake of the TurnOfTheMillennium and especially the September 11, 2001 attacks (Bowie claimed that the songs were all written pre-9/11, but admitted that the attacks heavily affected its tone).
277* Music/MaryAndTheBlackLamb's "As the City Sleeps."
278* Music/{{Kraftwerk}}'s ''Tour de France Soundtracks''=the titular bicycle race.
279* Clive Nolan and Oliver Wakeman (son of Rick Wakeman) have made two concept albums based on literary works: ''Jabberwocky'' (based on the Creator/LewisCarroll [[Literature/{{Jabberwocky}} poem]]) and ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' (based on the Literature/SherlockHolmes [[Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles novel]]).
280* ''Songs from an American Movie, Vol. 1: Learning How To Smile'' by Everclear. The first half seeks to set up a relationship, from courtship and dating (a cover of Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl", "Learning How To Smile"), to marriage ("The Honeymoon Song"), only to focus almost entirely in the second half on divorce and its effects: the initial shock ("Now That It's Over"), wistful remembrance ("Otis Redding"), finding someone new ("Unemployed Boyfriend"), and the effect on the kids ("Wonderful", "Annabella's Song").
281* Music/{{Mastodon}}'s ''Leviathan'' makes ''Literature/MobyDick'' into pure win.
282** ''Crack The Skye'' tells the story of a paraplegic boy who uses astral projection and accidentally finds himself in the body of UsefulNotes/RasputinTheMadMonk, who then gets murdered, so Rasputin's spirit has to help the boy protect his soul from the devil and return to his body. Though unlike with ''Leviathan'', none of this is anything you'd necessarily pick up on without reading band inteviews.
283** And ''Blood Mountain'', which is about climbing a mountain, and poop going crazy. If you think about it, every Mastodon album has been more insane than the last. Their debut, ''Remission'' isn't even a concept album.
284* Music/{{Avantasia}}'s 2000s concept albums are the lighthearted high fantasy/church conspiracy combo in ''The Metal Opera'' and ''The Metal Opera Part II'', and ''The Scarecrow'', which is the first part of an ambiguous character drama about a self-destructive artist in the albums in "The Wicked Trilogy".
285* [[Music/{{Minutemen}} Mike Watt]]'s ''The Secondman's Middle Stand'' makes parallels between ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'' and Watt's [[CreatorBreakdown real-life ordeal with a near-fatal perineum infection]].
286** All of the songs in ''The Hyphenated-Man'' are inspired by figures in Creator/HieronymusBosch paintings.
287* ''Hildegard von Bingen'' is a Latin-language album with downtempo electronic influences based on the compositions of a 12th century nun. It was released by Garmarna, a folk-progressive rock band from Sweden. Yup.
288* Pain of Salvation's ''The Perfect Element I'' is about two disturbed people who find love within each other, and it ends badly.
289** ''Remedy Lane'' is a story of a childhood romance that is reawakened, but then dismantled because of broken pasts, adultery, and suicide.
290** ''Be'' describes a situation in which God becomes disappointed (to say the least) with his human creation and decides to "leave them to their own devices".
291** ''Scarsick'' continues from "The Perfect Element I", except now, the protagonist watches TV and feels bad about stuff.
292* Music/IronMaiden's ''A Matter of Life and Death'' wasn't mean to be a concept album, but all the tracks are reflections on war, religion and death.
293* Music/PatrickWolf is particularly fond of the concept album. His first album, Lycanthropy, centers on his childhood and adolescence.
294** His second, ''Wind in the Wires'', is focused on his Cornish and Gaelic roots.
295** His third, ''The Magic Position'' is inspired by a relationship, and focuses on the theme of Love.
296** ''The Bachelor'' is one half of two albums that serve as a commentary on depression, inspiration and love. The Bachelor focuses on the first two, and ''Lupercalia'' (2011) focused on the latter two.
297** Even his singles have a tendency to wander into this trope, with both the "Tristan" and "Wind In The Wires" [=EPs=] featuring two B-Sides each that contribute to the Cornish/Gaelic feel of the aforementioned song's parent album (Although, rather thankfully, his latest batch of singles avoid this).
298* ''The Lyre of Orpheus'', by Music/NickCave & the Bad Seeds, is a conceptual retelling of the Orpheus legend, as the name implies.
299* Music/RabbitJunk's 2008 album ''This Life Is Where You Get Fucked''. It's a three-part anthology of short concepts - ''The Struggle'' tells of three struggles for freedom from the 1940s to the present day, ''Ghetto Blasphemer'' tells of inner-city occult summonings and the havoc thus caused, and ''This Death is Where You Get Life'' tells of a city cyclist seeing revenge on the person who stole his bike. 2010's ''Project Nonagon'' continues each story.
300* Music/TheMountainGoats made more concept albums in the 2000's.
301** ''Tallahassee'' follows from ''Sweden'', focusing on a different fictional couple.
302** ''All Hail West Texas'' is, as described by singer-songwriter John Darnielle, "Fourteen songs about seven people, two houses, a motorcycle, and a locked treatment facility for adolescent boys."
303** ''We Shall All Be Healed'' is about the songwriter's years as a teenage meth addict.
304** ''The Sunset Tree'' is about his physically abusive stepfather,
305** ''Get Lonely'' is about, well, loneliness.
306** ''The Life of the World to Come'' is "twelve hard lessons the Bible taught [Darnielle]".
307* Defeater's debut album, "Travels", tells the story of an unwanted child trying to make his way in the world.
308** They've since taken this farther. Their follow-up EP "Lost Ground" tells the story of the homeless man that is met midway through "Travels" (an African American WWII vet) and their latest CD "Empty Days&/ Sleepless Nights" is the story of "Travels" from the older brother's point of view.
309* Virgin Steele's ''The House of Atreus: Act I'' and ''The House of Atreus: Act II'' retell the story of the Oresteia.
310** ''Visions of Eden'' is a retelling of the legend of lilith from her perspective.
311* ''The Duckworth Lewis Method'' by The Duckworth Lewis Method is a concept album about cricket.
312* Music/CradleOfFilth's ''Damnation and a Day'' is based on some interpretations of Literature/ParadiseLost , magnus opus of John Milton, and ''Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder'' centers on the life of Gilles de Rai. One could also fit ''Midian'' into this category, as the titular city is mentioned in every song, but the album lacks an overall story on the other hand.
313* ''INRI'' by Psyclon Nine is all negative commentary on Christianity and the consequences of it.
314* Music/SaintEtienne's ''Tales From Turnpike House'' is a series of vignettes about a day in the life of the residents of a north London block of flats (which doesn't really narrow things down much, since nearly ''all'' of their music is about London in one way or another), including TheAlcoholic Gary Stead [[spoiler:(who turns out to be [[DrowningMySorroes Drowning His Sorrows]])]] and a couple played by Sarah Cracknell and David Essex arguing about leaving the city to go and live Series/TheGoodLife. Their stories all eventually link up in the penultimate track, the epic "Teenage Winter".
315* Music/BritneySpears's ''Oops! I Did It Again'' is being yourself and loved as yourself, ''Britney'' is growing up and into your sexuality, ''In The Zone'' is sexuality and exploring it, ''Blackout'' is forgetting upsets and having a good time, ''Circus'' is a mix tape of a circus of sounds.
316* ''Addicted to Bad Ideas: Peter Lorre's Twentieth Century'' by [[Music/TheWorldInfernoFriendshipSociety The World/Inferno Friendship Society]] is a concept album about, well, the life and times of Creator/PeterLorre. It follows him from being a starving actor in Weimar-era Berlin, to fleeing to Hollywood where he hopes to make it big while struggling with a morphine addiction. The band's performed it live as a semi-musical several times, and has announced that their next album will also be a concept album: a punk version of ''Radio/APrairieHomeCompanion''.
317* Music/{{Coldplay}}'s ''Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends'', which is thoroughly cohesive and even cyclical but gives each song individual power, part of the reason it's probably the most pop-culturally viable Concept Album in years (the other part being that, rather than an exact story, the album is basically about [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism the highs and lows of life]]). [[NewSoundAlbum This coming from Coldplay of all bands]] [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic blew everyone's mind]] and won them several Grammys. (Having Music/BrianEno be the producer for the album probably helped).
318** ''Music/ARushOfBloodToTheHead'' is a loose concept album about urgency and the quietude that often obfuscates it.
319* Music/{{Kamelot}}'s [[Music/EpicaAlbumSeries ''Epica'' and ''The Black Halo'']] are concept albums based on Goethe's ''Theatre/{{Faust}}'' (the story that developed the modern interpretation of the [[DealWithTheDevil deal with the devil]]).
320* ''The Power to Believe'' by Music/KingCrimson.
321* ''One by One'' by Music/FooFighters was described by Music/DaveGrohl as "11 tortured love songs", with a major theme of "surrendering to yourself", and a sequencing that described the difficult beginnings of falling in love, and then the relief of feeling comfortable in love.
322** For years people [[WildMassGuessing have talked about]] ''The Colour and the Shape'' being a "very loose" concept album about the lifcycle of a loving relationship.
323* Rock Plaza Central's 2006 ''Are We Not Horses?'' is a song cycle about a race of six-legged mechanical horses being used as cannon fodder in the final battle between Heaven and Hell (and is a direct sequel to their earlier ''The World Was Hell For Us'').
324* Music/DevinTownsend's ''Ziltoid the Omnicient'' album is about an alien overlord searching for the universe's ultimate cup of coffee.
325* Music/{{Placebo}}'s ''Sleeping with Ghosts'' album is about relationships of all kinds, the soulmate-type relationships, the relationships with special needs,and the relationships that had a very bitter end.
326* ''The Hazards Of Love'' by Music/TheDecemberists is about the romance between a young woman named Margaret and a forest-dwelling shapeshifter named William, threatened by William's adopted mother, the queen of the forest, and a murderous scoundrel called the Rake.
327** Also "The Crane Wife," in a looser sense, as an interpretation of the Japanese folk tale. This only involves the title tracks, as the rest are disconnected, self-contained narratives.
328** The 18-minute, five-part EP "The Tain", their take on the Irish epic ''Literature/TheCattleRaidOfCooley'', also qualifies.
329* ''Signify'' by Porcupine Tree tells a single story.
330* ''Axis of Evil'' by Suicide Commando is essentially a condemnation of the Neoconservative foreign policy practices of the George W. Bush administration.
331* Turisas' albums ''The Varangian Way'' and ''Stand Up and Fight'' tell the tale of Vikings who traveled through Eastern Europe, joined the Byzantine Empire and eventually died in the Battle of Manzikert.
332* Music/APerfectCircle's ''Thirteenth Step'' is a concept album about addiction - even the one CoverVersion ("The Nurse Who Loved Me", originally by Failure) fits with the overall theme.
333** Despite being a CoverAlbum, ''[=eMOTIVe=]'' also counts: All of the covers are of [[ProtestSong protest songs]] of sorts, specifically ones that could be considered relevant to the political climate of the US circa 2004 - it was even released to coincide with the 2004 US presidential election.
334* ''The Fame'' by Music/LadyGaga is about becoming famous; similarly, ''The Fame Monster'' is about the fears Gaga faced while becoming famous.
335* Music/LupeFiasco's ''The Cool'' is a concept album, with all (or at least most) of the songs having the unified theme of, well, "Cool." Though he has a couple songs on there such as ''Gold Watch'' that show it in a positive light, for the most part, the album portrays it negatively, even comparing it to a disease in ''Streets On Fire.''
336** In addition, some of the songs advance the storyline of "Michael Young History," who was the boy from ''He Say, She Say'' on his previous album, and later died and resurrected as "The Cool." The songs dealing with him show his rise and fall as a hustler, ending in betrayal and death.
337* ''Adultery'' by Dog Fashion Disco tells the story of a serial killer with split personalities.
338* Music/BombTheMusicIndustry's ''Get Warmer'' is a punk concept album about moving, being broke, and being unhappy in general. Surprisingly, it's quite happy. It's also free. http://www.quoteunquoterecords.com/qur013.htm
339* Music/OurLadyPeace has one with ''Spiritual Machines''. It is an interpretation of ''The Age of Spiritual Machines'' by Raymond Kurzweil.
340* Music/{{Gorillaz}} have ''Music/DemonDaysAlbum'', dealing with modern culture and war.
341* Both "Kezia" and "Fortress" by the band ''Protest the Hero''.
342* Music/AvengedSevenfold's album ''City of Evil'', both by lyrical progression & thematic unity (tracks 1 through 5 are continuous, track six is a COMPLETE change in tone leaning LighterAndSofter, then from track 7 on we go DarkerAndEdgier until the penultimate track, and the album's final cut is a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome).
343** ''Nightmare'' [[WhatCouldHaveBeen should have been one]] about a young American disconnected from modern society and living various nightmares, with all the stories coming together at the end. Alas, the band's drummer Jimmy Sullivan died just before the recording, and the lyrics were changed to make it a tribute album to him instead.
344** ''Music/TheStage'' is build around the themes of space, technology, artificial intelligence and nuclear warfare, with a very sci-fi-based storytelling, most notably in "Simulation" which is pretty much ''Film/TheMatrix : [=A7X=] Edition''. The final track "Exist" spans a whopping 15 minutes and describes the Big Bang, the creation of Earth, the birth of humanity, and is concluded by a [[SpokenWordInMusic 3 minute speech]] from astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson.
345* ''Music/YoshimiBattlesThePinkRobots'' by ''Music/TheFlamingLips'' (despite Wayne Coyne stating that it isn't a concept album), concerns a diverse array of subject matter, mostly melancholy ponderings about love, mortality, artificial emotion, pacifism, and deception, while telling the story of Yoshimi's battle.
346* ''The Love Below'' by Music/OutKast, more specifically Andre 3000 (Big Boi's ''Speakerboxxx'' doesn't have an underlying theme).
347* Abney Park's ''Lost Horizons'' follow the crew of the HMS Ophelia (an airship) as they travel around the world during a [[SteamPunk Victorian era that never was]] - mad scientists, exploring mysterious lands, airship pirates, strange science, and the joy and heartbreak of travelling abound. Later albums expand the concept further, most darkly End Of Days.
348* Tomahawk's ''Anonymous'' features their interpretations of Native American songs, with a short version of a parlor song ("Long, Long Weary Day") serving as a coda. Their self-titled album has been speculated by fans to be a character study of a SerialKiller, but this has been neither confirmed or denied by the artists themselves [[note]]opening track "Flashback" seems to be about an abusive/neglectful childhood, possibly setting up a FreudianExcuse, and lyrical themes of crime, violence, and mental illness recur throughout the rest of the album[[/note]].
349* Music/{{Sepultura}} recorded two albums based on other works, ''Dante XXI'' (''Literature/TheDivineComedy'') and ''A-Lex'' (''Literature/AClockworkOrange'' - though the former bandleader stated that the remaining members [[http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=112604 weren't even fans of it]]).
350* Music/EmilieAutumn has the album ''Enchant'', about a faerie falling in love with a human and the resulting mess.
351** ''[[MadnessTropes Opheliac]]'' is referred to as a concept album on her website. It's about madness in general, specifically Emilie's experience with it(she made the album as an alternative to suicide during a battle with depression). Several songs both on the main album and the bonus disc also deal with the exploitation of and problems faced by women.
352* Music/GreenDay's ''Music/AmericanIdiot''. Its lyrics feature several characters' names (or at least titles) that are [[ArcWords sprinkled throughout the album,]] and the entire album has a distinct narrative quality. It can be hard to tell under the layers upon layers of AuthorTract.
353** As well as the similarly-themed follow-up ''Music/TwentyFirstCenturyBreakdown''.
354* Piano Magic's ''Artists' rifles'' is inspired by the First World War in both lyrics and music.
355* Music/ThirtySecondsToMars have ''Music/ThisIsWar''. It's all about war, pro and anti. Every song has something to do with conflict and rebellion. With such songs as "A Call to Arms" and "This is War", the meaning is clear. It makes sense when you realize the band fought a war of their own with the record industry in making this.
356* Music/NineInchNails have ''Music/YearZero'', which was about a future American dystopia, accompanied by an extensive ARG.
357** ''Broken'', whilst an EP rather than an album, is also a concept piece, specifically about Trent's experiences working with TVT Records. Yep; "Happiness In Slavery" is ''not'' about sadomasochism, despite the rather prominent usage of sadomasochistic imagery.
358** Also, ''Ghosts''. It's over two hours of purely instrumental music, using all sorts of odd sounds and beats.
359** ''Music/TheDownwardSpiral'' is an album about a man's violent disillusionment with everything he holds dear (religion, love, etc.) and ultimately himself, [[DownerEnding culminating]] in a suicide attempt that [[WildMassGuessing may or may not]] have worked.
360* The album ''And I Love H.E.R.'' by rapper Danny! (Daniel Swain) chronicles his love affair with hip-hop, which is personified as a woman.
361* Music/RaziasShadow by ''Forgive Durden'' (and tons of guest vocalists from other bands) is a full-cast album musical following the [[EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory allegorical]] story of a world split between light and darkness through the actions of a rebellious angel, and the forbidden love between a man from the "dark" and a woman from the "light" that is prophesied to reunite the two halves.
362* ''A Grand Don't Come For Free'' by Music/TheStreets follows an individual who manages to misplace the titular sum of money in the first song. Over the album he meets a girl, has encounters with gambling and taking drugs, argues with the girl, goes on holiday, finds out the girl is cheating on him and loses the girl before the album offers two possible endings where 1. the protagonist angrily shuns his friends and gets into a fight with a TV repairman, winding up angry and miserable or 2. reconciles with a friend, finds the money he lost and meets another girl with the suggestions of a future relationship, but acknowledging that you cant wholly rely on others in tough times when they have their own problems to deal with.
363* On Less than Jake's album ''GNV FLA'', every song on the album is about life in Gainesville Florida.
364* ''To The Bottom of the Sea'' by Music/{{Voltaire}} is about a young tinker who goes to sea to make his fortune while fleeing social unrest in his homeland. [[spoiler:The ship he is on ultimately sinks in a storm.]]
365* ''The Liberty of Norton Folgate'' by Madness, based around the area of London where the band grew up.
366* Mind.in.a.box's first three albums: ''Lost Alone'', ''Dreamweb'', and ''Crossroads'', comprise a concept album trilogy. After the non-concept ''R.E.T.R.O.'', ''Revelations'' continues the story arc with the tracks "Transition and "Unknown".
367* The Cruxshadows' ''Ethernaut'' tells the story of the fall of Troy from the Trojans' point of view.
368* Music/AfterForever's 2004 album ''Invisible Circles'', about a teenage girl growing up with AbusiveParents.
369* The Hold Steady's 2005 album "Seperation Sunday" revolves around the drug fueled life and travels of lapsed-catholic teenager Hallelujah (Holly) and assorted others (Gideon, Charlemagne, etc.)
370* Music/ESPosthumus' ''Cartographer'' is about a map that was discovered in 1929 and the race of explorers that could have made this map.
371* Music/CamperVanBeethoven's ''New Roman Times'' is set in an alternate universe present-day United States, which parallels the country's political divisions in real life: [[DividedStatesOfAmerica The US has separated into two countries that are hostile to each other]], the Christian right-wing Texas and the left-wing utopian California. The album follows an unnamed narrator who joins the army of Texas after a 9/11-esque terror attack. He returns disabled and disillusioned, eventually siding with California-based "rebels" and prepares to become a suicide bomber.
372* Music/QueensOfTheStoneAge's third album, ''Music/SongsForTheDeaf'', is a concept album that shows their breaking into mainstream radio by using interludes before and after most of the songs that sound like the buzz of a station changing, along with a different DJ/radio personality talking before they play the song. One is completely in Spanish, as well.
373* Music/SayAnything's ''...Is a Real Boy'' was originally intended to be a rock opera, complete with spoken-word interludes between the songs explaining the story's progression. This knowledge of the album's backstory makes songs like "I Want to Know Your Plans" all the more [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic dimensional and profound]]. Tragically, the speaking parts were cut from the final album though the story remains the same and is briefly explained in the liner notes of the album:
374-->"The plot revolved around a moderately successful "indie/punk" rock band called Say Anything, fronted by 21-year-old Max Bemis, an idealistic, introverted singer/songwriter crippled by depression and anxiety and alienated by what he sees as a vast hypocrisy inherent in society. One night, a supernatural power "curses" Max with a mysterious affliction. The "curse" causes his innermost fears, fantasies, and thoughts to burst forth from his mouth at any given time in the form of fully arranged rock anthems. Max simply cannot control it: any time he feels a strong emotion, everything around him becomes a bizarre musical. Though Max's new powers at first seem only to frighten people, they soon cause the opposite effect as Say Anything becomes an accidental phenomenon. The blatant honesty of the lyrics as well as the freak-show appeal of a man physically unable to censor himself strike a powerful chord amongst the underground culture that one dismissed Max's music as "unsubstantial". Now, worshipped by rock-and-roll America as a Christ-like figure, Bemis sets out to use his powers to vanquish all hypocrisy. The proposed rock opera planned to chronicle Bemis' rise to power as well as his undoing by the fundamental flaw in the logic of every self-involved, impassioned rock singer. Whether capitalist America is "the enemy" or not, there is greed, duplicity and hatred in every human being, especially in the greatest hypocrites of all: the "entertainers" among us, whose need for attention fosters a sick dream that they alone hold the key to mankind's salvation. In the end, Max is left to fight "the man" with the corniest song he's ever written and the knowledge that accepting love and salvation lies within admitting he is nothing more or less than a human being."
375* Music/FranzFerdinand tried their hand at this trope with ''Tonight: Franz Ferdinand'' (which was also a NewSoundAlbum, but that's besides the point). Unlike most of the rest of the albums on the list, the concept is rather mundane (and ends up succeeding for it): it's about a drunk, debauched night on the town (most likely Glasgow).
376* Music/JohnFrusciante's third album, ''To Record Only Water for Ten Days'', refers to the ten separate times during which he conceived the album and wrote all the songs for it. During the writing process, he claims that he envisioned his body as a tape recorder, with the water of music and life rejuvenating and cleansing him, and that imagery propelled the entire album.
377** His tenth album, ''The Empyrean'', is about the collision of ancient and modern ideas of spirituality and how it is relevant to our daily lives.
378* Music/ArcadeFire's first three albums qualify:
379** ''Funeral'' is about aging, loss, and community.
380** ''Neon Bible'' is about religion/the apocalypse, with television and the ocean somehow recurring.
381** Anyone who needs the subject of ''Music/TheSuburbs'' explained deserves to be shot for literally incredible thickness (although in a somewhat unique twist, the album is not some kind of meditation on the subject from the outside but rather a "letter ''from'' {{suburbia}}," reflecting Win Butler's youth in that ultimate suburb--The Woodlands, Texas).
382* Music/FuneralForAFriend's ''Tales Don't Tell Themselves'' is a concept album about a guy called David who goes out in a boat and gets into trouble, being away from his family for several months with no means of contacting them. The lyrics take place from both his perspective, and that of his wife and young son who don't know what is going on. In an unusual move for a concept album the story isn't told in the correct order, rather it is chosen for flow. However, the sequence featuring "All Hands On Deck Pt 1: Raise The Sail", "All Hands On Deck Pt II: Open Water", and "Out Of Reach" is clearly in order and "Into Oblivion (Reunion)" is obviously the last part despite being the first track.
383* Music/TheMarsVolta's album ''De-Loused in the Comatorium'' follows a young man overdosing on morphine and rat poison, enduring a week-long coma in which he sees vivid visions of mankind and his own psyche, and finally, committing suicide. The story itself is a bit of TruthInTelevision, as it's based on the life and death of Julio Venegas, a close friend of Mars Volta frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala. Their second album, ''Francis the Mute'', is also a concept album.
384** And of course, there's ''The Bedlam in Goliath,'' about the band's experiences with a ouija board.
385* Local H's ''12 Angry Months'' describes one year of emotions surrounding a breakup, including anger, sadness and moving on.
386* Porcupine Tree's ''Deadwing'' is apparently a concept album, but what that concept actually ''is'' is something Steven Wilson is keeping to himself for now. He's apparently working on a film for it.
387** In Absentia is more definitely a concept album, about serial killers.
388** Additionally, "Lightbulb Sun" is a horridly depressing (and presumably autobiographical on Wilson's part) story about relationships dissolving as time passes.
389** ''Fear Of A Blank Planet'' and ''The Incident'' also focus on specific themes and stories.
390* Music/ToriAmos has created several concept albums, including ''Scarlet's Walk'' (the tale of a woman's trek across the country) and ''Strange Little Girls'' (a collection of covers of songs originally performed by men, redone from a woman's perspective).
391* Sixx:A.M.'s album ''The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack'' is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the soundtrack]] to Nikki Sixx book "The Heroin Diaries". Each song represents a chapter in the book.
392* ''Music/{{Hospice}}'' by Music/TheAntlers tells the utterly soul crushing tale of the doomed relationship between the narrator, a hospital worker, and the deeply troubled patient for whom he works as a home visitor. Suffice to say, things don't go well. An extraordinarily harrowing album about despair, pain and hopelessness, but through it all, love.
393* Music/RichardThompson's ''1000 years of popular music'' is an unusual take on the concept album, as he didn't write any of the songs. Instead, it's a history of popular music starting in the 11th century and ending with Music/BritneySpears.
394* Music/FallingUp's album ''Fangs!'' tells the story of a man who journeys to another planet to investigate an attack on his home world. The prologue of the story is given in the liner material, but the actual story is...[[MindScrew rather unclear]].
395* Armor for Sleep's ''What To Do When You Are Dead'' is a concept album that starts with the protagonist [[{{Emo}} committing suicide by driving his car into a lake]] [[DisproportionateRetribution because he has issues with his girlfriend.]] The subsequent songs follow him as he, now a ghost, hangs around haunting said girlfriend and moping about how much it sucks to be dead before finally accepting his fate.
396* The Thrice album "The Alchemy Index" was released in 2 parts of 2 volumes, and relates the 4 elements to music. Fire is the heavy album, water has a more electronic sound, air is light and the songs flow seamlessly, and earth is acoustic and bluesy.
397* ''Wincing the Night Away'' by The Shins tells the story of a teenage NietzscheWannabe who falls asleep and enters an [[Literature/AliceInWonderland Alice in Wonderland]]-like dream world where he falls in love with a girl, to whom he tells his philosophy, ruining her outlook on life. [[AnAesop Life Lessons]] ensue.
398* Mayday Parade's ''A Lesson in Romantics'', arguably.
399* Music/{{Cursive}} does this a lot.
400** 2000's ''Domestica'' was about the relationship between two characters named Sweetie and Pretty Baby. The album relates (almost directly) to events from lead singer Tim Kasher's divorce (though some concepts, like cheating, were added). The album ends rather ambiguously. However, [[WordOfGod according to Tim Kasher]] the couple in the story end up staying together, despite all their differences and the fighting.
401** 2003's ''The Ugly Organ'' tells the story of the lust, love, and empty sex throughout the "Ugly Organist's" life.
402** 2006's ''Happy Hollow'' revolves around the titular small, upper class, God-fearing town, with each track telling a different story of faults that those living in Happy Hollow portray that seem at odds with the town's "perfect" image. The final track, "Hymns for the Heathen", is an afterword of the album.
403** 2009's ''Mama, I'm Swollen'' depicts a middle-aged man full of failure and facing a hell of personal demons.
404* Music/{{Showbread}}'s ''Anorexia'' and ''Nervosa'' are about a pair of identical twin sisters who take very different paths in life. Anorexia works with the sick and eventually founds a hospital. Nervosa goes to work at a slaughter house and becomes a stripper. Both come to the same end.
405* ''Futureperfect'' by VNV nation is about the death of optimistic/idealistic visions of the future's prospects.
406* Project 86's ''Truthless Heroes''.
407* ''Truth of the World: Welcome to the show'' by Evermore, is about media, propaganda and advertising, with occasional interludes by a trash-news type show that shares it's name with the album.
408* Music/EdgeOfSanity's ''Crimson II'' continues the story of ''Crimson'' with the awakening of the tyrannical queen from the first album.
409* Music/DarrenHayes' third album, ''This Delicate Thing We've Made'' is a double album exploring the concept of time travel.
410* ''Machina/The Machines of God'', by Music/TheSmashingPumpkins. Noted for its storyline being told through many outlets: [[NewMedia the album, its only-released-via-the-internet sequel, its artwork, the band's Web site and cryptic flyers handed out at concerts]].
411** Similarly, their album ''Music/MellonCollieAndTheInfiniteSadness'' is a loose concept album about the cycle of life and death.
412* The Music/MyChemicalRomance album ''Music/TheBlackParade'' is about a cancer patient who may or may not die at the end.
413** ''Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge'' may also qualify.
414** ''I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love'' is the twisty but understandable story of two lovers during a vampire invasion/attack.
415* Music/DreamTheater's ''Music/MetropolisPt2ScenesFromAMemory'' follows the story of [[spoiler:Nicholas and the discovery of his past life, which involves love, murder, and infidelity as Victoria Page.]]
416** Interesting note: The "part one" in ''Metropolis Pt. 1: The Miracle and the Sleeper'' was tacked on as a joke. Part two was originally a twenty-minute ''song'' which would later be developed further into ''"Metropolis Pt. 2"''.
417** ''Octavarium'' also sort of counts, as it revolves around musical concepts: The first track is called "The '''Root''' Of all Evil, each track is in a progressively higher key, with the 8th track, called '''Octav[e]'''arium, is the same key as the first but an octave higher, there are interludes where the flats and sharps would be, etc. In addition, the artwork of the album also revolves around these types of numerical themes. Read more about it [[http://dt.spatang.com/octavarium.php here.]]
418* ''Chaos and Creation in the Backyard'', by Music/PaulMcCartney. Notable because this album was immediately recognized as a concept album, but it took over a year for Paul's fans to learn what the concept actually was.
419* ''How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb'' by Music/{{U2}}.
420* Duncan Sheik's ''Whisper House'' album is based around the concept of ghosts commenting (quite cynically) on the foibles and hardships of the living. It doesn't follow a strict narrative throughout, but a vaguely sketched cast of characters are introduced in the first song and followed up on in the final song.
421* Shadow Gallery has a two-part (three planned) multi-disc epic with ''Tyranny'' and ''Room V''. They detail a romance between two revolutionaries working to bring down a fascist government, but it turns out the female has peculiar strand of DNA which is vital to the operations of the system. Naturally, it's a bit of a CliffHanger as of now.
422* Semi-fictional example: [[Westernanimation/{{Metalocalypse}} Dethklok's]] ''Dethwater''. The entire album was written for sealife, and was recorded in the Marianas Trench. Features such songs as "Go Into the Water" and "Murmaider" ("It's about mermaid murder.")
423* King Geedorah's ''Take Me to Your Leader''. Rapper Daniel Dumile (MF DOOM) takes on the persona of space monster King Geedorah, and the album is told through his alien perspective on humans... who he ultimately wishes to enslave.
424** In fact, most of Dumile's work qualifies. His first album, ''Operation: DOOMSDAY'' (released in 1999), chronicled the story of DOOM, a young college student turned DiabolicalMastermind after a scientific accident scarred his face (if that reminds you of anything, it's supposed to).
425** His next venture focused on Viktor Vaughn, a typical otaku b-boy from Latveria with a knack for technology and an ego the size of Michigan who is flung back in time to 1993 by one of his experiments.
426** In ''Madvillainy'', DOOM reluctantly finds himself in a VillainTeamUp with miniature supergenius Madlib, while Viktor Vaughn swears revenge after DOOM steals his girl. DOOM's crime spree continues in ''The Mouse and the Mask'', where he and his new partner, the deadly Danger Mouse, are sought by a LegionOfDoom.
427** Judging from the fact that he adopts different personas for different albums, usually performs wearing a mask (or in shadow, with sunglasses, as Viktor Vaughn), and the fact that all of his characters have their own speech styles, mannerisms, and storylines, it's safe to say Daniel Dumile has a concept ''career''. There's even a ''rivalry'' between two of his identities.
428* Music/WolvesInTheThroneRoom recorded a trilogy of concept albums from ''Two Hunters'' to ''Celestial Lineage'', but especially given that the band haven't released lyrics from ''Black Cascade'', [[MindScrew fans still aren't entirely clear on what the concept is]].
429* Music/{{Queensryche}}'s ''Music/OperationMindcrime'' tells the story of a somewhat-ethical mercenary who gets brainwashed by a charismatic terrorist leader into becoming an assassin.
430** This release is notable for being the first progressive metal album to meet mainstream success and for renewing the idea of the concept album in metal.
431* Music/IcedEarth's ''Horror Show'' is about the monsters and characters from various classic horror movies; ''The Glorious Burden'' is about various historical wars and battles (with a second CD of [[strike:three songs]] an extremely long song in three parts about the Battle of Gettysburg), and ''Framing Armegeddon (Something Wicked Pt. 1)'' which tells the story of a world conquered by evil invaders and their 10,000 year hidden struggle against them. ''The Crucible of Man (Something Wicked Pt. 2)'' is the sequel to the former album and was released in 2008.
432* ''Music/PoetsAndMadmen'' by Music/Savatage has no narrative but is about an AbandonedHospital and a famous photographer tormented by PostHistoricalTrauma.
433* Music/FearFactory's Digimortal album is about a society which creates clones of people, and transfers their soul and memories into them to prolong life. Includes at least one song from one of the clones in question.
434* Music/AliceCooper released a trilogy of albums called the ''Brutal Planet''/''Dragontown''/''Eyes Of Alice Cooper'' trilogy (About life in a post-apocalyptic CrapsackWorld). He also released ''Along Came A Spider'' (About a serial killer who attempts to construct a spider out of the body parts of his victims).
435* Music/AkikoShikata's ''Harmonia'' is built around the theme of the ClassicalElements: the wind part (track 1 to 4) focuses on the feelings of traveling and flying in the sky; the fire part (5 to 8) has tense songs with heavy electric instrumentations and dark lyrics; the water part (9 to 12) contrasts it with soothing songs and light instrumentations; the earth part (13 to 15) has a "tribal dance" feel to it. Each part is introduced by a short interlude titled "Chouwa ~ something", all four of which form the first verse of ''Chouwa ~ Harmonia'', the penultimate track. ''Harmonia ~ Mihatenu Chi he'' brings all this together in a joyful conclusion.
436* Music/PeterGabriel's 2002 album ''Music/{{Up|PeterGabrielAlbum}}'' deals with themes of birth and death (mostly death).
437* The album ''Nigredo'' by Diary Of Dreams (a Music/DarkWave band from Germany) is a concept album with a story. It's about a person who discovers that he's actually a being called K'tharsia, who is also the fifth element necessary to create a deadly virus, the titular Nigredo, that would destroy most of humanity. [[spoiler:[[DownerEnding At the end, he unites with the other four elements, leading to the plague outbreak]]]]. One of the following albums, ''Nekrolog 43'', seems to take place into the world after the events of Nigredo. Not that you would know any of that without reading the booklets. Or even after that.
438* The Canadian post-hardcore band Silverstein released their album ''A Shipwreck in the Sand'' in 2009, which follows an unnamed character who finds out his wife has been cheating on him with his best friend. The man then burns his wife's house down out of spite while she and their six-year-old daughter are inside, but [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone upon realizing that he still loves them]], he rushes into the burning building to save them. [[spoiler:The wife presses charges against her husband, and wins custody of their daughter in prison. However, with lack of evidence to support that the husband had indeed burned the house down, the husband is released until the next day. The husband drives to a motel, and upon being faced with a heavy amount of jail time and realizing he can't survive without his family, commits suicide in his motel room.]]
439* Music/TheOcean has written Precambrian, a concept album about '''the entire geological history of the Earth'''.
440* Music/MaudlinOfTheWell's ''Bath'' and ''Leaving Your Body Map'' may be one of the few cases to combine this with TheWalrusWasPaul. For information, face of the band Toby Driver has stated that there is a puzzle buried in the music, lyrics, and packaging to the two albums. "The Secret Song", a subsequent release by the band, was intended to help unlock the puzzle. This was in 2001. As of 2019, no one has successfully figured it out.
441* Karnivool's ''Sound Awake'' seems to have a clear emotional arc to its lyrics and several songs refer to similar concepts and phrases, so it has been interpreted as a concept album about its protagonist coming to grips with the hypocrisies and injustices in society, along with the emotional struggles inherent in doing so. The band has explained a couple of the songs, explicitly saying that the lead-off single "Set Fire to the Hive" is a "sonic call to arms" designed to remind listeners that living in a democracy gives them specific rights, and to challenge them to examine how much control they actually have over society and their own lives. Many of the other songs can be interpreted in a similar fashion.
442* ''Eternal Kingdom'' by Music/CultOfLuna has a fantasy narrative with a DirectLineToTheAuthor claiming it was the diary of a mental patient institutionalised for murdering his family. This was later revealed by the band to be a hoax [[TakeThat at the expense of music journalists]]. ''Somewhere Along the Highway'' is a concept album, too, challenging traditional gender roles and deconstructing many of the tropes inherent in society's assumption that MenAreTough. The band's first three full-length albums may not be explicit concept albums but have some common themes about SinisterSurveillance and globalisation.
443* Music/{{Eminem}}:
444** ''Music/TheMarshallMathersLP'' is about Eminem struggling with the obsessive parasocial relationships and [[TheNewRockAndRoll moral panic]] caused by his rise to fame.
445** ''Music/TheEminemShow'' casts him as a megalomaniacal SmugSuper, addressing his recent gun violence charge, divorce, lawsuits, and tabloid-gothic personal problems.
446** The titular encore in ''Encore'' is Eminem [[MurderSuicide committing a mass shooting before killing himself]]. The album is themed around the mental breakdown that led him to get up there, incorporating a lot of CelebrityIsOverrated, intentional AngstDissonance, him [[WhoWritesThisCrap repeating with, arguing with and contradicting himself]] in [[ShiftingVoiceOfMadness a wild variety of shifting voices and accents]], and suicide imagery littered throughout the album art, including a suicide note on the CD label and a photo of Eminem with a gun in his mouth under the disc tray.
447** ''Relapse'' is about the misery of Eminem's drug addiction and the predatory, brutal nature of people's relationships with the famous, told through the metaphor of a MedicalHorror-themed Slim Shady who stalks celebrities and disgustingly slaughters people while trying to get his next hit of prescription medication.
448* Music/PatricioReyYSusRedonditosDeRicota's 2000 album ''Momo Sampler'' is a picture of Argentina's society around the time it was done, with different characters from all the different walks of society being represented in every song, from the lower and indigent classes ("Una piba con la remera de Greenpeace", "Rato molhado", "La murga de la virgencita") to those in the middle class whose interests vary from the weird but innocuous ("Morta punto com") to the outright dangerous ("Sheriff", about a woman obsessed with what was called [[PoliceBrutality "gatillo fácil" and "mano dura"]]). The opener "El templo de Momo" even calls this version of Argentina's society a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murga "murga"]].
449* [[Music/BruceSpringsteen Bruce Springsteen's]] 2002 album ''The Rising'' is a strange example as it functions as a concept album despite many of the songs being written before the incident that inspired it (the September 11th attacks), but thanks to clever album sequencing, the context makes it seem like they can't be about anything ''but'' 9/11. For example "Nothing Man" was written in 1994 about a soldier or police officer wounded in the line of duty, but in the context of the album, it's easy to read the protagonist as a first responder. "Lonesome Day" is ambiguous enough that it could be about a breakup, or about grieving a loved one lost in the attacks. "Waitin' On A Sunny Day" was written before the attacks as well, but its theme of hope and optimism in the face of grim circumstances fits in well with the rest of the album. "My City of Ruins" was originally written about economic recovery in Springsteen's adopted hometown of Asbury Park, but it could just as easily apply to cleaning up the literal ruins of downtown New York.
450[[/folder]]
451
452[[folder:1990s]]
453* Music/FrankZappa released ''Music/CivilizationPhazeIII'' just before his death in 1993. The album revolves around a group of people living inside a giant piano and commenting on the outside world, acting as an allegory for Zappa's impending death from prostate cancer, which was already terminal by the time it was detected in 1990.
454* ''Darkest Days'' by Stabbing Westward was envisioned by the band as a four-act story, with each portraying a different emotional phase gone through after a break-up. The first act (tracks 1 through 4) is about sabotaging the relationship. The second act (tracks 5 through 9) is about lust, hope, and longing. The third act (tracks 10 through 12) is about hitting rock bottom after it is all over. The fourth act (tracks 13 through 16) is about recovery and self-respect.
455* Music/LizPhair's ''Music/ExileInGuyville''. Each song is supposed to be an AnswerSong to ''Music/ExileOnMainSt'', but it's hard to tell. As a whole, however, the album is about expected gender roles of women in the face of hypocritical societal expectations.
456* ''The Last Temptation'' by Music/AliceCooper is about a bored young man who visits a circus sideshow run by the devil and ultimately faces off with him. Creator/NeilGaiman wrote the graphic novel adaptation.
457* Creator/ChristopherLee himself got into the spirit when he released his [[HeavyMithril symphonic metal]] album ''[[Music/{{Charlemagne}} Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross]]'', based on the life of the Holy Roman Emperor. It, likewise, is ''awesome'''.
458* [[Music/{{Minutemen}} Mike Watt]]'s ''Ball Hog Or Tugboat?'' had no over-riding lyrical theme, but musically it was all about collaboration: A different group of musicians played on each song, and usually someone other than Watt himself would sing lead vocals (Music/HenryRollins and [[Music/ThePixies Frank Black]], for instance).
459** ''Contemplating The Engine Room'' uses an extended metaphor about The Navy to relate his family history and his years with The Minutemen.
460* Music/TheOffspring's ''Americana'' is a sarcastic reflection on unhappy American lifestyles. The band did not set right away on this, but realized they had a theme after a few songs complaining about the US in the late 90s were recorded.
461* Music/{{Opeth}}'s ''My Arms, Your Hearse'' tells the story of a man who dies and follows his lover around as a suspicious ghost.
462** ''Still Life'' tells the story of an atheist in medieval Europe who is banished from his home and returns years later to reclaim his lover, now a nun, only to see her killed and fly into an UnstoppableRage; he is afterward promptly executed.
463* Music/{{Sepultura}}'s album ''Music/{{Roots}}'' is a bittersweet homage to their own country, Brazil.
464* The Divine Comedy have done a few concept albums. ''Promenade'' is about two young lovers on New Year's Eve (and the songs are nearly all thematic connected with a water motif). ''Casanova'' examines how the titular character could exist in modern day society. ''A Short Album About Love'' is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.
465* Music/{{Rush|Band}}'s 1990s concept albums are ''Music/{{Counterparts}}'' and ''Music/RollTheBones''. The latter is about chance and fate.
466* Music/TheMountainGoats' ''Sweden'' is a story about a fictional couple.
467* ''Abducted'' by Swedish death metal band Hypocrisy, is an album about a man who is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin abducted by aliens]] and becomes a test subject until he dies (which is marked by a sudden GenreShift into two [[Music/PinkFloyd Pink Floyd-esque]] ProgressiveRock tracks)
468* Pain of Salvation have ''Entropia'', a story dealing with the personal and religious struggles of a family torn apart by war. ''One Hour by the Concrete Lake'' is about a weapons manufacturer who begins to realize the implications of his job.
469* Less than Jake's ''Hello Rockview'' in which all the songs follow a general theme of growing up and leaving home. It helps that the lyrics sheet takes the form of a comic book, showing a man returning to his hometown and realizing that he no longer belongs there.
470* Music/BritneySpears's ''...Baby One More Time'' is summer romances and youthful love.
471* Music/BlindGuardian has one based on ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'', titled ''Nightfall in Middle-Earth''. It starts with the War of Wrath and then goes back to the Darkening of Valinor through the Nírnaeth Arnoediad.
472* Christian HardRock band Resurrection Band (AKA Rez) released a Concept Album as their swan song. The album ''Lament'' follows a clear narrative of a man trying to find the good things in life on his own, getting increasingly cynical and weary, eventually breaking down completely. Fortunately, he finds the answers he was asking for in Jesus and the album winds down as he finally finds peace.
473* ''Praise the Fallen'' and ''Empires'' by VNV Nation concept albums. ''Praise the Fallen'' is about the battle to direct the course of one's own life, ''Empires'' is about how people operate socially by creating metaphorical empires such as in-groups.
474* ''Embryodead'' by the German electro-industrial project :wumpscut: is a concept album with a (surprise!) rather morbid concept; ''that it would be better to have died in the womb than to be born into this cruel, senseless world full of hate.''
475* Music/{{WASP|Band}}'s ''Music/TheCrimsonIdol'' - the story of rock star Jonathan Aaron Steel's tragic life journey from his abusive childhood to eventual onstage suicide "eight thousand lonely days of rage" later with eerie parallels with the life and death of Music/KurtCobain. (The album was released in 1991, three years before Cobain's suicide.)
476** Every song on ''Kill Fuck Die'' is a different take on the theme of InterplayOfSexAndViolence.
477* Music/ScatmanJohn's debut album, ''Scatman's World'' is a concept album about both Scatman John's own rise from alcoholic to popstar, as well as being about the titular country, Scatland.
478* Music/PinkFloyd's ''Music/TheDivisionBell'' is an exploration of breakdowns in communication.
479* Music/CradleOfFilth's ''Cruelty and the Beast'' revolves around the life of UsefulNotes/ElizabethBathory (subject of legends of vampirism and trying to obtain eternal youth by [[BloodBath bathing in blood]]),
480* Music/NineInchNails have ''The Fragile'', which is all about desolation and has been described by Trent Reznor as bleaker than ''Music/TheDownwardSpiral''. ''The Downward Spiral'' was about a NietzscheWannabe realizing that by becoming one, he has (ironically) made his life pointless and [[spoiler:kills himself]]. Ouch.
481* Mansun's ''Six'' is their most complicated album, weaving all songs together into what is best compared to a progressive rock opera. (Although no fan of the album would dare call it that).
482* Marillon's ''Brave'' is a story about a girl who was found on a bridge but wouldn't say anything to anyone. It's basically a TearJerker album.
483* ''The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner'' by the Ben Folds Five.
484* Music/{{Savatage}} has several:
485** ''Music/DeadWinterDead'' tells the story of two young fighters in the Bosnian War, a Muslim girl and a Serb boy, who join their sides armies to fight for their homes, but eventually meet and run off together, realizing that the neither of them really want to fight. ''Dead Winter Dead'' is doubly remarkable as it takes place during Christmastime, and climaxes with a medley of traditional Christmas music performed in an energetic power-metal style. The song was ''Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24", which gave the band a mainstream hit and inspired the members to form the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (see below) which has produced a few concept albums of its own.
486** ''Music/TheWakeOfMagellan'', a tale about an old sailor who attempts to kill himself by sailing out to sea and not returning. Before he dies, he gets caught in a storm and finds a young sailor who was drowning. After rescuing him, he can no longer bring himself to commit suicide and returns to shore with the young sailor.
487** ''Music/StreetsARockOpera'' tells of the rise and fall of rock-star "DT Jesus".
488* Varg Vikernes (of Music/{{Burzum}} and Music/{{Mayhem}}) was essentially forced to make these while in prison: he was only allowed an acoustic guitar and a synthesizer to record with. The result was ''Dauði Baldrs''. It not only directly told the story of the death of the Norse god Baldr, but also allegorically mourns the death of Norse pagan traditions at the hands of Christianity.
489* YUP's ''Music/ToppatakkejaJaToledonTerasta'' (1994) is a concept album about singing detective Henri Blavatsky and his investigations on an evil family and a suspicious factory that stuffs mattocks and guilted jackets using dead people's hair.
490* ''Kocorono'' by Japanese indie band ''Bloodthirsty Butchers'' is about a man struggling to come to terms with the end of his relationship with a woman. The song titles go through every month on the calendar (starting with February and ending with January) with the months/seasons reflecting the narrator's general feelings.
491* ''Calling Ov the Dead'' (misspelling deliberate) by Velvet Acid Christ is about a serial killer brought back to life via nanotech to destroy all forms of order in society.
492* Most of Music/KoolKeith's discography.
493* Freaky Chakra's ''Blacklight Fantasy'' has a sci-fi/cyberpunk theme. CyberpunkIsTechno, no less. The previous album, ''Lowdown Motivator'', had a psychedelic/spiritual theme and was trancier.
494* Warfare's last full-length album ''Hammer Horror'' from 1990 has songs based on [[Film/HammerHorror its namesake's films]].
495* Guess what type of songs comprise Music/NickCave and the Bad Seeds' ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Murder Ballads]]'' album?
496* Music/MarilynManson has three, which together, form a triptych, a three-part story with three separate main characters. The triptych was released in the order of ''Music/AntichristSuperstar'', ''Music/MechanicalAnimals'' and ''Music/HolyWoodInTheShadowOfTheValleyOfDeath)''.
497** ''Music/AntichristSuperstar'' is about a revolutionary figure named The Worm, who fights the establishment of his society, rising up from nothingness into a hero, before becoming sickened by the very people he is fighting for and their adoring and sycophantic nature, and turning on them, becoming the titular Antichrist Superstar and destroying all of reality.
498** ''Music/MechanicalAnimals'' is about [[ShoutOut an androgynous space alien]] [[Music/DavidBowie turned rock star]] named Omega (pronounced O-ME-ga, who was forced to become a rock star with a special-made band, The Mechanical Animals, whose entire purpose is to preach hollow anthems. Omega becomes drug addicted and dead to the world, before being mentally enlightened by his own foil Alpha, who is only beginning to feel emotions. Alpha and Omega observe humanity, and view them as mechanical animals, feeling little emotions. Both of them are in love with Coma White, a woman who they are not 100% certain is even real. Omega comes to term with his emotions.
499** The protagonist of ''Music/HolyWoodInTheShadowOfTheValleyOfDeath'' is Adam Kadmon, who lives in the city of Holy Wood. Holy Wood is a parable of America, with their creed of "Guns, God and Government", their worship of dead celebrities (called Celebritarianism) and their elevation of UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy as a modern day UsefulNotes/JesusChrist. Adam attempts to lead a revolution though music, but is taken into the fold and becomes another part of the machine. He falls in love with a woman called Coma Black, who may or may not be Coma White as well (more on that in a bit), and possibly impregnates her (that too) before killing himself. Finally, there is the interconnection.
500*** One of the common theories goes like this. First, Coma White and Coma Black are the same woman. After the death of Adam Kadmon, she became addicted to drugs, and also had a son. This son is The Worm. Omega and Alpha both end up falling in love with Coma, but she ends up dying of a drug overdose (in the song Coma White). Omega falls into depression, becoming part of the society of Holy Wood, just like Adam Kadmon before him. The Worm grows up idolizing Omega, but ends up discovering what he has become. Killing Omega and becoming the third revolutionary to try to use music to bring about a change, The Worm becomes a hero to the masses, but their blind idolization sickens him. Turing on them, he becomes the Antichrist Superstar, bringing about the Apocalypse, taking everyone and everything with him.
501** And [[http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:1hbsa9tge23a~T00 a review]] of his GreatestHitsAlbum states that it's rather ironic that "an artist who kept the idea of the concept album alive during the '90s, turns out to have a greater impact as a singles artist".
502* Sting's "The Soul Cages" broadly tells a complete story, and several of the songs feature lyrics referring back to one another.
503* ''Music/OKComputer'' by Music/{{Radiohead}} has been referred to as a concept album by their fans, despite Radiohead themselves saying this wasn't what they were trying to do. Of course, ''Music/InRainbows'' was [[WordOfGod explicitly stated by Thom Yorke]] to be an extension of ''OK Computer'', drawing attention to shared themes and sonic patterns between the two albums...
504** ''Music/KidA'' is a slightly more clear-cut example, but not by much. Theories abound as to whether there's a story arc in the album; Thom Yorke even suggested that it was about the first human clone, [[ShrugOfGod but this has never been definitively confirmed]].
505* ''Amused to Death'' by Music/RogerWaters, formerly of Music/PinkFloyd, is about aliens visiting earth after the end of humanity and trying to work out what killed our species.
506* Music/GarthBrooks recorded an album in the persona of a fictional singer named Chris Gaines called ''Music/InTheLifeOfChrisGaines''. A mock GreatestHitsAlbum (yes, it really was called ''Greatest Hits''), it was intended as a "pre-soundtrack" for a movie that ended up never being filmed.
507* Music/LouReed and Music/JohnCale did ''Songs for Drella'' together, a concept album that is essentially a biography of Creator/AndyWarhol. It's pretty accurate too.
508* The Enid's ''Tripping the Light Fantastic'' is apparently about the relationship between science and society.
509* Music/IcedEarth has two released in the 90's: ''Night of The Stormrider'' which tells the story of a man who is betrayed by his religion and becomes, essentially, the anti-christ, and ''The Dark Saga'' about the ComicBook/{{Spawn}} comics (with cover art from Todd [=McFarlane=])
510* The Music/FearFactory album ''Obsolete'' is a concept album with a story that is like a cyberpunk version of 1984. The liner notes even fill in the gaps between the songs, tying them even closer together.
511** Slightly lesser-known is the prior album Demanufacture, about a man who hates the government machine and wishes to destroy it.
512* The German punk rock band Die Ärzte released a concept album called ''Le Frisur'', which revolves around... hair. It features songs like "Mein Baby War Beim Frisör" ("My Baby Went To The Barber"), where they sing about how their girlfriend's new hairdo is so horrible they have to end the relationship, or "Medusa-Man (Serienmörder Ralf)" ("Medusa-Man (Serial Killer Ralf)"), which is about a serial killer inspired by the mythical medusa who kills people using his hair.
513* Music/EdgeOfSanity had ''Crimson''. ''Crimson'' tells the story of a "miracle" child born in an era where humans have lost the ability to reproduce, who makes a DealWithTheDevil to gain magic powers and becomes a [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen tyrannical queen]], who eventually is overthrown and cryogenically trapped in a tank of crimson fluid.
514* ''Dirt'' by Music/AliceInChains is absolutely a concept album.
515** And that concept is consuming heroin. Not that its actually THAT obvious at least not in the more popular tracks (Dem Bones, Damn That River, Rooster). A good half of the album has at least some references to dying or wanting to die, being ''sick'' and generally being disconnected from the world. And then we have a bunch of songs that are just point blank about heroin, which tells you exactly what kinda sickness they are talking about. Most notably Godsmack (''And god's name is smack to some'') and Junkhead are just point blank about shooting up. It's cheery stuff.
516** Given that Layne Staley did actually die from heroin use, its possible that connections are made nowadays that weren't on Dirt's first release, at least not by fans, and certainly a lot of the reviews stating about it being about heroin were written post-Stayley's death which does somewhat cloud perception. Now that doesn't mean that there's a lot of thematic unity in terms of being a ground down and hopeless, and its generally accepted to be a concept album, but its hard to say if it's intended to be exclusively about heroin or addiction in general, or if addiction is just one facet of self-disgust.
517* Franchise/TheMuppets had two during this period: ''Music/MuppetBeachParty'' from 1993 and ''Music/KermitUnpigged'' from 1995. The former is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, while the latter revolves around the Muppets getting lost in a recording studio and meeting celebrities.
518* ''Music/{{Us}}'', Music/PeterGabriel's 1992 offering, is about interpersonal relationships, especially ones gone wrong (inspired by Gabriel's divorce from his first wife, his failed romance with Creator/RosannaArquette, and his oldest daughter becoming more distant from him).
519* The Music/NeutralMilkHotel album ''Music/InTheAeroplaneOverTheSea'' is about the singer's mounting obsession with Anne Frank and [[GriefSong her eventual death]]. The songs each flow into each other and many are [[DarkReprise reprises]] of previous songs.
520-->And I know they buried her body with others\
521Her sister and mother and five hundred families\
522And will she remember me fifty years later?\
523I wished I could save her in some kind of time machine
524* Music/FrontLineAssembly's ''Tactical Neural Implant'' is pretty much {{Cyberpunk}}: The Album.
525* Music/LifterPuller's final LP, ''Fiestas + Fiascos'', covers a nightclub arson and the events that lead up to it.
526* Bolland & Bolland's ''Darwin - The Evolution'', about the life and writings of UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin. [[note]]One could easily argue that the Bollands were trying to copy The Alan Parsons Project's formula here.[[/note]]
527* ''The Seduction of Claude Debussy'' by The Art of Noise (a group headed by [[Music/TheBuggles Trevor Horn]]) is about the life and works of Music/ClaudeDebussy. Sound-wise, it [[GenreMashup combines]] Drum and Bass, electronica, breakbeat, and hip-hop with classical music. Vocally, it features soprano, rap, and spoken word narration.
528* While not an outright one, all the songs on Music/{{Nirvana}}'s ''Nevermind'' tend to follow the general themes of teenage sexuality, loneliness, the madness that results from rejection, or an obsession over a girl.
529* Meat Loaf's Welcome to the Neighbourhood (1995) tells the story of a couple's relationship from first meeting and having sex in "Where the Rubber Meets the Road" through falling passionately in love, infidelity, breaking up and the narrator's eventual death in "Where Angels Sing".
530* Music/{{Eminem}}'s ''Music/TheSlimShadyLP'' is a concept album about his HeroicComedicSociopath AntiRoleModel [[AlterEgoActing alter-ego]] Slim Shady, his DarkAndTroubledPast, and the poverty and abuse that made him as messed up as he ended up, as well as the concept of [[ADarkerMe ordinary people's repressed dark sides]] in general.
531* Music/DavidBowie:
532** ''Music/TheBuddhaOfSuburbia'' (1993) -- Based heavily on the Hanif Kureishi novel of the same name, being put together from Bowie's soundtrack for the book's miniseries adaptation (to the point where it was misleadingly marketed as a soundtrack album despite only having one song that was actually in the show).
533** ''[[Music/HoursDavidBowieAlbum 'hours...']]'' (1999) -- Themes of reflection on a life long-lived in anticipation of the incoming end of the millennium.
534* ''Theatre/ComingOutOfTheirShells'' (1990) -- a Pizza Hut-sponsored Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles album that would later be adapted into a musical.
535* Music/BersuitVergarabat has ''Don Leopardo'' (1996), an album talking about the life and times of fictional character Don Leopardo Vir Thomsio. Only the first 15 out of the album's 18 songs qualify, though.
536[[/folder]]
537
538[[folder:1980s]]
539* Music/FrankZappa's concept albums during the 1980s: ''Music/YouAreWhatYouIs'' (1980), ''Music/ThingFish'' (1984).
540* ''Music/TheFinalCut'' by Music/PinkFloyd involves the strict schoolmaster from ''Music/TheWall'' being haunted by his time fighting in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and his futile attempts to relate his traumas to his loved ones or warn his pupils of the madness of war, whie he watches the Falkland Islands War unfold. It also serves as an indictment of UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher and sums up Waters' feelings that she betrayed the "post war dream" of peace and goodwill soldiers like Waters' late father died to protect.
541* Music/IronMaiden's ''Seventh Son of a Seventh Son''.
542* Music/{{Rush|Band}}'s 1980s concept albums include ''Music/{{Moving Pictures|Album}}'', ''Music/GraceUnderPressure'', ''Music/HoldYourFire'', ''Music/{{Signals}}'', ''Music/PowerWindows'', and ''Music/PermanentWaves''.
543** ''Signals'' focuses on the hang-ups of human communication. ''Power Windows'' is dedicated to discussions of money, charisma, and ambition. ''Grace Under Pressure'' is about war and death. ''Hold Your Fire'' is about spirituality and the human condition. ''Permanent Waves'' is about freedom of expression. ''Moving Pictures'' is about the triumph of the individual.
544* ''Time'', by Music/ElectricLightOrchestra, is about a man who is involuntarily brought to the future by time-travelers and shown [[CrapsackWorld "the wonders of [their] world."]]
545* Pete Townshend's ''White City'' (featuring Floyd guitarist David Gilmour) explores working-class despair in the titular London borough and the emotional connection one feels to the place where they grew up, no matter how happy they were to leave it.
546* Music/{{Metallica}}:
547** ''Music/MasterOfPuppets'': Every song on the album is focused on the theme of "control" whether it's controlling someone else or being controlled by someone or something.
548** ''Music/RideTheLightning'' is similarly focused around the theme of "death", although that just might be because [[https://youtu.be/pDLZix8NVjg Metallica likes death]].
549** ''Music/AndJusticeForAll'' is similarly themed around miscarriages of justice.
550* The Enid's ''Something Wicked This Way Comes'' is about mental attitudes to the threat of nuclear war.
551* Music/KingDiamond tells an All American Ghost Story divided between two albums, ''"Them"'', and ''Conspiracy''. They are about a family living in a haunted mansion who gets a visit from their Grandmother, coming home from an insane asylum. She is constantly haunted by a group of spirits known only as "Them".
552** Then there's ''Music/{{Abigail|Album}}''.
553* Music/{{Kraftwerk}}'s ''Music/ComputerWorld'' is a concept album about a world run by computers... which pretty much has come true today!
554* ''Misplaced Childhood'', by Music/{{Marillion}}, is a semi-autobiographical story about the singer growing up, establishing a career, and struggling to come to terms with losing his first love. The songs reference each other in their lyrics and musical motifs, and contain several {{Shout Out}}s to other artists who influenced the band.
555* Music/BlueOysterCult's ''Music/{{Imaginos}}''.
556** And nearly any BOC song co-written by Sandy Pearlman; even their name is drawn from Pearlman's poetry.
557* Music/MilesDavis spent the 80s releasing experimental albums that married jazz and 80s pop. In this fashion (particularly with ''Milestones'' and ''Bitches Brew''), he invented several new variations on the jazz genre.
558* [[JapanesePopMusic Akina Nakamori's]] 1986 album ''Fushigi''. Fushigi, in Japanese, means "strange" and that's a word that can best be used to describe the album. Nakamori had been one of the biggest idols in Japan at the time (along with Seiko Matsuda) but decided she needed a new sound if only for an album thus she enlisted the help of the band EUROX to create an album that would embody the title: straying from the tried and true pop/idol mold with densely layered and droning instrumentation combined with Nakamori's usually powerful voice being mixed and distorted so much as to sound like an echo blending into the music in what could best be described as what would happen if Music/CocteauTwins decided to make a J-Pop album.
559** While it reached number one it caused considerable controversy as many fans complained about not being able to hear the vocals. [[VindicatedByHistory Nowadays it's usually regarded as one of her best albums and the one that signified her growth from just being an idol to a true musical artist.]]
560* Music/AFlockOfSeagulls attempted this on their album ''The Story of a Young Heart''.
561* ''Music/MusicFromTheElder'' is a concept album from Music/{{KISS}}. It was also supposed to be the soundtrack for a movie that was never made. [[OldShame Even the band wishes the album had met the same fate]].
562* Music/NeilYoung's ''Trans'' is arguably a concept album exploring the collision, conflict, and melding of the traditional and the modern, nature and technology, man and machine. The album was inspired by Young's therapeutic exercises with his son Ben, who was rendered mute by cerebral palsy.
563* Music/PinkFloyd frontman Music/RogerWaters went on to make more concept albums in his solo career. ''Music/TheProsAndConsOfHitchhiking'' is a recounting of a man's dreams through one night, where in he questions his life, marriage, and future -- through the metaphorical journey of a hitchhiker. ''Radio K.A.O.S.'' is about a vegetative boy, Billy, who can hear radio waves and discovers his power to transmit them after his wrongfully incarcerated brother hides a stolen cell phone under the cushion of Billy's wheelchair. He then attempts to simulate WorldWarIII to [[ScareEmStraight scare the world's population]] into caring more about each other.
564* Some of Music/JethroTull's other concept albums are thematic not in the things they describe, but in the ''idiom'' in which they are described; examples, ''Broadsword and the Beast'' (using fantasy fiction as metaphor) or ''Under Wraps'' (spy thrillers as metaphors for interpersonal relationships).
565* Music/AliceCooper's ''Flush the Fashion'' (Many songs appear to be commentaries on life in America circa 1980) and ''Special Forces'' (Several songs about war and its after-effects) also focus on a common theme, but likely are not considered "true" concept albums.
566* Music/KateBush's ''Hounds of Love''. Side one is a collection of songs loosely arranged around the nature of love. Side two is more cohesive - a story about a woman lost at sea (and arguably dying) who has a dream flashback to a previous life and a visit from her future self.
567* Music/WarrenZevon did this once with his album ''Transverse City'', describing a consumer-driven hell of a dystopian future.
568* The Music/{{Styx}} album ''Paradise Theater''. Referencing a famous playhouse from Chicago notable for its grand architecture and sumptuous productions (the former making it a likely candidate for preservation as a historical landmark if it hadn't sadly predated that relatively modern phenomenon), the album uses the gradual fall into disrepair and eventual destruction of the theatre as a metaphor for urban flight, loss of culture, and societal decay.
569** ''Music/KilroyWasHere'' chronicles a future dystopia in which the Moral Music Majority bans all rock music. Kilroy, an outlaw musician, breaks out of jail disguised as a servant robot (featured in the single "Mr. Roboto"). The title is taken from World War II graffiti.
570* Ein kleines bisschen Horrorshow (A little bit horrorshow) by german band Die Toten Hosen follows the plot of ''Literature/AClockworkOrange''.
571* Similar to ''Music/TheFinalCut'' above, PunkRock band Music/{{Crass}} were inspired by UsefulNotes/TheFalklandsWar to release a holistic critique of everything they saw as wrong with British society at the time, reflecting the band members' belief that all political struggles were interrelated (a concept referred to in academia as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality intersectionality]]). Reflecting this, ''Yes Sir, I Will'' was composed and performed as a single song with only a division between vinyl sides (and even this was cross-stitched on CD releases of the album); to this day it remains [[EpicRocking the longest punk song ever recorded]]. Reflecting the band's [[UsefulNotes/{{Anarchism}} anarchist]] sentiments, the album's lyrics critique aspects of society such as [[ReligionRantSong religion]], [[WarIsHell war]], [[CapitalismIsBad capitalism]], sexism, government, [[AntiPoliceSong police brutality]], censorship, and punk itself. The album closes with an appeal to the listener to take direct action. Penny Rimbaud explained:
572-->The boundaries increasingly ceased to have any relevance -- prior to UsefulNotes/TheFalklandsWar, one naively believed that there were separations between 'this' and 'that' and that if you dealt with 'this' then you could do 'that'... like songs - each song had its own little separate thing to deal with and ''Yes Sir, I Will'' is a statement about the fact that there isn't any separation - that it's all one and the same thing, that there is no single cause or single idea -- there's no-one else to blame but yourself. That you can't say, "Well let's now concentrate on the Northern Ireland problem", "let's now concentrate on the problem of sexual relationships"... you can't do that -- everything now is one major problem and that problem stems from yourself.
573* Music/DanielAmos, upon reinventing themselves as a NewWaveMusic band, embarked on an ambitious four-album concept series, ''The Alarma Chronicles'', intended as a wake-up call for American Christians. The first album, ''Music/{{Alarma}}'' (1981), was about the corruption of the Church--a scathing satire of Christians' shortcomings. ''Music/{{Doppelganger}}'' (1983) was about the corruption of the Self--a reflection and acknowledgement of one's own character flaws. ''Music/VoxHumana'' (1984) was about the corruption of the World--an examination of the dehumanizing effects of materialism and new technology. And the final album, ''Music/FearfulSymmetry'' (1986), was a vision of {{Heaven}}. A single story, in four parts, ran in the liner notes of each album, further tying all of them together.
574* Music/{{Eurythmics}} did a half-concept album, half-soundtrack for a filmed adaptation of ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'' (1984). Tracks include "Room 101", "Doubleplusgood," "Sexcrime (1984)" and "Greetings from a Dead Man."
575* Music/TearsForFears: ''Music/TheHurting'' (1983) explores Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith's troubled childhoods.
576* Music/{{Kreator}}'s ''Pleasure to Kill'' has each song featuring a way to die, according to WordOfGod.
577* Mike Batt (creator of WesternAnimation/TheWombles band act, you surely heard?) "Zero Zero". Another ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'' adaption (1982).
578* Music/DavidBowie: ''Music/ScaryMonstersAndSuperCreeps'' (1980) -- Themes of sociopolitical protest and change in the wake of the turn of a decade, Bowie's impending departure from Creator/RCARecords, and the Conservative Revolution in both the US and UK.
579* Music/{{REM}}: ''Music/FablesOfTheReconstruction'' (1985) is based around folk mythology from the southern United States.
580[[/folder]]
581
582[[folder:1970s]]
583* The ultimate concept double album just might be ''Music/TheLambLiesDownOnBroadway'' by Music/{{Genesis|Band}}. It comprises 23 tracks about a Puerto Rican juvenile's metaphysical journey in which he loses his brother (more probably his soul), is reborn, is castrated and gets his manhood stolen by a huge raven. This is after he meets, makes love to, kills (unwillingly) and eats a bunch of siren-like creatures. And those are only some of the highlights.
584** Also the albums ''From Genesis to Revelation'' (1969) and ''Selling England by the Pound'' (1973) by the same band could be considered concept albums (the former being about Literature/TheBible, and the latter being about English society and how much it's changed in the modern age).
585* Music/FrankZappa's concept albums during the 1970s: ''Film/TwoHundredMotels'' (1971), ''Music/JoesGarage'' (1979).
586* Music/PinkFloyd:
587** ''Music/{{Meddle}}'' (1971) could be considered this, and is [[WordOfGod officially described]] as a loose concept album, and fans say it is the direct precursor[[note]]although ''Music/ObscuredByClouds'' came in between the two[[/note]] to ''Music/TheDarkSideOfTheMoon''.
588** ''Music/TheDarkSideOfTheMoon'' (1973) explores the external forces that drive a person, and in which could lead them to madness or obsession if they are not careful. A few of Floyd's other albums also fit the category:
589** ''Music/WishYouWereHere1975'' (1975) was a musical ode to the group's ex-frontman Music/SydBarrett, who suffered CreatorBreakdown in a big way after the band released its first album (though a few songs are about corruption in the music business instead).
590** ''Music/Animals1977'' is a critique of capitalism, taking some (very loose) inspiration from ''Literature/AnimalFarm'' and the PunkRock movement.
591** ''Music/TheWall'' (1979) follows the main character's SanitySlippage and descent into drug abuse.
592* ''Music/QueenII'' by Music/{{Queen}}, loosely. It has a "white" side consisting of emotional songs, and a "black" side consisting of dark fantasy. Additionally, each side contains a song with a ''queen'' of the corresponding colour in the title; and on a more meta level, the first side is primarily written by Music/BrianMay (except one song by Roger Taylor) and the second side is entirely written by Music/FreddieMercury.
593* Music/{{Rush|Band}}'s first concept album was ''Hemispheres''.
594* A very out-there example with Music/{{Saga}}'s ''The Chapters''. This was an experiment that began in 1978 and ended in 1981. ''The Chapters'' are eight songs, all released across four different albums and out of order. But if played together, it chronicles the life of Albert Einstein.
595* ''Music/BandOnTheRun'' by Music/PaulMcCartney and Music/{{Wings}}.
596* Music/TheKinks continued to enjoy success with concept albums during the early 1970s, with albums such as ''Music/LolaVersusPowermanAndTheMoneygoroundPartOne'', ''Music/MuswellHillbillies'', ''Everybody's in Show-Biz''. However, in the mid 1970s, they came to be seen as overindulgent excess on the part of Davies, transforming from coherent collections of songs connected by a loose theme into full-blown musical theater type productions with stories and characters that were difficult to appreciate out of context.
597** The massive ''Preservation'' project encompassed three [=LPs=] (Act 1, released as a single album, and Act 2, released as a double album); it was not well-received by critics and sold poorly. Follow-up albums ''A Soap Opera'' and ''Schoolboys in Disgrace'' met with a similar reception.
598** By the time the band changed labels from RCA to Arista in 1977, one condition of their new contract was that no more concept albums would be produced.
599* Music/MilesDavis' ''Music/BitchesBrew'' album was an experiment with an abstract fusion of jazz and rock, heavily using electronic instruments.
600* ''Music/BlowsAgainstTheEmpire'', the first solo album by Paul Kantner of Music/JeffersonAirplane was the first album released under the name "Music/JeffersonStarship" (though the band itself wouldn't be formed for another four years), is about hippies going into space in search of freedom.
601* The Tubes album ''Remote Control'' is about a TV-obsessed man who wants to know what the real world is like, but finds that life is harder than what television makes it out to be. The last songs of the album describe the man attempting to hook up with a woman he's fallen in love with, getting rejected, and then committing suicide because he can't handle the emotional stress.
602* Music/{{Steppenwolf}} came up with a few. ''Monster'' was a political statement about the times (1970). ''For Ladies Only'' was intended as a statement about feminism, but it didn't really come off that way. The cover art didn't help.
603* Music/{{Kraftwerk}}'s ''Music/{{Autobahn}}'' = highways, ''Radio Activity'' = radio and nuclear power, ''Music/TransEuropeExpress'' = trains, ''Music/TheManMachine''= robots.
604* Music/JethroTull's ''Thick as a Brick'' is sort of a parody of the concept album; the album, a single 43-minute suite with only one track division (where one would have had to switch sides on the original vinyl release), is presented as being an epic poem written by a preteen boy from a country town, expressing his {{wangst}} about growing up British in The70s. It was written because too many people kept calling the previous album, ''[[Music/AqualungJethroTullAlbum Aqualung]]'', a concept album, so Ian Anderson wrote the completely over the top ''Thick as a Brick'' to show them what a concept album actually was.
605** The aforementioned ''Aqualung'' could be seen as two concept albums in one. The first LP side is a series of character sketches, and the songs on the second side have a pro-God, anti-Church message.
606*** WordOfGod claims [[AvertedTrope this wasn't the case]], and that the mis-labeling of ''Aqualung'' as a concept album led Ian Anderson to write ''Thick as a Brick'' as a StealthParody of Concept albums.
607** ''A Passion Play'' is another, involving the afterlife and morality. A man dies (or at least has a near death experience), is judged worthy of being sent to Heaven, finds it mundane and too goody-goody to his liking, requests to go to Hell instead, but finds Hell equally mundane and too terrifyingly evil for his tastes. He opts to TakeAThirdOption on Earth, feeling "[[GreyAndGrayMorality neither am I good nor bad]]".
608** As is the sadly underappreciated ''Songs from the Wood'', a celebration of Celtic neopaganism and British folklore.
609** Many of Jethro Tull's albums have "themes", for example ''Heavy Horses'' could be seen as some sort of sequel to ''Songs From the Wood'', this time centered more on modern British countryside living.
610** ''Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die!'' is conceptual, based on an aborted TV special, the concept being about an old rock star who is unable to adapt to modern trends.
611* Donald Fagen's 1982 concept album ''The Nightfly'' is a look back at the world of the 50s and early 60s in which he grew up. This was later followed by ''Kamakiriad'', a middle-aged man's odyssey by car, and ''Morph the Cat'', focused on mortality with a side of dystopia -- ending up as a concept trilogy spanning adolescence to old age.
612* Music/WillieNelson's ''Music/RedHeadedStranger'' is considered the first country music concept album. Its songs span the life of the eponymous AntiHero from fictional Blue Rock, Montana.
613* The Enid's ''In the Region of the Summer Stars'' has a vaguely Tarot-related concept. The follow-up, ''Aerie Faerie Nonsense'', is largely based on Robert Browning's poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came".
614* Scottish folk/folk-rock singer Al Stewart has dabbled in the concept album, often dealing with historical themes such as European history 1918-1938 (Between the Wars). Albums such as ''Past, Present, and Future'' and ''Time Passages'' are a few examples.
615* [[Film/ThisIsSpinalTap Spinal Tap's]] 1975 album ''The Sun Never Sweats'' was based around re-telling stories from British legend and mythology, and glorifying the British Empire. (The title track comes from Smalls' mis-hearing of the old saying 'The sun never sets on the British Empire'). Rather than being motivated by any artistic or political convictions, the band were just trying to cash in on the wave of nationalistic pride/chauvinism sweeping Britain at the time. [[note]]These are not real albums, but fictional in-universe albums from the movie.[[/note]]
616** The religion inspired Spinal Tap concept album 'The Gospel According to Spinal Tap' which prompted the review 'On what day did God create Spinal Tap and couldn't he have rested on that day also?"
617* Rick Wakeman's ''The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table'', ''The Six Wives of Henry VIII'', and possibly ''Journey to the Centre of the Earth''.
618* Music/LouReed created ''Music/{{Berlin}}'', a concept album taking place in Berlin.
619* ''Music/MotelShot'' by Delaney & Bonnie is an attempt to recreate the feeling of a late-night jam session on record.
620* While not described as this, ''Madhouse'' by the {{Disco}} group The Silver Convention is suggested to be such by the liner notes written by [[RecordProducer co-producer]] Michael Kunze, who used the song titles to describe an AllJustADream story by the protagonist. Apart from that, the four songs on side one are linked thematically, starting with the TitleTrack.
621* That Music/{{Supertramp}}'s ''Crime of the Century'' is a concept album is not in debate (WordOfGod confirms this, for example), but is it about insanity or [[HumansAreBastards man's inhumanity against man]], or just a story? Arguments can go either way on this.
622* Music/GentleGiant had four, of varying themes:
623** The first was ''Music/ThreeFriends'', about three people who grow up in school together but are unable to understand each other when they diverge in their own careers.
624** ''Music/InAGlassHouse'' is about types of people that should not throw stones.
625** ''Music/ThePowerAndTheGlory'' tells the story of a FullCircleRevolution.
626** ''Music/{{Interview}}'' is an album full of [[RockstarSong songs about rock stardom]], with periodic StudioChatter between the members of the band and an "interviewer".
627* ''Music/{{Eldorado}}'', by Music/ElectricLightOrchestra, involves a man who travels to the titular city in a dream.
628* Music/DavidBowie had a lot of these in The70s and even a few after that. ''Music/YoungAmericans'' (1975) might or might not be one of the exceptions, but makes up for it by being a truly ''epic'' NewSoundAlbum featuring some of the best blue-eyed {{Soul}} ever made. He also would write a RockOpera with ''Music/{{Outside}}'' in 1995.
629** ''Music/TheRiseAndFallOfZiggyStardustAndTheSpidersFromMars'' (1972) -- The tragic saga of a messianic rock star.
630** ''Music/AladdinSane'' (1973) -- The mental and emotional decline of a Ziggy {{Expy}} as he travels across America.
631** ''Music/DiamondDogs'' (1974) -- Bowie wanted to mount a musical adaptation of ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'', but he couldn't get the rights from Orwell's widow. Several of the songs he wrote for that project were incorporated with other songs to tell a tale of TheApunkalypse; the subsequent tour initially featured a huge "Hunger City" set to further carry out the theme.
632** ''Music/StationToStation'' (1976) -- The world of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_White_Duke The Thin White Duke]], a cocaine-addled European aristocrat who has a taste for fascism.
633** ''Music/{{Low|DavidBowieAlbum}}'' (1977) -- Bowie's depression and recovery from the "Thin White Duke" period during his return to Europe (his previous two albums were recorded in the US: ''Music/YoungAmericans'' in UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}} and [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity New York]], ''Music/StationToStation'' in UsefulNotes/LosAngeles). It particularly reflects his withdrawal from cocaine and his attempt to become David Bowie again after five years of being somebody else.
634* Music/EmersonLakeAndPalmer produced at least two and arguably more (''Tarkus'' and ''Brain Salad Surgery''). Both are to do with war.
635* Music/{{Eagles}}' ''Desperado'', with an [[TheWestern Old West]] theme.
636** ''Music/HotelCalifornia'' is not only a concept album, it's an indictment of an industry and a lifestyle.
637* On ''Music/TheHeartOfSaturdayNight'', Music/TomWaits sings the otherwise unrelated stories of several people all passing through the same small California town in the middle of the aforementioned night. The cover art is something of a ShoutOut to Sinatra's ''Music/InTheWeeSmallHours''.
638* Music/AliceCooper released five concept albums during the '70s:
639** First was ''School's Out'' (Mostly songs about the teen experience), with the original band.
640** Then solo: ''Welcome To My Nightmare'' (About the nightmares of a disturbed man named Steven).
641** ''Goes To Hell'' (Alice is sent to hell and tries to convince the Devil he doesn't belong there).
642** ''Lace and Whiskey''(Where he takes on the persona of a hard drinking PI from old movies).
643** ''From The Inside'' (About Alice's time spent in a mental institution trying to cure his alcoholism).
644* Many of the ''Series/SesameStreet'' cast's early albums revolved around an overarching theme. For example, ''Happy Birthday from Sesame Street'' (the cast celebrates the listener's birthday), ''Big Bird Leads The Band'' (the titular bird learns about how an orchestra works), ''The Sesame Street Fairy Tale Album'' (the cast gets together and tells fairy tales), ''What Time Is It On Sesame Street'' (a bundle of tracks about various times of the day) and ''Numbers'' (ten tracks about the numbers 1-10) -- keep in mind that these were all in the ''[[ArchivePanic same year]]''. ''Leads The Band'' got a SpiritualSuccessor in the form of ''Elmo and the Orchestra'' (2001), where Elmo learns about how an orchestra works from Big Bird and a bird orchestra.
645* Music/MeatLoaf's ''Music/BatOutOfHell'' has central themes about youth, motorcycles and sex, while telling the story of a boy who dies in a motorcycle crash because he was too busy thinking about a girl to notice a curve, and thinks back on his life while he dies and gets condemned to Hell.
646* Music/DonnaSummer:
647** ''Four Seasons of Love'' tells the story of a love affair through songs set in each of the four seasons.
648** ''Once Upon a Time'' has a loose storyline based on Literature/{{Cinderella}}.
649** ''I Remember Yesterday'' features songs which {{pastiche}} the music of the 1940s, 50s and 60s, with the second side featuring songs in a contemporary style, and concluding with "I Feel Love" representing the future.
650* As well as making the aforesaid albums with Donna Summer, Music/GiorgioMoroder also produced a couple for Roberta Kelly: the astrology-themed ''Zodiac Lady'', and an album of GodIsLoveSongs, ''Gettin' the Spirit''.
651* Although Moroder wasn't involved, members of his ProductionPosse were behind Dee D. Jackson's disco concept album ''Cosmic Curves'' which follows a woman travelling the galaxy in search of emotional connection in a future where [[WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove such a thing is unknown]].
652* Music/YellowMagicOrchestra:
653** ''Music/{{Yellow Magic Orchestra|Album}}'' (1978) is a parody of western Orientalism, exotica music, and {{disco}}, commenting on the intersection of all three in the United States at the time.
654** ''Music/SolidStateSurvivor'' (1979) is a proto-{{cyberpunk}} album (often called the UrExample for cyberpunk) based around portraits of technological advancement and abuse.
655* Music/KlausSchulze's ''X'' is an album of six "musical biographies" evoking both contemporary and historical intellectuals whose works influenced the artist.
656* Music/{{Gryphon}}: Their 1974 album Red Queen to Gryphon Three is about a chess game. It helps that the tracks are named "Opening Move", "Second Spasm", "Lament" and "Checkmate".
657* ''Histoire de Melody Nelson'' (1971) by Music/SergeGainsbourg, which was about an illicit romance developing between the middle-aged narrator and 15-year-old girl Melody Nelson. It is considered both his masterpiece and the zenith of French rock music.
658[[/folder]]
659
660[[folder:1960s]]
661* The most famous example is Music/TheBeatles' ''Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand'', released in June 1967, with the envisioned concept of a live performance by the fictional band, because the Beatles themselves no longer wanted to do live performances. Ironically, the end result is hardly a concept album; the concept of Sgt. Pepper's band is used only for the first two tracks and the reprise of the title track. (John Lennon admitted this in a 1980 interview.) It's more known for inspiring the ''concept'' of a concept album, even if the idea didn't quite survive in the final product.
662** [[WildMassGuessing Some theorise]] that ''Music/AbbeyRoad'' is secretly a concept album. There isn't one big idea joining all the songs, but there are a lot of small lyrical and musical cross-references between them -- a specific example is repeated references to royalty ("Her Majesty", "Mean Mr Mustard", "Sun King") and the medley on side two.
663* Music/FrankZappa's concept albums in the 1960s: ''Music/FreakOutAlbum'' (1966), ''Music/AbsolutelyFree'' (1967), ''Music/LumpyGravy'' (1968), ''Music/WereOnlyInItForTheMoney'' (1968), the latter being a scathing parody of ''Sgt. Pepper'', right down to the album art.
664* Sgt. Barry Sadler's ''Ballads of the Green Berets'' album is an album of songs about war in general and Vietnam specifically, many written or co-written by Barry himself.
665* As they had both hippie and heavy metal periods, Music/SpinalTap's fictional back catalogue inevitably includes a couple of half-arsed concept albums: The band's second album, ''We Are All Flower People'', included a set of tracks about a young man who dreams of wearing wings and flying, and plans to sell seats on himself to finance the project; when the album failed to sell, Tap's record label re-issued the album minus the original title track as the concept album ''The Incredible Flight of Icarus P. Anybody''. (Derek Smalls claimed the idea was later stolen by 'you know Moody who'.)
666* Music/JohnColtrane did this a ''lot'' (in fact, concept albums are part of the expected career path of any prominent jazz musician). ''Music/GiantSteps'' was the pinnacle of Coltrane's developed style, "sheets of sound", while ''Music/ALoveSupreme'' was a four-part suite about Coltrane's spirituality, broken up by movement into the record's four tracks.
667* Ray Davies of Music/TheKinks was excessively fond of concept albums; practically everything recorded by the band between 1967 and 1976 was a concept album. This was an asset in their earlier days; the first few albums of this period were some of the most acclaimed music of the band's career (the ones released in the 1960s were ''Music/TheKinksAreTheVillageGreenPreservationSociety'', ''Arthur'').
668* The first few albums by Music/TheMoodyBlues[[note]] First of the "core seven", anyway, ignoring 1965's ''The Magnificent Moodies''.[[/note]] were all concept albums.
669** ''Days of Future Passed'' describes the passage of an average day, with each song representing a different time of day.
670** ''In Search of the Lost Chord'' chronicles a search for mystical enlightenment.
671** ''On The Threshold of a Dream'' explores the barriers between dreams and reality that exist within the human psyche.
672** ''To Our Children's Children's Children'' is about space travel; more directly, it attempts to chronicle the thoughts and feelings that would pass through the head of a typical space traveller.
673* The oft forgotten ''Music/SFSorrow'' by the '60s British group, Music/ThePrettyThings. S.F. Sorrow tells the story of Sebastian F. Sorrow, who endures World War I, and then returns to his love, who is killed in a dirigible accident. Sorrow falls into a severe state of depression, and is then taken on a journey by the mythical Baron Saturday. The Baron throws Sorrow into a room of mirrors, where he sees the horrible truths and revelations of his life, ending with Sorrow secluding himself from society and building a mental and emotional wall. And this was ten years before Roger Waters had even thought of The Wall yet. Notable for being considered one of the first Rock Operas. Produced at Abbey Road, during the same time The Beatles were recording ''[[Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand Sgt. Pepper's]]'' and Music/PinkFloyd were recording ''Music/ThePiperAtTheGatesOfDawn''.
674* ''Music/SketchesOfSpain'' by Music/MilesDavis has a Spanish atmosphere and all the tracks' titles refer to the country in one way or another.
675* Music/TheWho's ''Music/TheWhoSellOut'', released the same year as ''Sgt. Pepper'', is made to sound like a British pop pirate radio station of the time - complete with faux-ads for Heinz baked beans, the Charles Atlas course, and a London car dealership. The band would later take ConceptAlbum one step further by starting the RockOpera with ''Tommy'' and ''Quadrophenia''.
676* Japan's first concept album was by Music/TheTigers, Human Renascence, and was entirely based on the concept of the Tigers dressing regally, so composers Koichi Sugiyama and Kunihiko Murai decided to make an entire album based on their image as royalty, complete with rather large orchestral arrangements, which made most of the songs notoriously difficult for the band to perform live.
677* Music/TheBeachBoys' ''Music/PetSounds'' and ''Music/{{Smile|TheBeachBoys}}'', arguably. The first one is a cycle of songs relating to romantic relationships which can be seen to tell a story of infatuation leading to disillusionment (although Wilson denies there was a consciously intended storyline behind the songs, many critics and listeners have interpreted one as existing anyway), while the second one is apparently a psychedelic journey through American history and across the continent. ''Smile''[='=]s WordSaladLyrics don't really help much with discerning what the concept is beyond that, though.
678** ''Music/LittleDeuceCoupe'' is considered an early example of a concept album, as all the songs (save one) are about cars.
679* ''Ark 2'', the only album released by Flaming Youth (Music/PhilCollins' first band) is about humanity evacuating into space because Earth is dying.
680* Music/AndyWilliams' ''Under Paris Skies'' is a collection of English translations of French popular songs, with the exception of one song which he sang in iffily-accented French.
681* The Baja Marimba Band's ''For Animals Only'' is a collection of songs like "Puff the Magic Dragon" and "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window".
682* Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass' ''Whipped Cream & Other Delights'' is a collection of songs with titles that refer to food or drink.
683[[/folder]]
684
685[[folder:1940s and 1950s]]
686* The earliest example of a concept album so far is ''Music/DustBowlBallads'' (1940) by Music/WoodyGuthrie. All the songs are built around one narrative and one theme: the hardships of the local population during TheGreatDepression, specifically in Oklahoma, where both economic recession and dust storms hit everybody hard.
687* Another early example is Music/FrankSinatra's ''Music/InTheWeeSmallHours'' from 1955. The songs, all ballads, were specifically recorded for the album, and organized around a central mood of late-night isolation and aching lost love, with the album cover strikingly reinforcing that theme. The centrality of lyrical theme and musical mood (rather than by a narrative like ''Dust Bowl Ballads'') gives it a strong case for being the first concept album as currently understood. Since concept albums are most often associated with various [[RockAndRoll rock]] genres (if asked, many will name Music/TheBeatles' ''Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand'' as the first of the kind, which is all kinds of wrong), people tend to ignore ''In the Wee Small Hours'', making this trope OlderThanTheyThink.
688* Songwriter/arranger/producer Gordon Jenkins (who often worked with Frank Sinatra) recorded several "suites" (''Manhattan Tower'', ''California'', ''Seven Dreams'') in the 1940s and 1950s that mixed songs, instrumental passages and narration, which can be seen as early concept albums. ''Seven Dreams'' is best known now because Music/JohnnyCash used one of its songs as the basis for [[AdaptationDisplacement "Folsom Prison Blues".]]
689* "Milestones" by Music/MilesDavis was an album-long experiment with modal harmonies.
690* ''Time Out'' a 1959 Music/{{Jazz}} release by the Dave Brubeck Quartet (the originators of the "cool" West Coast jazz so beloved of midcentury intellectuals), featured songs all in [[UncommonTime unusual time signatures]]. The first song, "Blue Rondo ala Turk" is in 9/8, played as "''1''-2-''1''-2-''1''-2 ''1''-2-3". The third song, saxophonist Paul Desmond's famous "Take Five", is in 5/4. "Kathy's Waltz" is in 3/4, but the drums and piano solo are in ''4''/4. And so on.
691** Brubeck and Desmond continued writing stuff in this vein for a while, enough to make up two sequel albums, ''Time Further Out'' and ''Time in Outer Space'', one of which features a composition by Desmond called "Eleven Four."
692* Music/SunRa, who started performing as early as 1934 but only gained notability from the late 1950s on, made many albums which mixed space travel imagery with Myth/EgyptianMythology, like ''Music/TheFuturisticSoundsOfSunRa''. All of them are in that regard concept albums because they are built around the same theme.
693* Music/DukeEllington's ''Black, Brown and Beige'' was, in Duke's own words, "a tone parallel to the history of the Negro in America." The studio album was released in 1958--and this was a truncated revision of an even longer "jazz symphony" that Duke performed live in 1943.
694* Music/TheFourFreshmen often recorded albums centered around a musical concept, like ''Four Freshmen and Five Trombones'', or a lyrical theme, like ''Voices in Latin'' and ''Voices in Love''.
695[[/folder]]
696
697[[folder:Older Than Radio]]
698* Perhaps this is OlderThanRadio and only needed recording technology to catch up with what was already there. An example from the 1830s is Hector Berlioz' ''Symphonie Fantastique'', which the composer quite explicitly wrote to chronicle the descent of one man (possibly an AuthorAvatar) into depression and suicidal despair for unrequited love of a woman. The first movement (track?) is a calm peaceful pastoral scene; the second a nightmarish stately ball where he glimpses the woman and falls in love as the waltz theme swirls out of control; the third a lonely melancholy walk; the fourth a "trial" of his sanity and his passage to the guillotine, having been found guilty; the fifth a macabre Dance of The Dead and Black Mass.
699* This is indeed much older than the modern incarnation of albums. Before albums we had symphonies, concertos, sonatas and suites. Any one of those could revolve around a concept. They were at the very least pieces of music that went in a specific sequence and went well together, but may actually had concepts or stories to tell as well. Listen to Music/AntonioVivaldi's ''The Four Seasons'' (1720s!) or Music/GeorgeFredericHandel's ''Messiah'' (1740s). Suites in the more modern sense of the word (originating around the early 1900s) are probably the best precursor to the concept album. Unlike sonatas, concertos or symphonies a suite has no requirements on structure or instruments beyond having multiple pieces. Many suites were selections from ballets, plays, operas or even film, but they didn't have to be. Music/GustavHolst's ''The Planets'' (1920s) is just a collection of pieces about each planet in an astrological sense. Had it come two or three decades later it would certainly have earned the label of a concept album.
700[[/folder]]

Top