History Main / ConceptAlbum

** 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 lonliness and detection from the slavers.

* Music/{{Rush}}'s 1990s concept albums are ''Music/{{Counterparts}}'' and ''Music/RollTheBones''. The latter is about chance and fate.

* ''A Grand Don't Come For Free'' by Music/TheStreets follows an individual who manages to misplace 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.

* We Lost The Sea's 2015 album ''Departure Songs'' was written in the wake of their lead 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.

** 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).

** ''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.

* We Lost The Sea's 2015 album ''Departure Songs'' was written in the wake of their lead 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 divers were initially 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 attempt. 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 [[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.

* A ''lot'' of Music/{{Rush}}'s records are in fact {{Concept Album}}s. Their titles are usually puns relating to the theme of the album.

* Music/TallyHall's 2012 side project ''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.

** 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).

** ''Music/{{Hours|DavidBowieAlbum}}'' (1999) -- Themes of reflection on a life long-lived in anticipation of the incoming end of the millennium.

** ''Music/{{Hours}}'' (1999) -- Themes of reflection on a life long-lived in anticipation of the incoming end of the millennium.

* Music/{{Rush}}'s 1980s concept albums include ''Music/MovingPictures'', ''Music/GraceUnderPressure'', ''Music/HoldYourFire'', ''Music/{{Signals}}'', ''Music/PowerWindows'', and ''Music/PermanentWaves''.

** ''Music/ThirdReichAndRoll'' 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.

** ''Music/WishYouWereHere'' (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).

* Saint Etienne'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 Drowning His Sorrows)]] and a couple played by Sarah Cracknell and David Essex arguing about leaving the city to go and live the good life. Their stories all eventually link up in the penultimate track, the epic "Teenage Winter".

* Music/{{WASP}}'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.)

* Music/RhapsodyOfFire takes this UpToEleven (almost literally) with 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'''.

* Music/{{Nightwish}}'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.

* Music/SteeleyeSpan's album ''Literature/{{Wintersmith}}'', based on the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel of the same name and the other books in the Tiffany Aching series.

** His 2015 album, ''To Pimp a Butterfly'' 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.

* The ultimate concept double album just might be ''Music/TheLambLiesDownOnBroadway'' by Music/{{Genesis}}. 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.

** ''Music/{{Animals}}'' (1977) is a critique of capitalism, taking some (very loose) inspiration from ''Literature/AnimalFarm'' and the PunkRock movement.