Best Concept Album Of The Past 20 Yrs

[tristy]

The blog for the magainze "Rolling Stone" has posted the ten best concept albums from the past 20 years. Green Day's "American Idiot" isn't included on this list, apparently, because it was on their list for the best concept albums ever. Ew.

Liz Phair: Exile in Guyville

Nine Inch Nails: Downward Spiral

Radiohead: OK Computer

Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

Magnetic Fields: 69 Love Songs

Drive-By Truckers: Southern Rock Opera

Sufjan Stevens: Illinois

The Streets: A Grand Don’t Come For Free

Neutral Milk Hotel: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

Marilyn Manson: Antichrist Superstar

Not a bad list, if I say so myself. I like the Nine Inch Nails choice, since it actually tells a story, instead of following a rough format (The Fragile). My favorite concept album by Manson is "Holy Wood (In The Shadow Of The Valley Of Death)", but Antichrist was the beginning of the story, so I guess it's all good. I just like the end of the story better. Good to see Neutral Milk Hotel getting some much deserved love, and the necessary blowjob of Radiohead's "OK Computer". But the real big issue here is Sufjan Stevens finally getting some attention!

Oh, and since I fucked up the title, I might as well ask that question: what's the best concept album of the past 20 years, in your opinion?

Edited July 21, 2006 by The Man They Call Tristy

[ROC]

Sufjan getting attention is definitely solid. Did you hear that the Illinois outtakes album debuted at 71 this week on the Billboard chart? Certainly, his popularity has grown thankfully because of Illinois.

[Lost Apostle]

Operation Mindcrime by Queensryche. It's one of my favorite albums of all time, period. It really paved the way for future Prog. Metal acts, which is a genre very dear to me. Plus, it has a simply killer story.

I still have yet to buy OM2, though. I keep meaning to, but I never get around to it. I have a bad feeling about it, to be honest, but I'll try not to compare it to much to its predecessor when I finally do purchase it.

[Bushmeister]

The best of all time? Maybe Tusk's "Tree Of No Return" or Pig Destroyer's "Prowler In The Yard". Out of that list... I'm really only partial to The Flaming Lips and The Streets. Marilyn Manson is OK but I really can't grasp Antichrist Superstar as a concept album, but that's probably because I haven't delved too deep into it. And as far as Sufjan Stevens goes, his horrible non-music shouldn't be included on any lists, ever :X

[Number of the Breast]

Please, the best concept album's clearly Iron Maiden's "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son". OK so maybe I'm a little bit biased, but so what?

[one of a kind]

I have to concur with Aaron Maiden.

[YI]

American Idiot is a concept album? What it's all crap? bwahahahaahaaaaaa

[fineintent]

The Streets. Yay. You could make that CD into a movie.

[Guest Ringo Hates Divers]

I actually like the list. Good to see stuff like the Flaming Lips, Sufjan, the Magnetic Fields and the NMH make it on it.

[Liam]

Nine Inch Nails: Downward Spiral

Radiohead: OK Computer

Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

Magnetic Fields: 69 Love Songs

Sufjan Stevens: Illinois

The Streets: A Grand Don’t Come For Free

Neutral Milk Hotel: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

Marilyn Manson: Antichrist Superstar

Wow, I own 8 of them, how cool.

My favourites in the list are:

1. The Streets

2. Neutral Milk Hotel

3. The Magnetic Fields

With the others all really close behind. If I'd have had to chose off my own back, "A Grand Don't Come For Free" by a mile, if only for the undermining of some of the pompousity of concept albums past...oh, and it has great songs on it.

Mastodon "Leviathan" is a good one also.

[Skummy]

Final Fantasy - He Poos Clouds is the greatest concept album in recent memory. The only ones I like on that list are Flaming Lips (which definitely deserves to be up there), NIN, NMH and Sufjan Stevens.

[GRIFT]

Themed...

Master of Puppets - Metallica (1986) - All of the songs deal with being under someone or something else's control.

...And Justice for All - Metallica (1988) - A themed album about corruption in American Politics. Also noted as being the pinicale of Metallica's Progression as a Thrash Metal band.

Paul's Boutique - Beastie Boys (1989) - The tracks present bizarre fantasies, and surreal portraits of the people, places and events the Beasties experienced and cherished in New York and Brooklyn.

Roll the Bones - Rush (1991) - Explores different viewpoints on life with a gambling metaphor.

Undertow - Tool (1993) Drowning as a metaphor for addiction, in an album about abuse, self-destruction and release.

Vitalogy - Pearl Jam (1994) - Loose concept album about general themes of the struggles of life in modern society as well as a few personal songs about Pearl Jam's struggle with fame. The album's booklet has 19th century health articles in it, many of which concern death and mortality.

The Mollusk - Ween (1997) - Most of the songs on the album contain a distinct nautical theme, whether it be in the lyrics; (Polka Dot Tail), or in sound (Ocean Man).

Spiritual Machines - Our Lady Peace (2000) - Inspired by The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil. Explores the rights and freedoms of machines in the year 2029.

Lateralus - Tool (2001) - Search for spirituality and purpose, featuring a great deal of esoteric references to the Tree of Life.

()- Sigur Rós (2002) - Completely experimental, free-interpretative, deconstructive, ludical and sung in an invented language (hopelandic) have the attribute of being a concept of a non-conception (or anti-conceptual).

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence - Dream Theater (2002) - The first 5 songs on the first disc explore different themes of struggle, such as Alcoholisim, Loss of Faith and Death. The 6th song/Second disc, explores individuals suffering from various mental illnesses.

The Rising - Bruce Springsteen (2002) - most of the songs influenced by September 11 events and living in the post 9/11 world. Grief, loss, and redemption.

De-Loused in the Comatorium - The Mars Volta (2003) - Based on a short story by lead singer Cedric Bixler Zavala, it is the hour-long tale of Cerpin Taxt, a man who tries to kill himself by overdosing on morphine. The attempt lands him in a week-long coma during which he experiences visions of humanity and his own psyche. Upon waking, he is dissatisfied with the real world and jumps to his death. The story of Cerpin Taxt is based on the death of El Paso, Texas artist (and Bixler Zavala's friend) Julio Venegas. Coincidentally, one month before the album was released, the band's sound manipulation artist, Jeremy Michael Ward, died of an apparent heroin overdose.

Frances The Mute - The Mars Volta (2005) - Songs inspired by a stranger's diary allegedly found by late bandmate Jeremy Ward, influencing the character names of each of the songs and those discussed within the songs, such as L'Via l'Viaquez, Miranda, and Cassandra Gemini.

Octavarium - Dream Theater (2005) - the band's 8th studio album consisting of 8 tracks, the main theme being the notion of cyclical continuity, also there are many references to numbers 8 and 5 throughout the album, relating to the musical scale with 8 whole steps and 5 half steps. The band also has 5 live albums at the time of release and has had 8 members in it's history with 5 in their current line-up.

Living With War - Neil Young- Figure this one out on your own.

Narrative...

The Downward Spiral - Nine Inch Nails (1994) - The story of a character losing control of his life because of his choices and finding himself on a downward spiral through life. Its plot follows a character trying to rid himself of the controls of religion and society as he uses sex and drug abuse as methods of escape. Eventually, this character has to face his internal void.

Outside - David Bowie (1995) - A detective, Nathan Adler, investigates the murder of a young girl in a world of murder in the name of art, uncovering the connected lives of several artists and murderers. Part one (and the only released part) of an unfinished album cycle

The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner - Ben Folds Five (1999) - A narcoleptic confronts his redneck past and relives his regrets.

Beethoven's Last Night - Trans-Siberian Orchestra (2000) - Mephistopheles comes for Beethoven's soul one night

Domestica - Cursive (2000) - An intensely personal retelling of a marriage falling apart, told through dialogue between the husband (Sweetie) and the wife (Pretty Baby).

MACHINA/The Machines of God - The Smashing Pumpkins (2000) - A rock star believes he hears the voice of God in the radio and decides to spread his message despite its cost on his love, his career and himself. MACHINA II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music was a free, downloadable companion piece.

Leitmotif - dredg (2001) - A man travels to different cultures to cure his spiritual affliction.

The Second Stage Turbine Blade - Coheed and Cambria (2002) - A story about a couple in a futuristic world who must kill their children to stop a powerful virus, and the quest of the surviving son to avenge his father's murder by the government.

In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 - Coheed and Cambria (2003) - A continuation of the above story of love and war in a post-apocalyptic Earth.

Sing the Sorrow - AFI (2003) - A man destined to never reincarnate because he was born under the Chinese astrological sign of the Rabbit dies and accounts his experiences after death. The narrative begins with Track 4, "Silver and Cold", and ends with Track 3, "Bleed Black", symbolic of the Buddhist belief in the cyclical nature of life.

Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them? - Murder by Death (2003) - The devil is shot by one of his associates in a Texas desert town, causing him to wreck havoc on the townspeople. By the end of the story, the man has taken up arms and is leading the townspeople against the forces of the devil.

Album of the Year - The Good Life - Each of the 12 songs represent one calendar month of the year, following the meeting, relationship, break-up and aftermath of a dysfunctional couple.

Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV: From Fear Through The Eyes Of Madness - Coheed and Cambria (2005) - Continues the story of 2003's In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth:3.

There is a cross section of my favorites shown on wiki's pages on concept albums with some editing from yours truly. I think my top album is Domestica.

[gunnar hendershow]

I firmly believe Operation: Mindcrime is the most unerrated concept album ever by critics and what not. It's not the best, but most underrated. That list is good, but again, they have such a narrow view of what makes "good music".

[Cactus Drags]

COHEED~!

[K]

I made a bet with myself that someone would mention coheed in ten replies or less. I was one out.

[a. #63]

COHEED~!

[YI]

Kezia is fucking brilliant. But my personal favourite concept album may be "Reconstruction Site" by The Weakerthans. Nothing overly complex, just beautiful song writing. Because I suck at explaining things, from wikipedia;

A song cycle about grief, regret and loss, the album is thematically framed by three tracks, "(Manifest)", "(Hospital Vespers)" and "(Past-Due)", which set three different sonnets about a terminally ill hospital patient to the same melody.

Other songs examine the album's themes from different angles -- "Plea From a Cat Named Virtute" is written from the perspective of a depressed person's cat, "One Great City!" is about Samson's love-hate relationship with his hometown of Winnipeg, and "Our Retired Explorer" imagines a dinner date between Michel Foucault and a hopelessly nostalgic member of Ernest Shackleton's expedition to Antarctica.

Edited July 22, 2006 by BillyGunnPinchedMyBum

[Summers]

Coheed.

Coheed.

Coheed.

[Cactus Drags]

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars is also excellent.

[Liam]

I like Coheed, but soo many of the albums in that list are better, both just as what they are conceptually and musically also.