I think I have so many favourite concept albums, I can’t keep up. Favourites would be the Marillion duo Misplaced Childhood and Clutching at Straws, later followed by Brave. Several of the more obscure Eloy albums of old, Power and Passion / Dawn, and the duo of Planets and Time to Turn. The Wall goes without saying as it came out when I was at high school and saw it on the big screen in a cinema clouded with hash smoke…
Current favourites are the recent Anathema albums which all seem to have a theme going on, and Hand.Cannot.Erase by Steven Wilson which is a modern progressive rock classic and Wilson is a recording fanatic, so all his recordings are top quality and make for good system work outs.
Anything by Roger Waters, but Amused To Death would be my choice
Pink Floyd - The Wall mentioned many times
Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime
Dream Theater - Metropolis Part 2
Nice to see Deep Fix mentioned, a fine prog/psychedelic/folk rock outfit. Did you see that MM finally released another DF album at the end of last year.
I never saw them on their rare live outings, but did see Moorcock with the mighty ‘Wind several times.
Purely for the oddnes of the subject matter, David Byrne and Fatboy Slim: Here Lies Love.
Music inspired by the ex first lady of the Philippines. So bizarre that 2 years after it was released, a musical was made around it. I think I spun this one every day for a month when I got it.
This is my favorite concept album.
Superb music as well as sound.
"With the Suite; The Old Man and the Sea, the new ensemble Batik, presents them self, with a piece of music, that vividly brings to life Ernest Hemingway’s classic tale of the old fisherman. Batik has composed and improvised a dramatic story telling SoundScape around the key elements of the novel. You can read the novella on line here,http://centralschools.org/~shs/OWThe_Old_Man_and_the_Sea.pdf it is a unique experience reading the book and hearing the gorgeous Batik compositions at the same time’’:
Days of Future Past. The first concept album to hit the shelves, beating The Who Sell Out by a couple of weeks. Still my favourite and still played regularly. In my little universe, The Lamb comes in second - or at least parts of it. A laborious toot pulling project from most accounts, and it sounds like it in places.
I don’t classify Pepper as a concept album. It’s a diverse collection of songs about different things with a narrator stringing it along- a bit like the Stones’ Big Rock n’ Roll Circus.
tbh I see several albums mentioned which, don’t get me wrong, are darn fine albums but not what I would describe as concept. ‘Concept’, to me, should be an album with a common thread or story to tell.
