Being able to create an entire album is an incredible feat, but it is even more impressive when it tells a cohesive story. Many artists have created songs that ultimately have a greater meaning when paired with other specific tracks, but a concept album is an album that’s songs all connect to a story or overall theme. The “concept” can vary, ranging anywhere from being about a fictional cowboy, to capturing the entire scale of human emotion. Many bands and artists have made concept albums, with some being celebrated as top-tier pieces in music history.
While concept albums first began to rise in the 1940s and ’50s, they truly began to thrive in the ’60s with arguably the most famous band of all time, The Beatles. The rockstars released an album in 1967 titled “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” It’s regarded as one of the most influential albums ever released, as it harbored in the era of using the studio as more than just a recording engine. “Sgt. Pepper’s” made production a tool that added effects and depth to music. The album follows the fictional military band and their musical journey, while The Who’s 1969 album “Tommy” tells the fairly linear narrative of Tommy Walker, functioning almost like a Broadway musical. “Sgt. Pepper’s” and “Tommy” are some of the first concept albums and still hold up as some of the most famous to this day.
With the 1970s came even more concept albums, especially with the rise of British psychedelic rock. The most known concept-driven band from this era is easily Pink Floyd, with their hits “Dark Side of the Moon” from 1975 and “The Wall” from 1979. “Dark Side of the Moon” has potentially the most recognizable album cover of all time, with light reflecting through a prism over a black background. It has more of an idea than a story, as each half of the album flows together seamlessly. The album also loops; the opening to the first track, “Speak to Me,” is the same heartbeat that closes out the final one, “Eclipse.” In addition, Pink Floyd took what The Beatles did with “Sgt. Pepper’s” and brought it to another level in terms of production. “Dark Side of the Moon” utilizes so many sounds that never would have been realistic in music decades before, and turns the studio into what can only be described as a weapon. “The Wall” is regarded as one of the best concept albums in history, as it follows the story of a rock star named Pink, heavily based on the lives of band members Roger Waters and Syd Barrett. It goes into Pink’s early life, mental health struggles and relationships, before deconstructing his psyche during “The Trial,” as he is forced to destroy his mental wall and confront the world. This confrontation circles right back to the start of the story as he addresses a crowd of fans; the last line of the album is “Isn’t this where …” completed by the first track’s opening line, “we came in?” The concept of “The Wall” is so strong, with enough of a story to be turned into a 1982 film directed by Alan Parker, titled “Pink Floyd—The Wall.”
The ’80s and ’90s had a significant decline in concept albums, with notable ones being Metallica’s “Master of Puppets,” The Smashing Pumpkins’ “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” and Oasis’ “(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?” still going down as legends in music history. With the ushering in of pop punk in the late ’90s and early 2000s came a resurgence. Bands like Blink-182, Green Day and My Chemical Romance re-established the concept album as an incredible music form. My Chemical Romance’s final three albums—“Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge,” “The Black Parade” and “Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys”—all tell direct narratives. “The Black Parade” is easily the most famous out of the bunch. It follows a man simply named The Patient, who is dying of cancer, as he reflects on his life. It has since inspired the tour “Long Live The Black Parade,” which takes concertgoers to the fictional world of Draag, where the members of My Chemical Romance are in a fictional band playing for a brutal dictator. One of the most clear things about “The Black Parade” is the insane amount of inspiration it took from “The Wall.” Some of the songs, such as “The End.” and “Mama,” take direct musical influence from tracks like “The Thin Ice” and “The Trial” musically. While their tales aren’t the same, the storytelling is similar, and sonically, each collection of songs share elements.
In 2004, Green Day released “American Idiot,” one of their many concept albums. It tells the story of Jesus of Suburbia, a teenager who longs to escape his difficult home life. He eventually goes into the city and parties, abuses drugs, meets a girl called Whatsername and is introduced to her opposite, punk-rocker St. Jimmy. As St. Jimmy gains more influence over Jesus of Suburbia’s life, Whatsername grows more and more tired of him, and they ultimately break up. She reveals that St. Jimmy is just another personality residing in Jesus’s head. St. Jimmy commits “suicide” as Jesus of Suburbia removes him from his head before he heads home, ultimately without Whatsername, having lost his memories of her. One would think that this is enough of a story to create an entire musical, and it did; “American Idiot” the musical premiered in 2009, five years after the initial album release. In addition to the central storyline, the album is filled with themes of rebellion against the government, standing up to tyranny and individuality.
Concept albums have extended into the 2010s and ’20s, with releases like Kendrick Lamar’s “good kid, m.A.A.d city,” Lord Huron’s “Strange Trails” and “Vide Noir,” The Weeknd’s “Dawn FM” and J. Cole’s “4 Your Eyez Only.” That one was accompanied by the release of a documentary directed by Cole and Scott Lazer, exploring the themes of racism, the class divide and gang violence. In addition to the songs being connected by these concepts, they tell the story of James McMillian Jr., Cole’s friend who died at the young age of 22. The song “Change” directly depicts his funeral and request for his story to be told to his daughter, while “Immortal” details the boxes society places young Black men in and the struggle McMillian had in order to break out of the cycle of poverty. Stories like the one J. Cole portrays in “4 Your Eyez Only” wouldn’t get told without concept albums, highlighting their importance not only in the music world, but in artistic society as a whole.
Concept albums are a fantastic medium for artists to get messages and stories across they wouldn’t have told otherwise. They can be as unserious as Jethro Tull’s “Thick as a Brick,” which attempts to parody concept albums, to ones like “4 Your Eyez Only” that touch on important societal problems. Concept albums inspire both musicians and storytellers, and the medium of music wouldn’t be anywhere close to how distinguished it truly is without them.
