Concepts, Themes, and Intentions
Concept albums are hardly a new thing. Hell conceptual music is probably older than music that’s written just for the hell of it, but I digress. This isn’t a history lesson in musical topics. This is a tribute to albums that tell stories or at least have some sort of theme that defines a purposeful distinction between them and regular albums.
Addendum: For all intents and purposes I’m omitting certain bands and albums from this off the bat. Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Who, and others aren’t going to get much past this honorable mention here. Some bands have set bars in countless territories and besides. Does the internet need one more list saying The Wall is the greatest concept album of all time? Some albums we all already know are great, so let’s go ahead and talk shop about some others for a few.
Trans-Siberian Orchestra – Beethoven’s Last Night
In this story we track a depressed and dying Beethoven, who at the behest of the Mephistopheles, the story’s antagonist, must make decisions and sacrifices. While often concept albums tend to have rather irregular stories with a narrative that just wouldn’t translate to any other story-telling medium Beethoven’s Last Night’s narrative is among the best assets as it walks us through the emotional turmoil Beethoven goes through in his deafened isolation. Plus if there was ever an album that had crisp and rhythmically tight guitars this would be it.
Steve Vai – Fire Garden
Plus it’s Steve Vai so you can expect to hear some experimental and over the top guitars. I’m sure others could debate with me on this, but when I hear this album I feel like the Steve Vai style we hear today really began its formation here. Flex-Able and Passion and Warfare still had much an 80s style to them, great as they were, and Sex and Religion was just a whole different grab. Vai’s technique and phrasing rose to a new level starting here.
Tool – Lateralus
The only asterisk Lateralus gets in the context of a concept album is that the band has been quiet about any meaning. So whether it’s actually a conceptual musical puzzle or it’s all just in our heads the band has yet to outright confirm. I can only speculate without the encumbrance of fact, but I would guess the group feels the mystery adds to the discussion more than it detracts. Regardless of the case when you listen to Lateralus you can hear a sort of wholeness in it.
Willie Nelson – Red Headed Stranger
What made Red Headed Stranger really work as a story was how the songs felt like they belonged together. How certain parts would resurface later in the song like the revision of parts of “Blue Rock Montana”, but with some minor changes – a composing technique often heard in numerous Broadway performances and film soundtracks – that musically symbolize the growth and development of the character.
Mike Oldfield – Tubular Bells
The purpose of Tubular Bells was to build an actual symphony in a then-modern context. And with an album like Tubular Bells the 70s couldn’t have been a better time to have surfaced. If there is a human emotion it’s captured somewhere within this album from loud and abrasive to soft and harmonious to booming and triumphant. And as grand as the whole experience is were it not for that little opening piano that landed a spot in the Exorcist who knows how long it would’ve taken for Tubular Bells to get recognition.
Fun fact: That little piano piece that everyone recognizes was originally conceived when Oldfield played Bach’s Fugue in D Minor backwards.
Therion – Secret of the Runes
Musically this was a pivotal album for Therion. They had begun their conversion to a symphonic band already, but they had nailed the style on Secret of the Runes. The overall mid-tempo album had sharp guitars and beautiful vocal harmonies and melodies the whole way through. Classic album.
Dream Theater – Octavarium
So with all of that music why Octavarium? This one is much like Tool’s Lateralus in that it’s really interesting what the band did with the album on top of the theme that runs through the music. Rather than just writing the songs and throwing them on the album one by one they used the album as a canvas rather than just a medium to store the music.
The concept behind the album as it was being written gradually came to be about the numbers 5 and 8 and how these concepts tied into music. With Octavarium being the 8th album from a 5 man band they gave it a name that had 5 syllables with 5 consonants and 5 vowels. Playing with numbers even more the album duration is 75 minutes and 48 seconds. Add all those numbers together and you get 24 (which is how many minutes long the title track is) which divided by 3 equals 8. The time signature 5/8 appears frequently in the song “Parts of Panic”. Hell the band even formed in 1985 (though part of that was spent under the name Majesty).
And adding to that already huge amount of excessive thinking. The concept of the octave (which theoretically speaking would be considered an 8th interval) was further explored in that each song had specific parts written in specific keys and as the album plays the songs gradually traverse through an octave of keys. The album comes full circle when the album closer “Octavarium” ends in a way that lets it loop right back into the first track “The Root of All Evil”.
Whenever I consider how intently they developed Octavarium it never ceases to fascinate me. With as much thought that went into it to say the least this album deserves respect.
King Diamond – Abigail
Back to Abigail. Abigail in all rights is an 80s album complete with big-haired shredders and high pitched vocals. But what really sets it apart is the concept. Prior to King Diamond there weren’t many horror story albums and the style was perfected with Abigail. Hail to the King.