I believe one thing that works against the concept album is jazz - I've always thought of this music as meandering by nature. I understand it more now that I'm old enough to, however, with jazz, you play what comes out of you - it was the first "freestyle" music, yes? And rap does that, too. But there's a thin line between freestyle and audio/verbal diahrrea. This doesn't mean that I don't like these music forms. This means that I feel they have a higher degree of difficulty when the concept album is created. As an aside, I feel orchestral/classical music can take on this effect, too, but that's just me.

That said, I think it comes down to those of us who know and appreciate the concept album (especially if you're an artist) to teach/pass this down to those who are willing to listen. As it is, the concept album can only be done by a small percentage of artists and musicians. But even as music listeners, we know what the elements of a concept album are. If we don't teach younger generations, then the art form will die with us, and that is a worse destroyer than any technical aspect could be.

motownlover said:

Year Zero and The World Has Made Me The Man Of My Dreams are the last great concept album I have in my collections.

paisleypark4 said:

lastdecember said:

I dig.....

MikeMatronik said:

CORRECTION: Although Emancipation was (and still is) a very good Prince concept album, it wasn't perfect. None of the those songs hit the Billboard (USA or UK) Hot 100 Singles Charts.....if it crossover from the hip-hop/r&b charts at all.

With that said.....

All Eyez on Me has 27 songs. The first ever double album in the history of the Rap genre (never mind it was a concept album), sold 9 million copies when 2pac was alive. Since 2pac death, it hit the 12 million+ copies.
[Edited 3/12/08 19:20pm]

Empress said:

I'm with you 100 percent!!!

coltrane3 said:

Hit & Quit it like James Brown groove. Nuff Said. Case Closed.

TonyVanDam said:

Still...the girl on your avatar is HOT!

TonyVanDam said:

Hate to interrupt your revisionist 2pac lovefest but...

TANKAEFC said:

Agreed 100%.

btw....

The new Gnarls album is very much a concept album.

Later

Cinnie said:

Hey, wait a minute. That whole album was only one disc as a CD format.

All Eyez On Me was 2 discs!

MikeMatronik said:

All credit goes to Aisleyne.




[Edited 3/14/08 19:25pm]

TonyVanDam said:

You said "FIRST DOUBLE ALBUM EVER IN RAP" and that was WRONG.

Besides, they had to remove one of the tracks to make "He's The DJ..." fit on one CD.

NDRU said:

Exactly.

Side 2 of Kate Bush "Aerial"???

The album is dead. Long live the album!






























Well, actually, in reality the album format was and is non-existant for about 90% of all music artists out today. For them, the album is really just a container to house their collection of singles and filler tracks.

As for the remaining 10%, most of those people don't have a particular concept or theme, but they do have a sense of rhythm and pacing which causes them to sequence their songs on the album in a certain way so that the listener is drawn in and hears the whole album. For example, Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The USA" isn't a concept album per se, but the music does have a rhythmic and melodic element which makes one want to listen to the entire album in one sitting. Same with Michael Jackson's "Thriller".

And of course, you still have the grand concept albums like Radiohead's "OK Computer" and "Kid A", as well as Green Day's "American Idiot". Granted, these albums became more prevalent in the late 1960's, the whole 1970's, and through the mid-1980's up through Paul Simon's "Graceland". The CD format, however, made the record companies want to use the whole 74 minutes of the CD storage capacity, so that made a lot of concept albums look bloated and overdone, thereby making it go out of fashion.