Unclear On The Concept: A Brief History Of The Concept Album

By Christian Lipski

I’m sure it’s not just me, but whenever I start to write a non-fiction article about X, I always want to start with “Webster’s Dictionary defines X as. . . ” I’m sure it’s the lazy high school student in me, but in this case, it’s rather pointless to try to define the term “concept album,” because the definitions are so broad. My first response would be “um, an album made up of songs that contain a common theme,” and that’s an acceptable definition. What’s a “theme”? An album of songs that all start with the letter A would be a theme, and would therefore be a concept album. It’s a weak definition, but there are so many different ways to create such an album, it all turns out OK in the end.

The first concept album that I think can be considered as such (apart from the “songs from musicals” or “songs about hobos” collections of the 40s and 50s) was not The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, nor was it The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Pet Sounds was never conceived as a single concept, though it does capture exquisitely the mindset of a young man in the 60s, as Brian Wilson was. Pepper apparently went through some initial concepts that would have aligned it with various themes, but ultimately it never really got coherent, though the opening and closing “Sgt. Pepper’s” songs make it seem to be a single theme. There are various candidates from the late 60s, including The Kinks’ Face To Face (a collection of songs about kinds of people), Freak Out! by The Mothers of Invention (satirical songs about modern culture), and The Moody Blues’ Days of Future Passed (songs representing times of the day), and each one has its own way of presenting its theme.

The first modern concept album that comes to the mind of many people is Pink Floyd’s The Wall. A grand double album that tells the story of a boy who grows up during World War II, enduring a horrible childhood before becoming a withdrawn, isolated, drug-addled singer. The songs are used to illustrate different portions of the character’s outer and inner life, much like a stage musical. That prompts the question, “Well, isn’t a musical’s soundtrack a concept album, too?” This question usually results in a poke in the eye, because it’s probably true, but most of the time when the term “concept album” is used, it’s within the genre of rock music. The Wall was a massive collection of songs which, while they told a story, also functioned as stand-alone songs, as illustrated by the success of the singles from that album, “Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2),” “Run Like Hell,” and “Comfortably Numb.”

My own concept of the ideal concept album is one whose songs can be listened to outside the context of the storyline without losing coherence, not unlike Rush’s 2112. It’s kind of cheating, being only one side of the album, but we’ll allow it due to its sheer CONCEPT-ness. Its songs are considered a suite, and as such were not given individual tracks on the original LP, but instead were listed as “movements” of the twenty-minute piece. It tells the story of a future time where music is outlawed, so naturally only outlaws will play music. A man discovers a guitar and learns to play, but his gift to society is banned by the authorities. Then he kills himself as the whole place is invaded by some other people. Spoiler alert. In any case, the parts of the suite were not separated into singles, since their stories really require the background of the other sections.

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