Favorite Concept Albums?

Wicked Child

Wicked Child

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For those who don't know what a concept album is, it's an album that tells a story throughout it, which ties all the songs together.

My favorite concept albums include:

-Queensryche-Promised Land
-Iced Earth-Night Of The Stormrider
-Blind Guardian-Nightfall In Middle-Earth
-Rush-2112
-Alice Cooper-Welcome To My Nightmare
-Savatage-Dead Winter Dead
-Savatage-'Streets':A Rock Opera
-Savatage-Poets And Madmen
-King Diamond-Abigail
-The Who-Tommy
-Yes-Over The Edge (I THINK it's a concept album...)
-Dream Theater-Metropolis Part II: Scenes From A Memory
-Trans-Siberian Orchestra-Christmas Eve And Other Stories
-Trans-Siberian Orchestra-Beethoven's Last Night
-Iron Maiden-Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son

But the king of ALL concept albums is.......
-Queensryche-Operation:Mindcrime
Words can't express how much I truly love this album..it's been almost two and half years since i bought this masterpiece and i'm STILL not bored of it after a million listens and that is certainly a mark of a classic album. One of, if not, my all-time favorite albums EVER.
 
Op:MC is certainly a terrific album, but if I had to chose only one QR album to put in this category it would be Promised Land... maybe it's just me but I never really saw it as a concept album, but I may be wrong. You would think I'd know for sure as it's one of my favorite albums of all-time! I guess it never occured to me... ? Am I crazy?

And I can't leave out:
Savious Machine - "Legend: Part I, II, & III"
Trans-Siberian Orchestra - "Christmas Eve & Other Stories"
Trans-Siberian Orchestra - "Beethoven's Last Night"
Dream Theater - "Metropolis Part II: Scenes from a Memory"

and, if you can count it as a concept album:
Iced Earth - "Horror Show"

~Sh0k~
 
I would have to vote for:

Queensryche - Operation: Mindcrime (the best of all time)
Savatage - Gutter Ballet
Savatage - Streets: A Rock Opera
Savatage - Poets & Madmen
King Diamond - Abigail
King Diamond - Them
Manticora - Hyperion (great newcomer on the scene)
Iced Earth - The Dark Saga

I'm sure there are plenty more, these are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
 
Can't really pick one of these over the others:

Queensryche - Mindcrime
Savatage - Streets
King Diamond - anything from Abigail through Abigail II

Really, for me, King Diamond wears the overall crown because every one of his concept albums interests me. Musically, some are a little better than others, but they're all very good and the stories are awesome as well. He is the king of concept albums, no doubt about it.
 
Operation Mindcrime is a wicked album. as with most QR material.

All of King Diamond albums except the EPs and compilation

and of course Macabre - Dahmer
White Mansions & The Legend of Jesse James ( country )
 
By far the best is QUEENSRYCHE - Operation: Mindcrime

The tour for that record was amazing as well ...
 
Seventh Son not a concept album? Excuse me? Maybe you need to do a bit of homework.

It is by all means a concept album. I remember when the album came out in 1988 I read a long interview in the now defunct Rip magazine about how Steve Harris and Bruce Dickinson met over beers in London to develop the concept behind the record a couple nights after Steve had a very bizarre dream about clairvoyance (which was ultimately inspired by an article he read in UK's The Sun just as he fell asleep at home about a British lady named Doris Stokes who claimed to be able to see through time and space). The album definitely tells a story of a man who possessed clairvoyant abilities, the seventh son of a seventh son (who historically have been fabled to have such powers). It chronicles from his birth (Moonchild) to his death (Only the Good Die Young).

Furthermore, Bruce has said in later interviews that although they were very proud of the album, that they did feel trumped by Queensryche's Operation Mindcrime who managed to do a concept album better than they.

I think ...Mindcrime is superb, as I do Seventh Son. Both concept albums.

And to whomever said 2112 is not a concept album, clarification might read that the first 20+ minute "song" is definitely conceptual, but the second side of the album is not tied in at all, merely a collection of other good songs. I still think 2112 (the song at least) is fantastic. I luckily got to see Rush play it in its entirety in 1997 at a concert here. Although I wasn't so lucky to see Iron Maiden or QR perform their concept records live. QR for the first time played MC in its entirety on their Empire tour, not the one for MC, as they were opening for Metallica on that tour and didn't have enough time to do it. Maiden though has never played the entire 7th Son live though, all tracks but "The Prophecy" and "Only the Good Die Young".
 
EoS-Crimson
IE-The Dark Saga
BG-Nightfall in middle earth


I had never seen seventh son of a seventh son as a concept album but it seems logical since it starts how it ends an the songs have a follow up
 
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