Your Favorite Concept Album
- Thread starter black blood
- Start date
Evil?
omghaxlol!1
Rabid Headbanger
New Metal Member
Faint
Sheep Worrier
Triton
In Solitude
Hatebreeder
Pizzicato Heartstrings
SouthernTrendkill
Super Normie
- Aug 22, 2007
- 1,110
- 0
- 36
- 36
1TON
Member
pink floyds "the wall" , awsome from front to back. especially on acid
queensryche, operation mindcrime was great also.
queensryche, operation mindcrime was great also.
Skepticism
Member
- Feb 14, 2006
- 2,177
- 4
- 38
swizzlenuts
i'm sciencing as fast as i can
Ayreon - The Human Equation
Opeth - Still Life*
Mastodon - Remission (although I think it technically isn't I was always under the impression all their albums were, this one being about fire or smt, and it's the only Mastodon album I really like)
Edge Of Sanity - Crimson
Bathory - Blood On Ice*
Amon Amarth - Versus The World*
* = top 3. ;>
Opeth - Still Life*
Mastodon - Remission (although I think it technically isn't I was always under the impression all their albums were, this one being about fire or smt, and it's the only Mastodon album I really like)
Edge Of Sanity - Crimson
Bathory - Blood On Ice*
Amon Amarth - Versus The World*
* = top 3. ;>
As-I-Lay-Dying
Member
Jean-Pierre
Son of The Bitch
The Who - Tommy
Slough Feg - Traveller
Queensryche - Rage For Order (Yes, it is conceptual - not in the linear story sense)
Root - Kargeras
King Diamond - Abigail
Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Spinal Tap - Saucy Jack
Pink Floyd - Animals, The Wall
Bruce Dickinson - The Chemical Wedding
Kate Bush - The Ninth Wave (second side of Hounds of Love)
Operation Mindcrime is shit. A stupid, corny broadway musical with streamlined 80's rock songs. They inexplicably completely lost their creative abilities after the masterpiece that was Rage For Order....
Oh yeah, I forgot Seventh Son for my list. Man, that album, while musically fantastic, is lyrically inconsistent in the most nerve racking way. The brilliance on display in Moonchild, Infinite Dreams and The Prophecy juxtaposed with Can I Play With Madness and the title cut makes it seem as though the lyrics were written by two people with a 20 year age difference.
Slough Feg - Traveller
Queensryche - Rage For Order (Yes, it is conceptual - not in the linear story sense)
Root - Kargeras
King Diamond - Abigail
Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Spinal Tap - Saucy Jack
Pink Floyd - Animals, The Wall
Bruce Dickinson - The Chemical Wedding
Kate Bush - The Ninth Wave (second side of Hounds of Love)
Operation Mindcrime is shit. A stupid, corny broadway musical with streamlined 80's rock songs. They inexplicably completely lost their creative abilities after the masterpiece that was Rage For Order....
Oh yeah, I forgot Seventh Son for my list. Man, that album, while musically fantastic, is lyrically inconsistent in the most nerve racking way. The brilliance on display in Moonchild, Infinite Dreams and The Prophecy juxtaposed with Can I Play With Madness and the title cut makes it seem as though the lyrics were written by two people with a 20 year age difference.
Helspyre
Member
IOfTheStorm
Gogol Bordello
Jean-Pierre
Son of The Bitch
No idea what makes it so good. Completely ham-handed concept, over-confident delivery of utterly redundant social commentary not to mention the frustrating songwriting. Yeah, the songs are catchy, but do they achieve even an iota of what was accomplished on The Warning and Rage For Order? No, there's nothing progressive or inventive about it. It was like Genesis skipping any development and going straight from Trespass to Invisible Touch. Eugh
Oh yeah, forgot Hammers of Misfortune - The Bastard.
Oh yeah, forgot Hammers of Misfortune - The Bastard.
IOfTheStorm
Gogol Bordello
Well..my favourite Queensryche song ("Roads To Madness") is in "The Warning" and i sometimes think that "Rage For Order" does indeed have superior music (it is definetaly more progressive, no doubt about that), but "Operation: Mindcrime" is my favourite album of all times. The story is first and above all a love/personal story, as far as i'm concerned. The political/social comments are not redudant at all, since they are used enough just to make you understand how some aspects of the world/society in which the character lives, affect him and the people he cares about). It was a very original idea of a concept, especially almost 20 years ago and made some very daring points.
As for the music, i can't see why you count it's brilliance on the "progressive" and "inventive" scale. Still, the album is full of progressive and inventive ideas, (that reach their peak in "The Mission", "Suite Sister Mary" and "Eyes Of A Stranger"), all riffs and melodies are of the "never heard before" category (so they are instantly original too), and the music style doesn't sound like anything else. Can you elaborate on this "frustrating songwritting" thing? The songs are absolutely perfect in every sense of the word. Structure, melodies, relation of music with the lyrics, where the vocals are put, the orchestra use... everything is in the right place.
[psychologist] To talk more seriously: I just think you recently recognized how big of a masterpiece RFO is, and because it's so different from Mindcrime, you want to degrade Mindcrime, because you think it makes RFO look better. [/psychologist]
And of course the whole "RFO is a concept" story (if you mean the whole Vampire thing), doesn't make it an official concept album, i mean it can easily be considered one from some points of view (and the hints in the lyrics), but it might be just a coincidence. I'm a fan of the first opinion anyway.
As for the music, i can't see why you count it's brilliance on the "progressive" and "inventive" scale. Still, the album is full of progressive and inventive ideas, (that reach their peak in "The Mission", "Suite Sister Mary" and "Eyes Of A Stranger"), all riffs and melodies are of the "never heard before" category (so they are instantly original too), and the music style doesn't sound like anything else. Can you elaborate on this "frustrating songwritting" thing? The songs are absolutely perfect in every sense of the word. Structure, melodies, relation of music with the lyrics, where the vocals are put, the orchestra use... everything is in the right place.
[psychologist] To talk more seriously: I just think you recently recognized how big of a masterpiece RFO is, and because it's so different from Mindcrime, you want to degrade Mindcrime, because you think it makes RFO look better. [/psychologist]
And of course the whole "RFO is a concept" story (if you mean the whole Vampire thing), doesn't make it an official concept album, i mean it can easily be considered one from some points of view (and the hints in the lyrics), but it might be just a coincidence. I'm a fan of the first opinion anyway.
Jean-Pierre
Son of The Bitch
Anyone who lived in any city knew that Reagan was full of it and that the individualist yuppie generation in the 80's helped crumble the urban life of a multitude of Americans. Lyrically, I can only see a prancing greaser meeting with a goateed chariacature at the beginning, and as for the love story, it's delivered in a shallow manner; "She's a risk, we now must kill her." Terry Gilliam's black comedy Brazil is daring, Orwell is daring, but this is just an overly contemporary (thus dated) retread of those themes. It is a good album, but the problem is it's inability to support the tremendous weight of critical praise heaved upon it.
I count it on that scale because it is critically acclaimed as being such. Songs like The Mission and Suite Sister Mary sound like watered down or overlong (in the latter's case) versions of material on Rage and the Warning. The riffs may be 'new', but are no more than variants on songs by the same band that were already better.
Yeah, yeah, I understand where you're coming from. I heard the first EP and Operation Mindcrime first (I liked the EP much more, but wondered what led them to Mindcrime). I bought Rage For Order on vinyl for 99 cents, and was immediately blown away. I noted the lack of critical response, which led me to believe that a piece with such fantastic lyrics and inventive, genre bridging songwriting had to be misunderstood. Which in turn led to me resenting Mindcrime - it's truly a regression.
IOfTheStorm
Gogol Bordello
You are playing the comparison game again, and this time...comparing an album concept that was written by musicians, with the works of a filmaker and a writer? Obviously Mindcrime is daring within its own realm.
The album does not act as a support to a "tremendous weight of critical praise" (which did not came out of nothing), but the praise is just a support to the album. Not that Mindcrime needs it.
Noone loves Mindcrime mainly because of its progressive and inventive value, but basically because of its emotional intensity. When most people talk about it, they first say how beautiful the songs and Tate's singing are, not how progressive and "avant garde" they are.
Examples? Really im curious on it.
It took me months (if not a year) to FULLY appreciate and understand RFO (especially because when i bought it i was not an experienced listener), even though i already liked Mindcrime when i got it. I can't see the lack of critical response that you mention, since it is widely (widely = not UM, especially GMD) considered as one of most important metal albums ever and possibly the most trully progressive one. Mindcrime...was just different, another step to something new and fresh (and yes it was really new and really fresh), but definetely not a regressive one, at least on the musical quality department.
Similar threads
- Poll