Turn Off Shuffle:
Concept Albums Explained
Join us on Defenestrationism.net as we examine concept albums, track by track, one lyric at a time.
We will be hopping around in time period and genre, starting with “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” and “Highway 61, Revisited“. Now up, Tom Waits’ “Frank’s Wild Years“.
All active links are in burgundy.
(Don’t see your favorite on the list?
Read my Methods, that might explain why.)
Early Innovators
The First Concept Albums/ Methods
Gustav Holst, Woody Guthrie, Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis
1922-1960
Highway 61, Revisited
Bob Dylan
1965
A Love Supreme
John Coltrane
1965
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Beatles
1967
The Mature Period of the 1970s
What’s Going On
Marvin Gaye
1971
Berlin
Lou Reed
1973
The Heart of Saturday Night
Tom Waits
1974
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Genesis
1974
Trick of the Tail
Genesis
1976
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (Australian Release)
AC/DC
1976
Death of a Ladies Man
Lennard Cohen
1977
The Rambler
Johnny Cash
1977
80s Weirdnesses
The Dreaming
Kate Bush
1982
Nebraska
Bruce Springsteen
1982
Rum, Sodomy & the Lash
The Pogues
1985
Somewhere in Time
Iron Maiden
1986
i against i
Bad Brains
1986
Frank’s Wild Years
Tom Waits
1987
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
Iron Maiden
1988
90s Hip-Hop
Edutainment
KRS-One (Boogie Down Productions)
1990
The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory
2pac (Makaveli)
1996
The Score
The Fugees
1996
The Carnival
Wyclef Jean
1997
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Lauryn Hill
1998
Blackstar
Mos Def and Talib Kweli
1999
21st Century Renaissance
Stankonia
Outkast
2000
Toxicity
System of a Down
2001
I Phantom
Mr Lif
2002
Alice
Tom Waits
2002
Greendale
Neil Young and Crazy Horse
2003
Speakerboxxx
Big Boi (Outkast)
2003
/The Love Below
André 3000 (OutKast)
2003
The Black Parade
My Chemical Romance
2006
Opheliac
Emilie Autumn
2006
New Amerykah (4th World War)/ (Return of the Ankh)
Erykah Badu
2008/ 2010
Crack the Skye
Mastodon
2009
Born Like This
MF Doom
2009
Union Town
Tom Morello the Nightwatchman
2012
Tempest
Bob Dylan
2012
Transcontinental Drift
Lyricists’ Watch
2014
To Pimp a Butterfly
Kendrick Lamar
2015
Emperor of Sand
Mastodon
2017
Frameworks
James Sizemore
2018
September 11th Response Concept Albums
The Rising
Bruce Springsteen
2002
Scarlet’s Walk
Tori Amos
2002
Have one to suggest?– is it a good concept album, objectively? Is it free of bigotry, by the standards of today? Is it not made by Jethro Tull or Kanye West? If all three, email me: pnrenterprizes@gmail.com .
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