A List Of Concept Albums And A Brief
Synopsis Of My Understanding Of Their Stories.
The following is a description of the plots (as I understand them) of most of
the concept albums that I have ever heard. These could be completely wrong for
all I know, but its what I got out of them.
If anybody knows what the correct plots are, could they please inform me.
Also add your own synopsis of concept albums that you have heard.
Camel � The Snow Goose: Its instrumental, but the music is supposed to
represent key chapters in the novella The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico.
Coheed & Cambria � All Albums To Date: The lyrics tell a story called The
Amory Wars which is also covered in comics, graphic novels and a novel. It is a
multifaceted sci-fi story with a lot of murder and political corruption
involving three generations of a family, some of whom are robots and some of
whom have a virus that turns them into a monster. The central character is a
messianic figure in league with an angel-esque race of aliens who gets involved
in both a civil war style armed revolution and a prevention-of-apocalypse plot.
This story itself is contained inside a meta-story in which a writer has
created this universe as an exaggerated version of his own life in order to
exorcise the daemons of his own inadequate life and romantic problems.
Cradle Of Filth � Cruelty And The Beast: Something To Do With Countess Bathory?
Cradle Of Filth � Damnation And A Day: Scenes From The Bible
Dream Theatre - Metropolis 2 Scenes From A Memory: A man discovers his past
life through hypnotic therapy, in which he was a girl who got murdered by her
lover�s brother in the 1920s and because her spirit carried on as his soul, he
wants to solve the murder mystery (and possibly gets murdered by his therapist,
who was the reincarnation of the original murderer.)
Fear Factory � Obsolete: A domestic-terrorist cyborg leads a campaign for
humanity�s freedom against a cruel dystopian police-state run by machines (but
fails).
Genesis � The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway: A New York City street punk who is possibly
hallucinating, possibly suffering from mental illness or possibly dead after
being run over by a taxi (or perhaps a combination of some/all these) flees an
apocalyptic situation above-ground and awakens underground in a prison. Upon
escaping he enters a psychedelic world and encounters a collection of various
mystical creatures of allegorical significance as well as his brother who he
cannot follow quickly enough to reunite with. He is eventually castrated by a
Doctor who is also a testical-monster and his genitals get stolen by a raven,
during his attempts to recover them he is finally reunited with his brother and
realizes that his brother is himself (and so either awakes from the
hallucination, becomes mentally unwell or finally dies)
Gentle Giant � Three Friends: Three boys are school friends as young children
but lead vastly different lives as adults separated by the class system.
Gentle Giant � The Power And The Glory: A Description of a political
leader/king throughout the stages of his career.
Gentle Giant � Interview: The album is a radio interview and the lyrics are all
answers to frequently asked questions that bands answer on radio interviews.
Greenday � American Idiot: A punk fan from a broken home goes out into the
world to make it on his own, falls in love for the first time, meets a small
time drug dealer who eventually kills himself, breaks up and deals with a lot
of sadness until finally moving on.
Greenday � 21st Century Breakdown: A straightforward love story
between two people.
Iron Maiden � Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son: A psychic who�s power had been
prophesized is born and fights evil (possibly dying in the process)
Jethro Tull � Thick As A Brick: A description of war as written by a child
poet.
Jethro Tull � A Passion Play: A description of death, the funeral, the
aftermath and the afterlife including the business man-esque God & Son, as
told through the metaphor of a stage-play.
Jethro Tull � Too Old To Rock And Roll� : An aging and out-of-touch biker gets
a chance to relive his youth when he becomes popular as the result of a
combination of reconstructive surgery and instant TV celebrity in the aftermath
of a bike-crash.
Jethro Tull�s Ian Anderson � A description of several stages in several of the
different types of life that a child could grow up in, and how small
circumstances could cause dramatic changes over a whole life.
Judas Priest � A story about the prophet Nostradamus and a description of how
his future-seeing powers affect his emotions, family and overall life.
Kiss � Music From The Elder: ?
Marillion � Misplaced Childhood: A Scottish man looks back at the childhood
loss of his early love interest and then recalls growing up unsatisfied in the
heavy drinking culture of the time while affirming his national/civic-pride.
Marilyn Manson � Antichrist Superstar: A lowly person becomes a political figure then destroys the world
Marilyn Manson � Mechanical Animals: A glam rock alien becomes famous ? (the world sucks) ?
Marilyn Manson � Holywood: The world sucks ?
The Mars Volta � Deloused In The Comatorium: While in a coma, a man experiences
a psychedelic experience in which a civil war between two tribes of strange
unnatural creatures takes place?
The Mars Volta � Frances The Mute: An orphan who grew up in America searches
for his biological parents and learns that he was only taken to America by a
nun who took pity on him because he survived a survived a back-street abortion
in the sexually conservative South American home-country. His parents were publicly executed for breaking the law but despite being able to ever meet
his biological family, he finally decides that he feels a family connection
with the people he had grown up with in America.
Mastodon � Leviathan: The lyrics describe some of the characters and scenes
from the book Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
Mastodon � Blood Mountain: The central character climbs a perilous mountain
full of various exotic mystical creatures with a view to finding a mystical
crystal skull to place on his head and herald the beginning of next stage in
human evolution.
Mastodon � Crack The Skye: A young boy in modern times has an out of body
experience using astral projection but severs the golden umbilical tying his
spirit to his body and is lost in the void until getting summoned by the
occultist sect (in Tsarist Russia) that Rasputin belonged to. Rasputin has
uncovered a murder plot against his leaders and after the climax of this
political crisis, with the help of the occultists the boy is able to use the
death as a means to return to his own time and body.
Nine Inch Nails � The Downward Spiral: A list of the things that are bad about
the world made by a depressed nihilistic drug addict who eventually commits
suicide in a fit of despair and hopelessness.
Nine Inch Nails � Year Zero: A corrupt government impinge on civil liberties
and ruin the people�s lives, then aliens show up (but it might be a government-made
phenomenon). A scientist sends a warning back in time.
Parkway Drive � Deep Blue: A man is dissatisfied with the crushing rat-race of
modern urban life and decides to try and live under the sea, it doesn�t go well
and he eventually returns to land.
A Perfect Circle � Thirteenth Step: A drug addict with personality problems
eventually gets clean for their child�s benefit.
Pink Floyd � The Wall: A rock star with personality problems, who�s father died
in World War 2 becomes dissatisfied with crowds and fame. He drives away his
friends, wife, mother and colleagues and then in a depressed drug addled stage
hallucinates a grim alternative reality of himself as a fascist dictator
directing crowds to commit violence. Upon waking he gets over his personality
problems and allows the people that he drove away to help him at last.
Queensryche � Operation Mindcrime: In a dystopian society, A drug addict
becomes involved in a domestic terrorist movement lead by a shady doctor turned
politician in exchange for scoring drugs. He falls in love with a former
prostitute turned nun and then later gets sent to murder the priest who took
her in/sleeps with her. He then gets told to murder the nun herself but cannot
do it, the politician has her killed anyway and the addict is framed for the
crime and sent to prison.
Queensryche � Operation Mindcrime: After being released from prison many years
later, the addict tries to enjoy freedom but society has changed a lot since
his imprisonment. He decides he was only ever happy when he was with the nun.
Eventually thoughts of revenge against the politician grow so overwhelming that
he sets about to kill him.
Upon capturing the politician after a high speed chase, the addict struggles
with his conscious before going ahead and murdering him in cold blood anyway.
Wracked with guilt and the knowledge that nothing has really changed, he kills
himself. In the afterlife he is reunited with the nun that he loved and is
finally at peace.
Sleep � Dopesmoker: A caravan transports marijuana through the desert to Jerusalem.
Edited by Kingcrimsonprog - 20 May 2012 at 3:54pm