The Concept Album Concept

Th

Quote from Backdrifter

That's right. I've gone through the album in my head and the only ones that could in any way fit the suggested narrative are Andy Warhol (that's War-hol, War-hol), Song For Bob Dylan and Queen Bitch. So no I don't believe it can count as a concept album.

Interesting, Mr.Farmer had you heard it referred to as one for the reason you gave?

I'm a huge Bowie fan and absolutely love Hunky Dory, it's one of my top 10 albums. I get the impression Bowie fans are in short supply on this board.

That's my point . I haven't heard HD described as a concept album and I don't think the intention was there but it feels more of a concept to me than Sgt Pepper and Ziggy which are given that label. He wanted to write about himself and the times he was living in.(Clearly he had a clear idea of a concept with ZS as he wanted to write about someone he made up) . There's no narrative but a strong theme. 60s/70s culture and his place and his thoughts in it. Changes - his "journey" ( sorry hate that phrase) so far. OYPT - The hippies are going take over the world, ELP - filler, LOM - such a lot has been said about this ,I still wonder at it but it's a comment on life / society and a hippy answer to My Way by all accounts. Kooks -life as hippy parents. Quicksand - philosophical thoughts. FYH - peace and love and you'll be free, three songs about , current icons, and Bewlsy Brothers - looking back at his life with half brother. So everything fits together. A jaunty opening looking at life , each track feels in the right place and a grand ending. It's a tremendous album almost but quite his best, and yes I am a massive Bowie fan.

Quote from Backdrifter

I get that you accept it wasn't intended as a concept album but it feels like one, but I disagre and think you've imposed that thematic nature on it (and altered it from your assertion it was about 60s/70s counter culture), and the wheels come off early on with your take on OYPT and most of the remaining tracks. But hey, art is there to be interpreted by the individual after all.

Yes the great thing about art is the fact that we all look at in our own way . The play words by Bowie and PG , (and TB) in particular allow for that, which is why they are such great artists. I didn't alter the counter culture theme, HD has personal themes about his life , his thoughts and what he saw around which was embedded in the counter culture in which he lived and breathed. It was initially a very quick way to describe a deep album. I never considered it a concept album before as it never fell into that category in the lists ! The thought occurred as I wrote my post. I was thinking about Sgt Pepper and Ziggy which have that intention of being concept ( and make the lists) but the individual songs apart from a few don't really have a theme, and then the supposedly non concept HD popped into my head , which does have a theme. I never called it a concept album I said it had more of concept or theme than the two concept albums I mentioned. I have read the previous posts looking people's descriptions of concept albums and my initial point was that having the label of concept should be useful. A distinct musical style is not good enough to make it a concept. Anyway good to see other Bowie fans. I'll check out if there are existing threads or start a new one. I would be interested to hear your take on the songs. OYPT is definitely about the young people of the day. I'm sure he's talking about hippies.

As an add on to the above post. I think that a concept album should have a distinct musical style throughout and also a clear lyrical theme or idea, or at least a musical interpretation of an idea. So Holst's The Planets would count as a non lyrical interpretation of a particular idea but I can't think of anything a bit more modern ! Any equivalents to that in the concept album field?

Quote from Backdrifter

Some class a number of Rush albums as concept albums due to their having a fairly consistent lyrical theme. I suppose it ultimately comes down to individual opinion. Others think the term applies specifically when the whole album is setting out to tell a start-to-finish story. I think I'd probably go with the notion that the artist intentionally has a linking device such as theme or structure, ............

That said, I'm not sure about the Rush ones. I think I'm right in saying that not all the songs on each album necessarily follow the overaching theme........

I do agree with you both about the concept album and Rush. They made one concept album as far as I can see. Clockwork Angels.

Quote from thefarmer

I do agree with you both about the concept album and Rush. They made one concept album as far as I can see. Clockwork Angels.

Isn't 2112 a concept album?

People always said Hotel California was a concept album. Maybe about half of it. The first three songs & the last.

Quote from thefarmer

Any equivalents to [non lyrical interpretation of a particular idea] in the concept album field?

I've already mentioned Bitches Brew but another Miles Davis album would be Jack Johnson, about the great American boxer (although that does have a brief moment of dialogue at the end from Brock Peters). And then there's a couple of albums Miles made with Gil Evans: Porgy And Bess and Sketches Of Spain. And you can check out Tone Poems Of Colour, an album of orchestral pieces inspired by poetry and conducted by Frank Sinatra.

So, yes, there's plenty of stuff out there.

Quote from StillCan'tDance

I've already mentioned Bitches Brew but another Miles Davis album would be Jack Johnson, about the great American boxer (although that does have a brief moment of dialogue at the end from Brock Peters). And then there's a couple of albums Miles made with Gil Evans: Porgy And Bess and Sketches Of Spain. And you can check out Tone Poems Of Colour, an album of orchestral pieces inspired by poetry and conducted by Frank Sinatra.

So, yes, there's plenty of stuff out there.

Didn't know know about these, though it's not my thing. But answering my own question there is if course the Rick Wakeman stuff.

Quote from FeelItComing

Isn't 2112 a concept album?

People always said Hotel California was a concept album. Maybe about half of it. The first three songs & the last.

I thought about 2112 . Maybe. But it's only one side. Would that make Foxtrot a concept album?

Quote from thefarmer

Didn't know know about these, though it's not my thing. But answering my own question there is if course the Rick Wakeman stuff.

How do you know it's not your thing? Maybe try something different, you might find you like it.

It's funny. I got into the music of Genesis and it led me in all sorts of musical directions, many of them from artists that Phil Collins would name drop in interviews (Weather Report, Buddy Rich, Frank Zappa, John Martyn and Brian Eno for example). And yet other fans of the band never seem to stray beyond the progressive rock genre.

To each their own, and all, but in that one line "it's not my thing" you've just dismissed Gershwin, Elmer Bernstein, Billy May, Andre Previn and Nelson Riddle!

Quote from StillCan'tDance

How do you know it's not your thing? Maybe try something different, you might find you like it.

It's funny. I got into the music of Genesis and it led me in all sorts of musical directions, many of them from artists that Phil Collins would name drop in interviews (Weather Report, Buddy Rich, Frank Zappa, John Martyn and Brian Eno for example). And yet other fans of the band never seem to stray beyond the progressive rock genre.

To each their own, and all, but in that one line "it's not my thing" you've just dismissed Gershwin, Elmer Bernstein, Billy May, Andre Previn and Nelson Riddle!

My unasked-for take here is that the issue (for me) is one of bandwidth. If I lived to be a thousand I'd discover lots of the greats. But I'd also have Russian literature and latin American poetry and arthouse films and on and on to discover. As well as listening/watching/reading quality new material. Spoilt for choice!

Quote from thewatcher

My unasked-for take here is that the issue (for me) is one of bandwidth. If I lived to be a thousand I'd discover lots of the greats. But I'd also have Russian literature and latin American poetry and arthouse films and on and on to discover. As well as listening/watching/reading quality new material. Spoilt for choice!

Well, yes, there is that.

Long delay. Am back at work now.

Quote from Backdrifter

Well done on starting the Bowie thread. I had been considering doing that myself.

A quick whizz-through HD then, in answer to your prompt. Changes seems to be about re-invention and embracing change. Pretty Things, I don't agree it's about hippies, which were less of a phenomenon in 1971 in the way they were in the late 60s. The song appears to be a sort of fantasy image drawn from elements of sci-fi and Nietzsche - a kind of "what if" tale, in this case what if we woke up one day and found a new race taking over, either from another planet or from Earth where they'd been hidden away somewhere. You could of course bend that to fit your "hippies are taking over" thesis but it'd seem an odd topic given the whole youth revolution thing, such as it was, had happened a few years earlier.

I love how your explanation of Eight Line Poem is simply "filler"! You're doing it an injustice. In its gentle simplicity, it comes across to me as a lyric painting. Take the imagery it portrays and I can see it in my mind as an oil on canvas, conveying a moment in time. I like it a lot. Mars as you say has often been discussed and we know very well its origins as his somewhat sour re-take on his previous attempt to re-write a French ballad. For me it's simply a kind of lyric collage of the mousy-haired girl's escape from her routine life by immersing herself in trips to the cinema.

Kooks of course is about his recently born son, but I resist your further attempt to crowbar in hippies! Calling them "hippy parents" is a misrepresentation. It's simply, I'm a dad now, we may not be the most conventional parents but we'll look after you. Quicksand, following Pretty Things, brings more Nietzsche influences and namechecks Aleister Crowley, who some believe also informs Pretty Things. DB seems to have been reading both a lot at the time. Fill Your Heart seems to me to be the track chosen to lock in with the album title in being the feel-good upbeat number. Then you get the trio of songs about then-current iconic American cultural figures. Bewlay, whether it's inspired by his relationship with his half-brother or not, sounds to me like him setting out to create an air of menace and tension.

Overall then, I don't discern any 'theme' at all to this album. There are a couple of bits of overlap between songs e.g. the Nietzsche references, but nothing that conveys a concept or substantive linking themes.

Display More

I dont disagree with much of what you say. You're absolutely right about Kooks , and also they were hippies , or unconventional is fine with me. Changes you're right again and the changes he sings about are his own within that counter culture. OYPT - gotta make way for the homo superior, out with the old in with the better,, I actually agree with what you say ( I've read about it being about Neitzshe ) but my interpretation is that the aliens are the new generation , ( and I am absolutely unanimous on that ! ) and we agree about Quicksand being about philosophical thoughts , ( my god that song can be depressing)and ELP no connection with anything else. Glad you like my description , I actually quite like it but still a filler . Actually I didn't know about the French thing and although a fan for nearly 50 years I only recently found out the Frankie reference on the cover by Life on Mars is Frank Sinatra ( so what do I know anyway) and I It's really multi layered. It still talks to me of comments on life and establishment. That's another song I could talk about forever. I guess I'm being flippant using the phrase hippies but but I just meant the young people of the day and the thought at the time that they were going to change everything. (All The Young Dudes being the antithesis of this at least how I like to see it.) So I still see the album as having a personal theme of his life ,his thoughts , and obswrvations on the culture around him. It's what I see , . It's good how music can be so personal. We could argue/ discuss forever on it. I hope that Bowie would like it that we are considering his music and having our own different interpretations . Going back to the concept album discussion. In an earlier post I said that many albums are made with artists making a complete work, And, as I see it and using HD as example , they will have ideas to convey , but that doesn't necessarily make it a concept album . Ziggy and Sgt Pepper have a really wide range of unrelated songs but hold together for the imagery track order etc. Whilst Pepper harks back Ziggy heralds the new era. The imagery of the Ziggy character is out with the old , in with different - from hippy to alien rock star!

Quote from StillCan'tDance

To each their own, and all, but in that one line "it's not my thing" you've just dismissed Gershwin, Elmer Bernstein, Billy May, Andre Previn and Nelson Riddle!

Yes . Although I must admit I was impressed by Andrew Preview as played by Mr Eric Morcombe and always meant to check out more of his work never got round to it.

Quote from thefarmer

Yes . Although I must admit I was impressed by Andrew Preview as played by Mr Eric Morcombe and always meant to check out more of his work never got round to it.

I don't want to sound pretentious but Andre Previn was a conductor, not a composer.

Quote from Backdrifter

He was both. He scored Hollywood films in his early career and later composed various concerti etc. I think he could be pretty scathing about his own work though.

OK fair enough!

Quote from FeelItComing

I don't want to sound pretentious but Andre Previn was a conductor, not a composer.

I should have said with Mr Eric Morcombe and their work. The piece I saw was and so impressed with was by Grieg. It was a very fine arrangement. Check it out . See