The concept album is dead – and it was never great to begin with
There is no greater example of musical verschlimmbessern than that of the concept album – vaguely defined as a record designed around a central narrative, a unifying theme or a particular artistic device. The definition may be hazy, but the very whiff of it sends music critics into fits of schwärmerei (German for 'unbridled and excessive enthusiasm').
The intention is to elevate an LP into a literary work of art, and the artist into a mythical genius. Yet more often than not, the 'concept' serves only to confuse and complicate, resulting in a record that succeeds neither as a collection of songs nor a cohesive piece of storytelling – a half-built ship with a fancy paint job, lost in a desolate sea of compromised ideas.
The concept album emerged in the 1960s, with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles and its like, and it endures to this day. The Waterboys just released Life, Death and Dennis Hopper, inspired by the Hollywood icon, and Car Seat Headrest will release The Scholars in early May, told from the perspective of various students at a fictional college.
It's an exciting idea. Taking a listener on a sonic journey, immersing them in an experience that is both cinematic and enthralling. Occasionally, it works: Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.d city, for example, transports us to one particularly wild day in the Compton of Kendrick's childhood, explores characters with depth and provides narrative payoff to those who listen from start to finish. The result is the greatest album of the 21st century.
But make no mistake: this is the exception, not the rule. Almost always, a concept album (no matter how good the concept might be on paper) quickly devolves into a conceited exercise in ego and forced-together puzzle pieces. Whether the artist is trying to tell an overarching story, write songs from different perspectives, or experiment with the form itself, it's nearly impossible to pull off.
Some concept albums try to reinvent the wheel, and find themselves buried beneath their ambition, with the gimmick swamping the songs themselves. Commercial Album by the Residents consists of 40 songs, all one minute long. It's a fun idea, but it runs out of juice quickly, becoming tedious and distracting. The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands sees the Turtles pretend to be 12 bands across 12 songs of wildly different genres, including country, psychedelia, surf rock, pop and R&B – a baffling listening experience.
Far worse is the narrative-driven concept album. If, when you look up a recipe online, your favourite part is the long, needlessly complicated story serving no purpose and obscuring the actual food, then concept albums are for you!
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News.com.au
17 hours ago
- News.com.au
Jodhi Meares opens up about new life in Byron Bay after leaving Sydney: ‘I don't get bored'
Jodhi Meares has opened up about the real reason she left Sydney for Byron Bay, and the private life she has created for herself in the hinterland. In a new interview with Stellar, the fashion mogul and ex-wife of James Packer admits she was never comfortable in the spotlight and is 'definitely a behind the scenes person'. 'I'm a true introvert. I like to be able to watch people. I find people really interesting. 'Being in the public eye wrecked that a little bit,' Meares told Stellar. Late last year, Meares purchased a four-bedroom, Modernist-inspired home – which features an avocado, citrus, banana and papaw orchard, at Brooklet. The property is located inland between Ballina and Byron Bay in the NSW Northern Rivers region – and was purchased for a reported $4.1 million. Listen to a new episode of the Stellar podcast Something To Talk About below: Speaking to Stellar, The Upside designer explains why she is at home among the papaya trees, a dog named Soda Pop, and her five cows. 'I don't get bored and I don't get lonely. I suffer from other things, but I don't suffer from those things,' Meares said. 'Sometimes I have to ask myself, 'How many days has it been? I need to just go somewhere and speak to another human …'' The former Australia's Next Top Model host and Tigerlily founder also made a surprising confession about her time as a model, saying she 'never really loved having my photos taken'. 'It's been a means to an end. But I felt very lucky to be able to do it because I wasn't sure what I was going to do when I was young. 'And school and I didn't get along that well.' In the Stellar cover story, Meares also reflected on interviewing Australian supermodel Elle Macpherson – who stars in a new campaign for Meares' activewear brand, The Upside – for Stellar earlier this year. 'She's such a phenomenal woman. Elle doesn't have to do these things. I thought it was just very special,' Meares said. 'It was very beautiful, really touching that she was able to do that.' Listen to a new episode of the Stellar podcast Something To Talk About below:
Sydney Morning Herald
2 days ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Plucked from the airport check-in queue to sing with major European orchestra
In late January 2015, Australian soprano Siobhan Stagg was in Berlin preparing to board a flight to Zurich for an audition when her agent called. 'Do you know the Brahms German Requiem?' he asked. 'And could you start singing it today with the Berlin Philharmonic?' Stagg immediately said 'yes' to both questions, gathered her luggage, and grabbed a cab to the Philharmonie concert hall, where the singer who had been due to perform had been taken ill. 'And, suddenly, I was rehearsing with the Berlin Phil and Christian Thielemann,' she says. 'What I didn't know, though, is at the end, after I sang he [Thielemann] looked over his shoulder slowly, and at the back of the hall, there were several figures in suits who I think were the executive team of the Phil. And he just gave them a very slow nod, like, 'Yes, she'll do'.' Later that week, Stagg gave three performances to packed houses that included legendary tenor Placido Domingo and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. 'It was so fast that I almost didn't have time to get nervous,' she says. 'I didn't have any time for that. There was a task to be done, and I did it.' Stagg's Sliding Doors moment at Berlin airport helped catapult her to the top of the European circuit and engagements at major concert halls and opera houses there. It's been a long journey for Stagg from rural Victoria where she grew up the middle child of three to teacher parents, singing along to the pop songs of the day into an ice-cream cone 'microphone'. 'Music was always something I loved, but I was led to believe it was a hobby,' she says. 'I still can't really believe that I do it as my profession now.' An early key moment in her career came when Stagg was just 11 years old. 'My grandfather had passed away in East Gippsland and all the extended family went there for the funeral,' she says. 'I led the congregation, just totally untrained, in singing Amazing Grace. At the end of the wake a distant cousin slipped a hundred dollar note into my hand with a card that read, 'This is for your first singing lessons, and please invite me when you sing at the Sydney Opera House'.' Stagg took those singing lessons and thrived, going on to Melbourne University to study music, singing in the Trinity College Choir, which proved invaluable training. 'The repertoire changes every week,' she says. 'So you have to get very fit at reading and singing what's on the page.' It was also in Melbourne that Stagg first saw an orchestra play live. Loading 'It was the university student orchestra, and it was the first time I'd heard these instruments: a clarinet, a flute, a trumpet,' she says. 'I probably would've heard them without realising in film scores, but I'd never seen them and identified that that's the colour that I'm hearing. I was just blown away and I was like, 'Wow, I've got a lot to catch up on'!' After Melbourne, Stagg was selected for the Salzburg Festival Young Singers program and appointed a soloist at the Deutsche Oper Berlin where, she says, she 'learned her craft'. 'I was six years as a principal soloist in Berlin,' she says. 'My training up until then had been music, but not really any of the stagecraft that opera requires. In German houses you go through a huge volume of repertoire in a year. I was able to learn in a 12-month season probably 12 or 15 productions - small roles, medium roles, some big roles.' Next week, Stagg will finally get to perform for the first time on the Joan Sutherland Theatre stage at the Sydney Opera House with Opera Australia. Stagg will sing the role the servant Susanna in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, widely regarded as one of the most demanding in the soprano repertoire. 'Susanna is a role that I love,' she says. 'I love playing her. She is a very relatable character, funny and sincere at the same time.' 'I love playing Susanna. She is a very relatable character, funny and sincere at the same time.' Siobhan Stagg And while this will be her first appearance on the Joan Sutherland Stage it is not her first time performing at the Sydney Opera House itself. She sang in the Concert Hall there in 2016 alongside tenor Roberto Alagna. And it was then she was able to fulfil her part of the bargain to the distant relative who set her on the path to stardom all those years ago in East Gippsland. 'I was able to invite that cousin and thank her for changing my life,' says Stagg. 'It was a beautiful full circle.'
The Age
2 days ago
- The Age
Plucked from the airport check-in queue to sing with major European orchestra
In late January 2015, Australian soprano Siobhan Stagg was in Berlin preparing to board a flight to Zurich for an audition when her agent called. 'Do you know the Brahms German Requiem?' he asked. 'And could you start singing it today with the Berlin Philharmonic?' Stagg immediately said 'yes' to both questions, gathered her luggage, and grabbed a cab to the Philharmonie concert hall, where the singer who had been due to perform had been taken ill. 'And, suddenly, I was rehearsing with the Berlin Phil and Christian Thielemann,' she says. 'What I didn't know, though, is at the end, after I sang he [Thielemann] looked over his shoulder slowly, and at the back of the hall, there were several figures in suits who I think were the executive team of the Phil. And he just gave them a very slow nod, like, 'Yes, she'll do'.' Later that week, Stagg gave three performances to packed houses that included legendary tenor Placido Domingo and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. 'It was so fast that I almost didn't have time to get nervous,' she says. 'I didn't have any time for that. There was a task to be done, and I did it.' Stagg's Sliding Doors moment at Berlin airport helped catapult her to the top of the European circuit and engagements at major concert halls and opera houses there. It's been a long journey for Stagg from rural Victoria where she grew up the middle child of three to teacher parents, singing along to the pop songs of the day into an ice-cream cone 'microphone'. 'Music was always something I loved, but I was led to believe it was a hobby,' she says. 'I still can't really believe that I do it as my profession now.' An early key moment in her career came when Stagg was just 11 years old. 'My grandfather had passed away in East Gippsland and all the extended family went there for the funeral,' she says. 'I led the congregation, just totally untrained, in singing Amazing Grace. At the end of the wake a distant cousin slipped a hundred dollar note into my hand with a card that read, 'This is for your first singing lessons, and please invite me when you sing at the Sydney Opera House'.' Stagg took those singing lessons and thrived, going on to Melbourne University to study music, singing in the Trinity College Choir, which proved invaluable training. 'The repertoire changes every week,' she says. 'So you have to get very fit at reading and singing what's on the page.' It was also in Melbourne that Stagg first saw an orchestra play live. Loading 'It was the university student orchestra, and it was the first time I'd heard these instruments: a clarinet, a flute, a trumpet,' she says. 'I probably would've heard them without realising in film scores, but I'd never seen them and identified that that's the colour that I'm hearing. I was just blown away and I was like, 'Wow, I've got a lot to catch up on'!' After Melbourne, Stagg was selected for the Salzburg Festival Young Singers program and appointed a soloist at the Deutsche Oper Berlin where, she says, she 'learned her craft'. 'I was six years as a principal soloist in Berlin,' she says. 'My training up until then had been music, but not really any of the stagecraft that opera requires. In German houses you go through a huge volume of repertoire in a year. I was able to learn in a 12-month season probably 12 or 15 productions - small roles, medium roles, some big roles.' Next week, Stagg will finally get to perform for the first time on the Joan Sutherland Theatre stage at the Sydney Opera House with Opera Australia. Stagg will sing the role the servant Susanna in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, widely regarded as one of the most demanding in the soprano repertoire. 'Susanna is a role that I love,' she says. 'I love playing her. She is a very relatable character, funny and sincere at the same time.' 'I love playing Susanna. She is a very relatable character, funny and sincere at the same time.' Siobhan Stagg And while this will be her first appearance on the Joan Sutherland Stage it is not her first time performing at the Sydney Opera House itself. She sang in the Concert Hall there in 2016 alongside tenor Roberto Alagna. And it was then she was able to fulfil her part of the bargain to the distant relative who set her on the path to stardom all those years ago in East Gippsland. 'I was able to invite that cousin and thank her for changing my life,' says Stagg. 'It was a beautiful full circle.'
