Albums… What A Concept, Part II:
by John J. Madonna
Uggh... "concept album." I read a review dubbing Goodbye Yellow Brick Road “a concept album without a concept.” This bugs me. Firstly, that kind of sounds like a bad thing, and I’ll be gosh darned if I sit by and let anyone say anything bad about pre-1976-slash-post-1994 Elton John. Secondly, if Yellow Brick is truly a “concept album without a concept”—or “album” as I like to say—what constitutes a concept album? A running storyline like The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, song-cycle like construction ala Tommy, a musical theme like Pet Sounds, or simply cross-fades and a reprise like Sgt. Pepper’s?
The term “concept album” blankets so much that it ends up meaning very little: a generalization for any album conceived as a forty or eighty minute record instead of a gaggle of individual songs. By this, Goodbye...Road is surely a concept album, but so would be Blonde on Blonde or Exile on Main St., though I’ve never heard them so dubbed. In fact, since music changed focus from singles to albums, what couldn’t fall under this category? I propose we just kill the term concept album. I mean, if I wanted to argue… oh, I don’t know… uh… hmm… let me check the shelf for some ludicrous example; I’ll be right back… {John in the distance}: What? {Frantic co-worker that kind of sounds like the adults on Charlie Brown} No, I can’t help you find a fire extinguisher; I’m busy. Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa You know, you attract more flies with honey . Wa, wa, wa! I told you I’m busy!… Okay, sorry about that, here we go. Sea Stories by Minnie Driver. Now, I’ve never listened to this record—frankly I grabbed it because I’m just plum surprised Minnie recorded an album—but I’m sure if I do listen, I’ll come up with a reason why it’s a concept album. So let’s just end the insanity right here.
As far as the transition from singles to albums go, I hate to be one of those people that points everything back to The Beatles, but this really all points back to The Beatles. They wrote and recorded a large enough volume of good songs and thus allowed themselves the luxury of not basing albums around singles and therefore giving them more thought. Records like Help! and Rubber Soul, though not concept albums, have a more unified sound, leading to things like Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s (not to mention Pet Sounds.)
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