Almost a year ago (when I began writing this particular entry), I went through my entire CD collection and arranged it in alphabetical (by artist) and chronological (by release date) order. Turns out, I have a lot of CDs. Somewhere in the vicinity of 350, not including mixed CDs and my own, humble recordings.
Anyhoo, if you were to look at my CD collection, you’d see that a LOT of the albums are by the same artists. Why is this? Because despite the vastness of my collection, my tastes are not all that varied or eclectic. The one thing that ties many of the bands and albums together, that keeps them in my pile is the prevalence of conceptual continuity in the band’s work. Conceptual continuity refers to a pervading similarity and consistency of theme, message, musical motifs, etc from album to album.
Unsurprisingly, one of my favourite genres of music is progressive rock, a genre which often makes use of conceptual continuity, overtly or subtly. As such, one of the staples of progressive rock throughout its existence is the concept album.
Let’s take a minute to define a concept album.
Anyhoo, if you were to look at my CD collection, you’d see that a LOT of the albums are by the same artists. Why is this? Because despite the vastness of my collection, my tastes are not all that varied or eclectic. The one thing that ties many of the bands and albums together, that keeps them in my pile is the prevalence of conceptual continuity in the band’s work. Conceptual continuity refers to a pervading similarity and consistency of theme, message, musical motifs, etc from album to album.
Unsurprisingly, one of my favourite genres of music is progressive rock, a genre which often makes use of conceptual continuity, overtly or subtly. As such, one of the staples of progressive rock throughout its existence is the concept album.
Let’s take a minute to define a concept album.
Here’s what wikipedia says:
“In popular music, a concept album is an album that is “unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical”. Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing to a single overall theme or unified story. This is in contrast to the standard practice of an artist or group releasing an album consisting of a number of unconnected (lyrically or otherwise) songs performed by the artist. Given that the suggestion of something as vague as an overall mood often tags a work as being a concept album, a precise definition of the term proves problematic.”
Now, in that definition lies the very reason why I love concept albums: a unifying theme or narrative. I like music to tell a story. I like continuity. I feel like an album full of songs that aren’t connected might as well be sold off song by song as mp3s. Now, you know how I feel about the “music single” mentality and digital music.
Long story short: a single is disposable, and cannot possibly be representative of a good musician’s work, because commercial viability is apparently more important than nuance, subtlety, production value, etc. Likewise, the mp3, “shuffle” and, playlist schema propagates and perpetuates that single mentality, removing songs from their primary context: the album. The crime of removing a song from its context is especially heinous when the album happens to be a concept album.
Before I get too lost in that topic, let’s talk about unifying themes and narratives. Some say that every song tells a story. That might be true, but is it a simple boy-meets-girl story, or is it just a chapter in a larger story that has some kind of resonating relevance? Is i t just one small story being told in the grander story that is the concept album?
Before I get too lost in that topic, let’s talk about unifying themes and narratives. Some say that every song tells a story. That might be true, but is it a simple boy-meets-girl story, or is it just a chapter in a larger story that has some kind of resonating relevance? Is i t just one small story being told in the grander story that is the concept album?
In order to explore a few of these themes and narratives, I'm going to do an ongoing and sporadic series on concept albums in the form of combined literary analyses / music reviews.
No comments:
Post a Comment