SF Concept Album Tragedy

Cat Sparks drew my attention to this article from Wired Magazine.

While it’s nice to see Kraftwerk and Gary Numan getting up, as a list of SF concept albums I think it’s selling the subgenre radically short.

Where are ELO’s “Time”, Styx’s “Kilroy was Here?”, Donald Fagen’s “Kamakiriad” and Jeff Wayne’s “War of the Worlds”? Wasn’t there one Hawkwind, Vangelis or Tangerine Dream album worth mentioning? Doesn’t dystopian political satire like Frank Zappa’s “Joe’s Garage” or Roger Waters’ “Amused to Death” count? And what about Alan Parsons, whose Project had no fewer than four albums that might qualify–”Tales of Mystery and Imagination”, “I, Robot”, “Pyramid” and “Eye in the Sky”?

No doubt I too am missing many potential titles. Musicals like “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and “Phantom of the Opera” have a good case to put forward. More experimental albums like “The Orb’s Adventures in the Ultraworld” surely deserve a mention. Somewhere out there (maybe right here) there’s a complete list just waiting to happen…

14 People have left comments on this post



» Lou Anders said: { Mar 28, 2006 - 12:03:30 }

Granted, it’s too soon to see whether or not it will endure, but I’d wager the Flaming Lips YOSHIMI VS THE PINK ROBOTS will make the cut one day.

» Jeremy Byrne said: { Mar 28, 2006 - 12:03:54 }

Metal bands remain the great exponents of the form (although for extreme genre silliness, few of them could rival the output of shock rockers GWAR). For my sci-fi concept album money though, the eurocentric synth-meets-trance of Futurepop is hard to go past. (Among the subgenre’s “big name” albums are Irishmen VNV Nation’s spookily retro-futurist “Praise the Fallen (2012)”, the slightly goofy but musically laudable UFO-themed “Welcome to Earth” from Norway’s Apoptygma Berzerk and any one of several of Swedish band Covenant’s albums since their debut “Dreams of a Cryotank“.)

And then, of course, there’s S.P.O.C.K.— but if you’re going to go that far, why not be an actual sci-fi band?

So Chris, where’s the LJ feed for this thing?

» Chris Lawson said: { Mar 28, 2006 - 12:03:01 }

LJ feed? Cripes, I’ve just figured out how to get the domain registrar to give me the URL, the host to serve the site, the FTP to communicate with the host, the API Key to talk to Akismet, the WordPress tags to show author names, and users to self-register. All in a few days. Give me some time and I’ll have us bouncing hyperspace-mail off an alien server at the Galactic Core.

» Jeremy Byrne said: { Mar 28, 2006 - 01:03:21 }

An LJ feed just requires someone with a paid account to paste in the link for your RSS feed (http://www.talkingsquid.net/feed/ which is linked incorrectly at the top of the blog, btw). That separate feed for comments may be a problem, though.

Does wordpress allow you to go back and edit comments? I wasn’t able to preview mine, so of course I stuffed up a couple of the best links in that last post…

» deborahb said: { Mar 28, 2006 - 09:03:14 }

I made an lj feed already. Because a blog without an lj feed is just plain weird.

http://syndicated.livejournal.com/talkingsquid/

» Chris Lawson said: { Mar 28, 2006 - 09:03:58 }

Thank you, Jeremy and Deb. Who says you can’t get good help no more?

» Robert Hood said: { Mar 29, 2006 - 09:03:30 }

Some SF concept albums I found in my CD cupboard:

Hawkwind, “Space Ritual”, “The Chronicle of the Black Sword” … oh, nearly everything they’ve done!

The Who, “Tommy”

Pete Townsend, “The Iron Man” (based on Ted Hughes’ book); also “Psychoderelict”

Genesis, “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway”

Rick Wakeman, “Journey to the Centre of the Earth”

Yes, “Tales of Topographic Oceans”

Queensryche, “Operation: Mindcrime”

King Crimson, “In the Court of the Crimson King”

The Alan Parsons Project, “I Robot”, “Tales of Mystery and Imagination”

Rush, “2112″

Concrete Blonde, “Bloodletting”

Assorted Pink Floyd and an album based on “The Hunting of the Snark” that I can’t find at the moment…

» Robert Hood said: { Mar 30, 2006 - 08:03:20 }

And I’m right now listening to Ozric Tentacles’ 1994 album ‘Become the Other”. Not exactly a concept album perhaps, but as there’s no vocals, it might as well be!

» Steve said: { Mar 30, 2006 - 04:03:16 }

What about Daft Punk’s Interstella5555? Techno with an accompanying anime film.

And action figures!

http://www.daftpunk.com/5555/index.html

Or the KLF with their continual Illuminatus references.

» Jacq said: { Dec 21, 2006 - 01:12:25 }

Ahem, Squiidites,
If We’re talking CONCEPT ALBUMS here, what about David Bowie’s “Diamond Dogs” I am ashamed that none off thought to mention it!
Jacq.

» Jacq said: { Dec 21, 2006 - 01:12:51 }

Oops, sorry, I’ve been stuck with aqua text on a lime green background here - that should have been “Ahem, Squiddites”

» Jacq said: { Dec 21, 2006 - 01:12:12 }

Aaand.. “none of you thought to mention it”

» caspar said: { Oct 4, 2007 - 07:10:21 }

ah, a blog post after my own heart. i just heard an album that’s turned me heavily onto concept albums & you guys clearly have to update your collections with it.

the protomen, by the protomen

it’s their debut & they only have one other release which is a remix of it in the 8-bit video game style.

but listen to tracks from it here :

http://www.myspace.com/theprotomen

& check out a video for their first track here :

http://www.protomen.com/

every song is a chapter in the story & every song is a powerful rock explosion.

…

ALSO - i just thought of one other, that lists beyond what you’ve listed so far, guys.

30 seconds to mars, by 30 seconds to mars
(a.k.a welcome to the universe)

they have since collapsed into emo obscurity, but their first album produced by bob ezrin (who also did pink floyd’s ‘the wall’) is a mighty science fiction concept album about saving ourselves by getting off this planet & escaping into the abyss to start a new word with new beliefs.

track it down though. their myspace only has their new (& awful) emos style songs. their first record they are ashamed of now for some reason - probably because it’s far better than they’ve become.

so yeah - dig in, dudes.

» Nick Stathopoulos said: { Oct 12, 2007 - 09:10:18 }

Woah! Sci-Fi concept albums…I’ve got gazzillions! From Mecco to Tomita…Vangelis to Toyah…Tangerine Dream etc. etc…but the all-time No. 1 has got to be Jeff Wayne’s musical War of the Worlds! Don’t get me started…
PS…attention Rob Hood: Mike Batt’s The Hunting of the Snark…yes I’ve got it too somewhere! Terrible! Did anyone see the live version on TV years ago?
PSS. Kraftwerk is responsible for me meeting Adrian…

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