Why do you think concept albums have never caught on?

Question

With the exception of Pink Floyd's 'The Wall', most concept albums fall by the wayside pretty quickly. Even Queensryche's 'Operation : Mindcrime', which in my opinion, is one of the most brilliant concepts and amazing pieces of rock music ever recorded, launched with great mainstream success, but seems to have withered away to a niche audience.

I have my own theories as to why, but I would be interested in the thoughts of others on this.

Answer 1

In my humble opinion, a lot of people don't want to think about a concept when they are listening to music. Many listen to music as an escape. I think it is terrible that concept albums ar so under-appreciated. Operation Mindcrime, Queen's A Night At the Opera, and (more recently) NiN's Year Zero are a few of my favorite concept albums.

Answer 2

What do you mean they didn't catch on?

I have all of these in my music collection, and I often hear people talking about them :

Dark Side of The Moon - Pink Floyd

Thick As A Brick - Jethro Tull
War Child - Jethro Tull

Mike Oldfield :~

Tubular Bells
Tubular Bells II
Tubular Bells III
Ommadawn
Hergest Ridge
Incantations


Admitedly, the concept album is usually found within the 'prog rock' genre, and you don't see many of them these days.

Most music listeners these days just don't have the *{can't think of the right word!}* to appreciate this style of music. They all want 2 minute throw-away bland nonsense ~ they aren't willing to look deeper into music.

Answer 3

I would have to say a main reason is the 'throw-away' society we live in these days.

Those listening to 'popular' music don't really care how 'deep' the music is...just how much of said music they have.

When The Wall came out....it was the days when A) you had to listen to the radio or save up and buy the album; B) if you were lucky, you would go to the concert and 'see' the band on tour; and C) for some reason there was a certain 'mysticism' about the music of our day (Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, and yes...even Black Sabbath).

These things have certainly been pushed aside by the 'more-more-more' intellect of the new generation. It's become all about quantity and not quality.

Answer 4

I think the technology boom with the advent of the CD, MP3, etc. has a lot to do with it. Before you would buy a vinyl album and sit down and listen to EVERY song. This made the concept album appealing when the Beatles released Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, then Pink Floyd, etc. Now with today's technology, we skip through songs so fast that if you don't hear the "concept" in the first 10 seconds, then we just "click" past it. It has created an impatience on our overall listening ability and it makes it impossible for any "album" to be listened through the whole way. If you sat a most people down and put on Queensryche, Floyd, etc. most of their heads would explode because they would be wanting to "skip" to the next. I think all albums should be fixed so you can't skip or fast forward. I call it "tough love" for music listeners because technology is a drug that we are all buying into which causes us to look for the "hook" at the beginning rather than at 1:00 minute into a song, god forbid.

Answer 5

I saw the titled question and immediately thought to respond with something about Pink Floyd (my all-time favorite , bar none) .
So kudos to you Deke , for knowing that The Wall is recognized as the first and definitely the best example of a concept album .
Styx often gets overlooked on this one too .
But I think the inherent reason that others don't produce concept albums is mostly because they either aren't talented or deep enough to produce one , or because many groups get caught-up in the dizzying world of attempting to produce 'hits' rather than concepts . So I would have to say it's a matter of 'vision' and guts .

Answer 6

The honest truth is that most, myself included, have somewhat short attention spans. Usually if I want a story, I'll go buy a book or watch a movie. I have never been a huge fan of the prog-rock hallmarks, the 15 minute songs, the interconnected story lines, etc. Of course, that's why I like punk where the songs pack a punch in just over two minutes. But hey, don't sell short the power of the concept album. R. Kelly had success with TP-3: Reloaded. You know, that insanity with Trapped in the Closet. Hip-hopera, lol.

Silver-Rose-Wolf - I beg to differ on "two-minute nonsense." You can get a lot of meaning into a short time.

Answer 7

I guess most people don't like to venture outside their comfort zone, so they stick to the mainstream stuff. Also, concept albums often aren't publicized the way more mainstream stuff is, and since concept albums tend to be covered more in, say, music magazines, it's for that reason that it's the big music aficionados rather than the mainstream audience who gravitate more towards concept albums.

Answer 8

I like them personally, the last one I bought was A Grand Don't Come for Free by The Streets.

Answer 9

Because the reaction to music is so primal that attaching too much mental energy or conceptualization to a piece takes it
out of the realm of music and embeds it firmly into ideology?

Answer 10

They did catch on. What are you talking about?