I've been threshing out the meaning of a "concept album" in my brainbox of late. One of my favorite albums, The Black Parade (quiet at the back, it's brilliant), is described by it's creators as a concept album. It would seem to be about someone dying of cancer, but then it throws a few complete curve-balls with songs like "Mama" (which is about going to war. And not a metaphorical war with cancer, either- a bombs and guns and soldiers war) and "Teenagers".
But then take Tonight, by Franz Ferdinand, which was described by lead singer Alex Kapranos as "a very loose concept album". How loose? So loose, say, that the only common factor throughout the album is the band?
But then you've got a Dream Theatre concept album which is so thunderously narrow and blatantly clear to anyone higher up the evolutionary scale than an erogenous zone as to leave the listener with not one ounce of equivocation as to the story of the album they have just listened to. Oh, wait a second.
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