Concept Albums Quotes

I was talking to my dad about the stuff he grew up listening to, and 'Operation: Mindcrime' is a record that he had always talked about around the house. He always talked about it as the 'greatest concept album of all time.' One day, I started listening to it, and it just hit me. I was like, 'These songs are all hits. They're all huge songs.'

Dream Theater music, there's a lot of background and context to the songs, as far as the subject matter and the albums they come from.

Who'll love Aladdin Sane? Battle cries and champagne just in time for sunrise.

I think the best rappers practice concept albums in their work.

In the 1960s, people were trying to get away from the pop song format. Tracks were getting longer, or much, much shorter.

In 'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac,' Mr. Yorke's lyrics were often unfathomable, moaned and mumbled and forced beneath the surface of the music. In 'Hail to the Thief,' most but not all of the words can be decoded after a few listens.

I'm a fan of records you get and you listen to them from beginning to finish - records where everything is there for a purpose. There was never any filler on those records - it was all well planned out.

With Nine Inch Nails, it's all Trent Reznor. So when we get a new record from Nine Inch Nails, it depends on what side of the bed Trent's waking up on and what he's been eating lately and what he's been into. Because he's preparing the whole meal.

My first album, 'Englaborn,' was based on music originally written for the theatre. My solo albums, like 'IBM 1401, a User's Manual' and 'Fordlandia,' have also had narratives attached to them.

My favorite records are, like, The Pretty Things' 'Parachute' and 'S.F. Sorrow' and The Mothers of Invention's 'We're Only in It for the Money' and The Kinks' 'Village Green Preservation Society' - these records that have a story - even if it's not a literal story - because of how they're sequenced and flow. It's like a novel with sound.

I thought 'Arnold Layne' was a nice name and fitted well into the music I had already composed. Then I thought, 'Arnold must have a hobby,' and it went from there.

I run an independent company, Knockout Entertainment. We've always come out with records that had a concept that impacted really, really, really hard.

That's what bands like Pink Floyd and bands like Rush and even the Metallica of this world have, which is long, ambitious songs that pull in all different directions.

I went through a big Alice Cooper phase, which was probably a major influence on my writing style later, especially after Plastic Surgery Disasters.

I like expansive stuff that has a lot of space in it, like some of the early Pink Floyd albums.

There's no doubt that prog rock has an image problem: many musicians hate the label, and too many people associate it with 10-minute drum solos and the weirder bits of JRR Tolkien.

I can't think of any musician or producer who has influenced me more than Brian Eno. From when he was in Roxy Music, producing Devo, the Talking Heads and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.

Progressive rock was happening.

When you look at what we can call the golden era of concept albums, which starts in the mid or late '60s and ends maybe in the early '80s, it's an interesting time for music. You see all these very established and popular acts and bands and artists that were somehow on the top of their game but really trying to experiment.

There are bands who write of emotions that are very heartbreaking, touching, or relatable, but they'll be like concept records, they're about fictional characters.

I do have my more concept-y albums, and then I have the ones that are more about just collections of songs. For me, the first Dirty Projectors record that I put out was like that: 'The Glad Fact.'