thnx rockman...goes deep and gets the pure bedrock diamond of the thing of course...pulls woody right to the heroic forefront, where he always belongs...
i'm only surprised he didn't mention merle haggard's 'train songs' albums (a fave of mine) but not really rock...but boy does it roll, heh heh...
and ty chelseadrugstore for mentioning 'village green pres. socieity' by the kinks...
yep it's 68, so not the first rock concept album per se, (then again a '68 release means recording in '67 probably and all these songs fully realized, so i think it's really fair to say he was more of a contemporary with brian wilson and lennon/mccartney/harrison etc...rather right with them, then a copycat...
but deserves mention, not just because it's so early on, but because it's brilliant...and because Ray then did it time and time again...like a novelist...or a series of short novellas or like dang operettas i guess...
arthur: the declind and fall of the british empire (wow)
lola vs. powerman and the money go round (wpw)
soap opera, schoolboys, muswell hillbillies, preservation, and on and on...
and on.
no arguing with the genius of the who's quadro and tommy, none at all...
nor with the others peeps bound to mention...but comparatively, it seemed like ray would churn out a cohesive and brilliantly original concept album at the drop of a hat, year after year after year...
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and oh yeh, imo freakout by zappa absolutely a concept album!! clear at time of release to take as a whole experience...that in '66 and probably written '65 and earlier...zappa was out there form the beginning...
i saw him on a steve allen tv show in a suit and tie, way before hippie days, way way before...(utube or one of those has it...) and short hair way back when...using a bicycle as a musical instrument...god bless frank
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and oh yeh part two...
them dylan albums like blonde on blonde and others were not concept albums per se i realize...but those often seemed as one dramatic piece...the whole listening experience of the whole album was prevalent back then...everything in order as the artist presented it...and it all seemed of a mysterious place and time all it's own, even when contemporary and newly released...atmospherically, one could say...and not just musically of course, but themateically and emotionally...so dylan figures in there somehow for me but i can't explain it more clearly....
i really am old school; i think an album should be about thirty five to forty five minutes; something to get in one concentrated sitting; take the artist on his or her own proscenium and receive what was given in proper sequence and time...that's a lost art...and a bypassed one in today's technology for the most part...a further breakdown of the sacred space where one makes room for these kinds of visitations within oneself...and connections to the artists and writers in real time.
but technology marches on...
and we often get 'bargains' of over 70 or 80 minutes of crap and maybe, if lucky, a handful worth listening...so, you have to program computers to hear a record album...and it's distancing from the entire aesthetic of the artform itself...
in
mah
most and mostly
umblest
opinion....
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2007-05-25 06:09 by Beelyboy.