Favourite Pop Concepts

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Not "Favourite Concept Albums", but your favourite *concepts* for pop records, regardless of whether the album was good or not. So for example you might think Tommy sucked but the idea of a record about a disabled pinball player was a really cool one. Admittedly that's unlikely but you get the idea.

― Tom, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I will kick this one off with Julie London's "Calendar Girl". 12 tracks, each with the name of a month in it (some rather obviously had to be written specially). Ends with "The Thirteenth Month", which is called that for some lovelorn reason I can't remember. Anyway a neat idea for a record.

― Tom, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And (how shameful if my two replies to this ended up being the only two) -

"Most famous band in world puts on dodgy cavalry twill and pretends to be a vaudeville act" isn't actually a bad notion for a record. A shame the Beatles didn't actually make that record.

― Tom, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Not really a thematic concept, but I really liked the idea of Solex: Elisabeth Esselink works in an Amsterdam record shop and makes an LP entirely using samples from the shop's stock of obscure and neglected vinyl, using the word 'Solex' in every title.

Unfortunately, despite her having an appeallingly wayward Raincoatsy voice and a way with a words, it's not very good.

― Michael Jones, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

One of my favourite concepts was an album by the Masters of the Hemisphere: "I am not a Freemdoom"...it chronicled the life of an evil dog, his bodyguard and two heroes who set out to stop his heinous plans, one of the heroes was torn limb from limb and eventually got reassembled. It's cool!

― jel, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Romo!

― Sterling Clover, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Working Holiday

― JM, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh, come on, kids. The Concept Album is dead.

― the pinefox, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The concept album will *never* die! Anyway, my favourite band concept was that of Servotron who dressed up as robots and were intent on destroying all humans...they had lyrics like "today's your birthday, we are going to kill you". They were a great pop band! My second favourite concept is Man or Astro-man? coz they are from outer- space...though they are changing to more of an inner-space/time travel concept these days!

― jel, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh and my third fave concept is Devo! How on Earth could I have forgotten them!?! Would anyone agree that Kraftwerk are a concept band...in terms of defining human relationships with machinery?

― jel, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The concept album is dead? I have recently aquired evidence to the contrary.

― Ally C, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the boo radleys 'wake up'-- a day in the life of martin carr, was that cool?

alan mcgee would know.

― keith, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Blondie.

― JM, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Add N To (X): Avant Hard

A concept album about the machines getting human emotions and then quietly buggering us in the middle of the night... Kraftwerk but taken to a very strong tongue-in-cheek extreme!

― Charlie Frame, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ehm, what about "Dusk at the cubist castle" by Olivia Tremor Control a totally mad concept album about california sinking into the ocean... besides it has ten track`s that go under the same title: green typewriters...

― Simone, Friday, 16 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I really enjoy the idea of bands dressing up in some form of military gear, Beatles included. Especially if there is no apparent reason for it. If I became famous, I'd do an album where I am wearing slutty military gear in all the liner pictures.

― Ally, Friday, 16 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was quite amused by The Shamen's "Ebeneezer Goode"... I mean, having to think of a ridiculously named shadowy character and his doings in order to be able to abbreviate his name curing the chorus to something sounding like "Es Are Good" does take bit of effort. Must have drunk a lot of herbal tea thinking up that one...

Old Fart!!!!

― Old Fart!!!!, Friday, 16 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"curing the chorus"?!?!?! Maybe "during the chorus"...

― Old Fart!!!!, Friday, 16 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Curing the chorus" would've been a good Pavement song title.

― jel, Friday, 16 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

But a bad song.

― the pinefox, Monday, 26 March 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

fourteen years pass...

bump. any good ones form the last 14 years?

― but then again, who really cares? I don’t. (dog latin), Tuesday, 28 April 2015 10:30 (ten years ago)

Andrew WK/LMFAO - same concept, slightly different execution.

― everything, Tuesday, 28 April 2015 17:31 (ten years ago)

the two Neil Cicierega mash-up albums, one of which uses Smash Mouth's "All Star" on every other track, while the other is set in an alternate present in which there is no "All Star", but contains a number of very subtle references to it, one being that if you speed up the entire album to the length of "All Star", you hear the verses and the whistle solo

― frogbs, Tuesday, 28 April 2015 17:56 (ten years ago)

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