On a slightly different topic to the 'Favourite Album' thread, I'd like to talk more generally about Albums.

More specifically about Albums as a whole, and if the art of releasing an album as a whole is dying. Sure, you can buy collections of recent songs on a CD -- but I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about albums with a theme to them and not as a mere collection of songs. For instance, the album Plans by Death Cab for Cutie has several underlying themes to it, and this helps tie each song together as a whole. And some albums even make a point of making each song transition to the next, as with Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, and The Fragile by Nine Inch Nails.

But some albums are just recent material by an artist, and filler tracks they put in to get in the way of the one track you should have just purchased as a single. And is it just me, or are more albums recently like this, sometimes so bad you wind up skipping to the point of missing half the album...?

I need to find more albums that you can sit down and listen to from beginning to end, and be taken on a journey, or explore a theme from different angles, or other fun stuff.

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Funny, the Wikipedia article describes a Concept Album as such:

'In popular music, a concept album is an album which is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical" Most often they are pre-planned (conceived) and with all songs contributing to a single overall theme or unified story, this plan or story being the concept. This is in contrast to the standard practice of an artist or group releasing an album consisting of a number of unconnected songs that the members of the group or the artist have written, or have been chosen to perform or cover. Given that the suggestion of something as vague as an overall mood often tags a work as being a concept album, a precise definition of the term proves problematic.'

But the thing is, I wouldn't describe Ben Folds last album, Songs for Silverman or for that matter, any of Ben Folds' albums, as "concept albums". However they do have a few common threads that go through the tracks, and a few nifty things. The Unauthorised Biography of Reinhold Messner by Ben Folds Five even has tracks that refer to other tracks (lyrically or musically) on the album but I wouldn't call it a concept album either.

Ahh, the concept of concept albums does my head in.

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