Concept albums are hip again

Dreadful efforts by Kiss ("The Elder") and Styx ("Kilroy Was Here") in the early 1980s all but assured the doom of the concept album. Until now, few themed CDs have impacted pop culture during the past two decades.

The fresh spate of concept albums tackle many topics, but politics is an especially popular theme.

Political strife is almost impossible to ignore at the moment, says Jonathan Segel of Camper Van Beethoven. The folk-rock band's new record, their first in 15 years, tells the story of a young Texan man who enlists in the Army and goes to war. "We really started writing the material in late 2002," Segel says in an e-mail interview. "At that time things in the world were really starting to go haywire and I'm certain that that gets into our heads more than lightly. It can't help but be filtered out through songwriting."

Similar themes inspired the new Green Day collection, an indictment of American military might. The decision to make a concept album was both an evolution and a calculation, says Rob Cavallo, senior vice president of A&R at Warner Bros. Records.

Green Day, like many other rock acts, had long marveled over the Beatles' progression from straight-ahead albums built on singles ("Please Please Me") to more cohesive, thoughtful works ("The White Album" and "Sgt. Pepper"). When band leader Billie Joe Armstrong came up with the title track "American Idiot," Mr. Cavallo encouraged him to expand on the ideas of the song.

"I told them it was a platform to do some interesting things," he recalls. "And that sort of started it. If you think about it, this is a natural progression. Ten years ago, Green Day was singing about a young man's struggle to find himself at 21. Ten years later, at 31, it's only natural to ask, how did I get here?"

Not all of the new CDs are political.

Elvis Costello, who enjoys eschewing all forms of pop convention, does so again with the brooding "The Delivery Man," a rock-country amalgamation drenched in Mississippi mud and a less-than-linear tale of a troubled man named Abel and the women around him.

For Brian Wilson, "Smile," an album that's largely an ode to Americana, was the culmination of many frustrating starts and stops. Several songs from the sessions were released by the Beach Boys, but "Smile" became widely known as the most famous unreleased rock album in memory. Taking shards of the earlier efforts and assembling a new band of musicians, Wilson finally finished the album this year.

It is a complex work that will surprise many fans, Light says: "It's an art piece. If you're expecting 10 songs like 'Good Vibrations,' you're going to be disappointed."

For now, it remains to be seen whether more bands will attempt concept albums. For many, the stigma of the format remains a deterrent.

Segel, for one, has few concerns about his band's audacious endeavor.

"If [making a concept album] bothers people, tough. In a way, all records are put together as a collection of songs that fit together somehow," he says.

Page: 1 | 2