Meanwhile, the sentimental and only partly tongue-in-cheek ‘Alma Mater’ was closer to the true Alice than anyone realized at the time. What could be more 70s than juvenile delinquency played for laughs? Alice Cooper was the man for the job, and this concept album gave him the hoped-for inroad to middle America. The double-LP Joe’s Garage takes some wild Zappa-esque turns to deal with repressive societies, religious cults, various sexual practices – and plenty of amazing guitar solos.Ĭlick to load video 29: Alice Cooper: School’s Out (1972) The first half of this epic, released as a single LP in 1979, tells a linear and very funny story of a garage band’s misadventures. It’s also a profoundly uplifting album, with his central point being that the truth is more beautiful than the deceptions. Lyrically he waxes philosophical about the lies that social and religious institutions convince us to tell ourselves. 35: Todd Rundgren: LiarsĪ relatively recent album that stands as one of the Wizard’s best, Liars puts Todd Rundgren’s melodic pop and blue-eyed soul instincts to the forefront. Both parts produced big hits, and both sound rather organic compared to some of her later productions. Pepper and Ziggy Stardust to Garth Brooks’ controversial Chris Gaines but Beyoncé does them all one better by adopting two characters here – her true self and her stage persona – with the former doing more traditional pop and R&B and the latter doing EDM. They even took American Idiot to Broadway, adapting their concept album into a stage show.Ĭlick to load video 36: Beyoncé: I Am…Sasha FierceĪdopting a persona is a time-honored way to make a concept album, from Sgt. Inspired by many of the below (especially The Jam and Who), Green Day reached for a political relevance and musical depth they’d barely approached in the past. It sounds too bizarre on paper to be as catchy as it is. This turned out to be the only other one, but it’s a grandly thematic work that touches on the state’s poetic history (Carl Sandburg and Saul Bellow both turn up), the state’s creepier episodes, and the writer’s own twisted sense of humor (Slade’s “Cum On Feel the Noize”) gets referenced more than once). 38: Sufjan Stevens: IllinoisĪfter saluting his home state on 2003’s Michigan, Sufjan Stevens promised 49 more concept albums. It also caught this perpetually underrated band at a peak, trading in their early R&B sound for something more sweeping and melodic, with enough Mellotron to make the Moody Blues take cover. Five months earlier, The Pretty Things made an album whose songs were all sung by characters and told a coherent, if less ambitious story. SorrowĬontrary to popular belief, The Who’s Tommy wasn’t the first rock opera. Click to load video 39: The Pretty Things: S.F.
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