Top 10 Rock Concept Albums of the Past 10 Years #1

#1: Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume I: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness by Coheed and Cambria (2005): Once again proving that bands that like concept albums also like long album titles, Coheed and Cambria gives us the top concept album of the last ten years. Much like The Dear Hunter, judging Coheed’s concept album credentials on a single album is unfair, as all four of their current albums (and one upcoming album) consist of a single story. For fans of Rush’s 2112, this science fiction epic takes places in the fictional universe known as Heaven’s Fence. The story is a bit complicated, and Tolkienian in detail. Thus, the band has helped the layperson by issuing a series of comic books that masterfully illustrate the tale of Claudio Kilgannon and the other inhabitants of Heaven’s Gate. Musically, Coheed and Cambria have often been compared to Led Zeppelin in their more rock-driven tunes like the album’s first single “Welcome Home.” The band also includes brilliant reworkings of songs from their previous albums incorporating them into new songs usually with a new vocal melody and different lyrics. For example, “The Willing Well III: Apollo II: The Telling Truth” (another long title) features a reprise of the song “Blood Red Summer” from In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3. Album highlights: “Welcome Home” and “The Willing Well IV: The Final Cut”

Top 10 Rock Concept Albums of the Past 10 Years #2

#2: Act II: The Meaning of, & All Things Regarding Ms. Leading (2007) by The Dear Hunter: Deer Hunter creator, songwriter, and front-man Casey Crescenzo fashioned the story of the Dear Hunter as a six album endeavor, this being the second installment. The band certainly is prolific; Act II originally featured around two hours of music, which had to be cut down to just under 80 minutes to fit on a single disc. Set at the turn of the twentieth century, the story follows the birth, life, and death of the main protagonist, known only as the Dear Hunter. Act II begins with the death of the Dear Hunter’s mother. Following her demise, he travels to a nearby brothel to learn more about his mother to whose profession as a former prostitute he owes his birth. While there, he falls in love with the working woman Ms. Leading, but their love affair falls apart as our protagonist cannot deal with her line of work. Although a modern progressive rock band, The Dear Hunter creates a musical atmosphere in Act II that places the listener at the beginning of the twentieth century. Although it would be more appropriate to put the complete works of the Dear Hunter here rather than only one album, this is their coming-of-age piece. Album highlights: “The Procession” and “Red Hands.”

Top 10 Rock Concept Albums of the Past 10 Years #3

#3: De-loused in the Comatorium (2003) by the Mars Volta: As one of the intellectual and musical descendents of Pink Floyd and Genesis (Peter Gabriel-era), the Mars Volta created a real gem with their debut album, De-loused in the Comatorium. Based on a short story written by singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala and sound manipulator Jeremy Michael Ward, De-loused follows the main character Cerpin Taxt through a rat poison and morphine induced coma. Upon waking, he becomes unsatisfied with the real world and plunges to his death. Many songs feature a jazzy beat with a bit of flamenco flare wrapped around hard rock guitar riffs and the Robert Plantesque swooning of Bixler-Zavala. The Mars Volta made experimental instrumentation and odd time signatures cool again with De-loused in the Comatorium. Album highlights: “Inertiatic ESP” and “This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed.”

Top 10 Rock Concept Albums of the Past 10 Years #4

#4: Blood Mountain (2006) by Mastodon: Great for the lovers of progressive metal, fantasy, and dark humor, Mastodon’s third full-length album follows the story’s protagonist up Blood Mountain (a real peak in Georgia), as he searches for the Crystal Skull. Upon acquiring the Crystal Skull, he hopes to place it at Blood Mountain’s apex. Along the way, the main character meets some crazy creatures such as the Cysquatch (a single-eyed Bigfoot that can see the future) and the Birchmen (a group of tree people who combine to form one giant tree). Mastodon pays homage to their concept album predecessors Genesis, through their song “Colony of Birchmen,” a slight name change from Genesis’s track, “Colony of Slippermen.” Like other Mastodon albums, Blood Mountain features magnificent artwork, a feature highlighted in the video for “Colony of Birchmen.” Album highlights: “The Wolf is Loose” and “This Mortal Soil.”

Top 10 Rock Concept Albums of the Past 10 Years #5

#5: Trainwreck (2005) by Boys Night Out: One of the more tightly-knit storylines, Boys Night Out’s Trainwreck follows the Patient, a man who accidently kills his wife during a dream. Following her death, the Patient is hospitalized, but ultimately convinces the Doctor (the story’s other main character) to release him, which he promptly does. Following his release, he feels overwhelming guilt for his actions, and cuts off his hands. Back in the hospital, the Patient begins hearing the voice of his dead wife, a part performed by the band’s female keyboardist, Kara Dupuy. To combat the madness, he begins composing a song in his head. Again, the Patient convinces the doctor to let him out (just because you go to medical school doesn’t mean you have good judgment), this time to visit friends and family, who the Patient ends up poisoning (“So come over to my house…we’re having strychnine and sirloin”). The last few songs focus on the Patient’s plummet toward a tragic death at his own hands with the Doctor watching in horror. Album highlights: “Medicating” and “Relapsing.”

Top 10 Rock Concept Albums of the Past 10 Years #7

#7: Kezia (2006) by Protest the Hero: One of the more creative organizational themes, Protest the Hero’s Kezia tells the story of woman named Kezia set to be executed by firing squad. The album features 3 songs from the perspective of a prison priest, 3 from a prison guard, and 3 from Kezia, with an exclamation point retrospective finale song. The effect is a climax of Biblical proportions every third song. Outside of the story, the musicianship is extraordinary on all fronts. The band also crafted a rather comedic video for their single “Heretics and Killers,” which featured the band members dressed as the evil flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz, who have been forced to find new work following the Wicked Witch of the West’s untimely demise. Album highlights: “Heretics and Killers” and “Divinity Within.”

Top 10 Rock Concept Albums of the Past 10 Years #8

#8: Catch Without Arms (2005) by Dredg: The band already had two concept albums when they released Catch Without Arms, and although those albums had more concrete storylines, this release truly showed the bands musicianship and creativity. The band intended the album to consist of two groups of songs that argued against each other; more or less polar opposites. Also well-known for their artwork, created by bassist Drew Roulette and singer Gavin Hayes, the pair created an abstract painting for each song, which featured elements of the meaning behind the song. Album highlights: “Bug Eyes” and “Ode to the Sun.”

Grammy Nominees Revealed

In a CBS special last night (one that I could only stand for about 5 minutes), some of the Grammy Nominees were announced. I have to admit, I stopped caring about who won Grammys a long time ago. The best music, according to the jerkoffs that choose the winners, are some of the artists I loathe most of all. Anyway, I still always check to see who gets nominated in the hard rock, alternative, and metal categories. I honestly can't say where they come up with these nominees. For example:

Best Hard Rock Performance - AC/DC, Alice in Chains, Linkin Park, Metallica and Nickelback.
Best Metal Performance - Judas Priest, Lamb of God, Megadeth, Ministry, and Slayer

First of all, Linkin Park and Nickelback haven't made a hard rock album in years and AC/DC has been washed up since about 1988. Alice in Chains is probably still hard rock, but Alice in Chains died when Layne Staley did. And shouldn't a band named METAllica be nominated in the category of metal.
Speaking of the metal category, I have only one point. All these are good metal bands, but only one of them (Lamb of God) does anything relevant to today's music scene. If the other four bands were involved in the same race say in the 90s, then someone would care. It's not like Best Pop Vocal Album features KC & the Sunshine Band, the Beegees, and the Jackson 5, it has the Black Eyed Peas and Kelly Clarkson (who might be pop washed up, she has been around for awhile).

The Grammys air sometime in February...I think...who cares.

Top 10 Rock Concept Albums of the Past 10 Years

As promised, I will be bringing you content more frequently. If you have been reading this blog for the last couple of months, you might remember a post I made about a list featuring the best concept albums of all time. I posted a few of my favorites back then. Shortly thereafter, I wrote a top 10 essay of concept albums in the past 10 years that I initially had plans to do something with, but never did. The following is the introduction to that essay and #10 on the list. Check back each day (if I remember) to read a new entry on the list. Enjoy!

During the late 1960s and continuing through the 1970s, some of the most influential and respected rock bands of our time popularized the concept album. Of these, the most well-known include Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, The Who’s Tommy, and The Beatles’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. For those who don’t know, a concept album is merely an album composed of a series of songs united by a theme. The popular ones, like Floyd’s The Wall and The Who’s Tommy, tell a specific story, ones which have been made into movies with Hollywood’s greats acting out every wonderful song. Yet, the concept album is not a new idea (not even in the twentieth century, as one could consider Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen composed during the nineteenth century to be the precursor to some of the later works), but it has within the last 10 years or so, seemed to have made a strong comeback.

Most recent “best of lists” include Green Day’s American Idiot. A massive commercial success, the album resurrected the band from the droves of pop-punk mediocrity. Although popular success often defines greatness in the music industry today, the following list of the top 10 concept albums of the last 10 years does not necessarily take that into account. In contrast, this list focuses on story, theme, lyrics, musicianship, creativity, and visual art, all parts of a complete project.

#10: Songs for the Deaf (2002) by Queens of the Stone Age: Considered by many to be one of the best albums by the Grammy-nominated artists, Songs for the Deaf just makes the cut. The collection of songs and their respective interludes are meant to take the listener on a trip from the Mojave Desert to Los Angles, all the while tuning into local radio stations. The group brought in legendary drummer Dave Grohl, enhancing the credibility of the project. The music videos for the album featured scenes of the band in or on an automobile. For example, the video for “No One Knows” features members of the band driving in a truck at night when they hit a deer. After believing the dear to be dead, they load it into the truck only to have it wake up and wreak havoc. Album highlights: “No One Know” and “First it Giveth”

Jack White and the Kanye Diss

Say what you will about the music of The White Stripes, but Jack White is cool. Here he is at the Toronto Film Festival doing his best Kanye West impression, but he is interrupting the director of a documentary about his band to let everyone know that "Orson Welles made the greatest movie of all time!" (Which I'm sure he must mean Welles's voice performance of planet eating psychopath Unicron in the 1986 Transformers movie)

The Art of Douchebaggery

I don't really like rap or hip-hop music, but I think Kanye West is good. However, he is just a complete douche as a person. This is the video of him interrupting poor Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards to say that Beyonce is better. For the record, I'm not a fan of Taylor Swift, but Beyonce sucks. When her music comes on the radio, it makes my ears bleed. Since the incident, West has made several insincere apologies to Swift. May I just quote a couple of things West has recently said in an apology, for your viewing pleasure:

"So many celebrities, they never take the time off. I've never taken the time off to really — you know, just music after music and tour after tour. I'm just ashamed that my hurt caused someone else's hurt. My dream of what awards shows are supposed to be, 'cause, and I don't try to justify it because I was just in the wrong. That's period."

If anyone can tell me what the hell that means, that would be great.

Best and Worst Concept Albums

http://paralleluniverse.msn.com/photos/music/rock-concept-albums/

Here is a link to what MSN calls "Rock Concept Albums: Triumphs and Travesties." I am a big fan of concept albums, so when I see a list like this I am always interested. However, I would say that for the most part this list is shit. I mean Green Day's American Idiot....one of the best concept albums...in the same league as Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon or the Who's Tommy? That is just asinine. Furthermore, labelling anything produced by Genesis (even We Can't Dance) as a travesty is mind-boggling. Maybe the story in the Lamb Lies Down On Broadway is a bit silly, but what concept album doesn't have a silly story. Have you seen the Tommy movie? Its fairly ridiculous, but incredibly awesome. I would also have to say that calling Rush's 2112 and Floyd's The Wall travesties is also blasphemy. Here is a list (in no particular order) of some concept albums that I enjoy, that are not included on the list.

• Kezia by Protest the Hero
• What to Do When You are Dead by Armor for Sleep
• Leviathan, Blood Mountain, and Leviathan by Mastodon
• Every Album by Coheed and Cambria (Surprising MSN missed this one considering that they have an interview with the band's frontman on the homepage)
  
• Every Album by The Dear Hunter
• Catch Without Arms by Dredg
• The Alchemy Index Vols. I-IV by Thrice
• Trainwreck by Boys Night Out
• De-loused in the Comatorium and Frances the Mute by The Mars Volta

This is only a sample. I'm sure there is many more that I have forgotten. Let me know what you think about MSN's list and speak your mind about your favorite concept albums. Until next time...