10 Insane Plots From Concept Albums

10. Small Faces - Ogden's Nut Gone Flake

In 1968 there was a slew of concept albums recorded in Sgt. Pepper’s considerable wake, but Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake outranked offerings by The Kinks and The Mothers of Invention in terms of, well, kink and invention. The first side is a straightforward collection of psychedelic tunes, but the second side is a 19-minute fairy tale… of sorts. Be warned: the following synopsis only makes (marginal) sense in the context of the acid-fuelled late-'60s:

A boy called Happiness Stan, searching for the missing half of the moon comes across a starving fly whom he saves. Grateful, the insect balloons in size (naturally), and ushers Stan onto its back; the two travel through a magical land, eventually reaching the cave of Mad John the Hermit, who points out that the moon is full, and that Stan’s quest is pointless. Unfazed, they all sing a cheerful song.

Just in case this isn’t weird enough for you, much of the tale is narrated by comedian Stanley Unwin, who had developed his own dialect (“Unwinese”), full of neologisms and disordered sentences. The whole thing was clearly intended to be taken with a pinch of salt, and possibly other white substances.