10 Greatest Concept Albums In Rock Music History

If you're an artist, you tend to take rock and roll a little bit more seriously than most. This isn't the kind of thing that is just throwaway material for people to dance to at the club. Music is supposed to mean more than just a handful of chords, and these are the true artists who were able to leave their expression on the tape.

This is not limited to the vinyl era of the rock scene either. In the realm of rock music, it almost seems like a rite of passage for you to try to write a concept album at some point, abandoning the regular songs about girls and drugs and turning in something a lot more surreal. Though some of these tracks tend to play a little bit fast and loose with the roles of what constitutes a concept record, the real beauty is in the eye of the beholder, with the songs being tied together with a central theme rather than just your average linear story through everything.

Especially when you listen to these things on headphones, these aren't just your average rock albums that has a banger at every single turn. These musicians are looking to create their own worlds with sound on here, and many rock fans are lucky to have paid a visit to these worlds whenever they push play on the record.

After being the villain of rock and roll for the first decade of his career, Alice Cooper was actually in a lot more danger than the kind he sang about. Once Muscle of Love didn't really register with the public, every band member except Alice decided it was time to quit the band, leaving lonely Vincent Furnier as the last man standing. Instead of just fading into obscurity though, our favorite madman took the gamble and gave us an album ripped straight out of a horror show.

For anyone even remotely interested in shock rock, Welcome to My Nightmare is pretty much ground zero, showing all of the main hallmarks for the genre. Though the actual music is still the traditional hard rock sounds that most people know, there's a lot more theatricality in the arrangements here, with the title track sounding like a Vegas show and even bringing in horror icon Vincent Price for Devil's Food.

Though there's no lyrical connection in every one of these songs, the back half of the record captures you in a certain vibe, especially when the song Stephen kicks in and we see this vision of a little boy get taken over by a demon from the inside out. Because if there's one thing we've learned from Alice's music, it's that we have to get a nice look at the dark to appreciate the light.