10 Greatest Hard Rock Concept Albums

It's not unusual for bands to make sequel songs to one of their more noteworthy hits. From every stretch of rock music, everyone from Elton John to Blink-182 have all made songs that have been callbacks to their past glories. It's one thing to try to top your own song, but how about making a sequel album to a song?

While many Dream Theater fans became accustomed to the Metropolis suite from the band's second record Images and Words, no one could have expected the band making a sprawling opus to continue the storyline. Inspired by the prog rock bands of old like Genesis and Jethro Tull, the band spend the entire album following the character Nicholas as he goes through his entire life cycle. As he sees different incarnations of himself, he tries to find out how is able to live in a world that he has barely caught a glimpse of.

Featuring some of the most intense performances from Mike Portnoy and John Petrucci, the entire album is about as grand as a rock production gets. The 90's may have been a time for nu metal to reign supreme, but Dream Theater were content to blow people away with the pure art of musical storytelling.