10 Insane Plots From Concept Albums
These are records that make Ziggy Stardust look like an Ed Sheeran album.
These days, if you mention that you’re a fan of concept albums in polite company, you’re more likely to be greeted by a groan than a grin. Despite being popularised by artists no less acclaimed than The Beatles and Frank Sinatra, it is a form that has fallen from grace since its heyday, and is nowadays often regarded as a hotbed of bloated egos and pretension.
Perhaps as an artistic statement, it was always vulnerable to the overambitious and underwhelming - but the concept album is also a wonderful vehicle for the surreal and absurd. It's a genre that abounds in androgynous aliens, weird worlds, and invented idioms; unlike a film or a novel, they are stories told in fragments, creating gloriously wonky and ambiguous works of art.
Some of the strangest tales ever told can be found on these esoteric records - and there are rewards aplenty for listeners brave enough to delve into one of the most eccentric corners of popular culture. From the furthest reaches of outer space to the bottom of the ocean, it's an art form uniquely without out limits.
So let's dive in...
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.