15 Greatest Rock Concept Albums From The Last 15 Years

7. A Perfect Circle - Thirteenth Step

If you're going to tackle the painful process of recovering from addiction for an entire album, you better be ready to deliver the goods with a personal touch. And while frontman Maynard James Keenan had not experienced the effects of addiction firsthand when he wrote Thirteenth Step, you wouldn't know if from listening to the lyrics. Keenan has said he wanted to look at the process of addition and recovery from various perspectives on the album. "Some of the songs are sung from the perspective of the actual drug, from the perspective of someone who has realized that they have an issue or a problem, also from the perspective of a person who is in denial about a loved one dying right before their eyes." But being on the outside-looking-in, Keenan's most personal contribution to the album was the track, "The Outsider," which is sung from the perspective of someone who can't possibly understand what their friend is experiencing and not knowing how to help. It's thought to be a subtle tribute to Layne Staley, the lead singer of Alice In Chains who died from his addiction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-GsLh6dazI