The idea album is usually considered as an artwork type that’s primarily centered on lyrical storytelling. However in these 5 key information, musical ambition, efficiency and manufacturing mix to take the listener on a road-trip via America.
1. Gunfighter Ballads and Path Songs by Marty Robbins (1959)
Gunfighter Ballads and Path Songs, by Marty Robbins, has rightly been lauded as one of the crucial vital artworks of the twentieth century – certainly it was preserved within the Library of Congress in 2017.
The thematic album transports the listener right into a legendary west. Every track tells its personal story, however there’s a distinct unity of characterisation. The tearful convict awaiting dying in They’re Hanging Me Tonight may nicely be an alter ego of the desert rider, hallucinating and determined in Cool Water. And even the ebullient narrator celebrating his personal American dream in A Hundred and Sixty Acres.
The album’s preparations are principally easy and stripped again, permitting Robbins’ extraordinary vocal performances and expressive backing vocal preparations to fly. This reaches a stylistic peak in his biggest track, the white-knuckle trip of El Paso, whereby our protagonist willingly throws himself right into a dwelling hell.
2. Smile by Brian Wilson (2004)
The Seashore Boys launched 15 studio albums within the Nineteen Sixties. Their voluminous output represented one of the crucial supercharged evolutions in up to date music – fired by the creativeness, power and ambition of Brian Wilson.
In 1965, in partnership with lyricist Mike Love, Wilson was extolling the virtues of California women. Only a few months later, he was creating the mature, introspective humanity of Pet Sounds with collaborator Tony Asher. From there Wilson engaged lyricist Van Dyke Parks to assist him realise an “American gothic journey”. Smile describes a journey throughout the nation on the “ribbon of concrete”, or alongside the railroad with the early settlers.
One key monitor on Smile, Heroes and Villains, took its narrative cue instantly from Marty Robbins’ El Paso. However others – Cabin Essence and Surf’s Up – painted a brand new outdated west and nonetheless really feel revolutionary at the moment. Nevertheless, the album grew to become most well-known for being left unfinished for 34 years, with snippets showing piecemeal earlier than its completion as a brand new recording by Brian Wilson in 2004.
Van Dyke Park’s lyrics stay intriguing and distinctive. However I’d argue the true conceptual unity of Smile comes from its musical design. That is an album about American music as a lot as it’s about America. It’s a kaleidoscope of Gershwin, Ives, Bernstein and goofy doo-wop, scaffolded by sudden and wealthy textural juxtapositions (double bass, banjo and backing vocals going “boing boing” anybody?). And, after all, there’s the peerless vocal performances of The Seashore Boys.
3. The Delta Sweete by Bobbie Gentry (1968)
Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete is one other idea album that appears at each America (on this case the Mississippi Delta) and American music.
Gentry first discovered fame with Ode to Billie Joe, a story ballad that grew to become a serious hit single. In The Delta Sweete, Gentry blended her personal distinctive vignettes of southern life with skilfully curated covers of classics, like Mose Allison’s Parchman Farm.
In Reunion, Gentry invitations listeners into the entrance parlour of an alternately loving and warring southern household. She illustrates the scene by interweaving dialogue, vocal chants and rhythmic solo cello. Elsewhere we meet the swaggering, comedic Okolona River Backside Band and expertise a southern gothic nightmare in Refractions.
The sense of journey is enhanced by a sequence of orchestral items that hyperlink every of the 12 tracks. So after we lastly alight on the solitude of the closing monitor, Courtyard, there’s a feeling of coming residence.
The ambition of The Delta Sweete was not met with business success, however Gentry by no means fairly gave up the conceptual flame. Her observe up – Native Gentry, in 1968 – shared a number of the identical strategy to musical portraiture. And in her closing studio album, Patchwork (1971), she returned to a sequence of vignettes with orchestral hyperlinks. All make for important listening.
4. What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye (1971)
From a journey throughout America, to a journey throughout the Mississippi Delta, we flip now to the streets of 1971 inner-city America, by way of Marvin Gaye’s masterly file, What’s Going On.
This album represented a transparent shift in Gaye’s creative voice in direction of commentary, query and critique, in opposition to the need of Motown Information boss Berry Gordy leading to a standoff throughout which Gaye threatened by no means to file for the label once more. What’s Going On is probably most well-known for its engagement with the social and political problems with the day, however the ambition of the music, efficiency and sound arise thrillingly, 55 years after its launch.
Motown Information home arranger David Van De Pitte set congas and guiros in opposition to sweeping orchestral preparations, glockenspiel, choirs and jazz influences. The juxtaposition of tempo and really feel created by transitions between the tracks maintain you there as listener, strolling round Gaye’s panorama, and seeing it via his eyes.
The important thing sound of What’s Going On although – and the factor that the majority solidifies its standing as a conceptual album – is the strategy taken with the vocals. Completely different takes of the identical track overlap, and totally different advert libs collide and diverge as choral passages peek out from the background. These are the voices speaking to Gaye throughout his stroll via the inside metropolis of What’s Going On.
5. Cowboy Carter by Beyoncé (2024)
Cowboy Carter’s conceptual delivery sprang from the artist’s efficiency on the 2016 Nation Affiliation Awards, the place prejudiced questions had been raised (within the room and on-line) about Beyonce’s legitimacy and place within the context of a rustic music efficiency. Her final response was this detailed exploration, celebration and critique that will get underneath the pores and skin of American music itself. Beyoncé creates a searing and detailed a commentary on, and road-map to, American music.
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Huge questions across the origin and evolution of style are requested by way of the medium of a Jolene cowl, use of the banjo, impressionistic music preparations and flights of performative creativeness.
There are spoken inserts (from Linda Martell, Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton) and putting musical juxtapositions. Like different albums on this listing, Cowboy Carter’s conceptual veracity springs as a lot from this kaleidoscopic strategy to sound as from the central narrative at its coronary heart.
On this collage we hear new songs, interpretations of traditional songs and quotes from American classics, together with one from The Seashore Boys’ Smile – Good Vibrations.
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