The album is no longer be the dominant format of popular music. But at one point it was so common to buy full albums rather than singles that some bands even made their albums carry a narrative through the songs. The stories range from retellings of popular myths to original tales and sometimes not even stories at all but recurring lyrical themes or motifs that appear throughout the album. We will be taking a look at some of the most notable “concept albums” of all time. 10: Hadestown - Anaïs Mitchell - 2010 Hadestown is a self proclaimed “folk opera” released in 2010 by Anaïs Mitchell, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, and many other musicians. The album recounts the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, an ancient Greek story that depicts the famed musician …show more content…
They are especially important because they were producing cohesive albums that tell stories and tackle expansive, real world subjects years before Pink Floyd and Genesis got to it. The band produced a series of four concept albums from 1967 to 1969 and this is the third in the series. The topics of these albums ranged from a description of the average day to musings on space travel and philosophy. On the Threshold of a Dream is about dreams in every way. It begins with a vaguely electronic soundscape and a poem-like recitation about reality and travels through various surreal love songs and musings on sleep and dreams ending with a multi-track orchestral suite that really does sound dream-like. This album truly exhibits rock music establishing itself as not just a trend but an art form which earns it a place on this list as one of the best concept albums of all time. 6: The Wall - Pink Floyd - …show more content…
The greatest concept album of all time (and according to some, the greatest album of all time). Dark Side of the Moon really doesn’t need an introduction. The album has become such an essential part of our culture that just about everyone has seen the iconic album cover in the form of a t-shirt, tattoo or sticker. Or anything else, really. People put the album cover on just about EVERYTHING. Chances are you’ve heard it too, it’s estimated that the album has sold 45 million copies. (LINK 4) Not only did Dark Side of the Moon set a lyrical precedent, but it also revolutionized electronic music, featuring lots of electronic (though not the sort of electronic you’d hear today) sections and sound effects galore, including the iconic beginning of the song Time which is just a bunch of alarm clocks going off at once. Dark Side of the Moon attempts to be the ultimate concept album, and it succeeds. The album is a meditation on all of the stresses and troubles that come along with being a member of our society. It covers the passage of time, death, money, religion and war but most of all: the insanity that we can all fall into if we let these things overcome us, which is ultimately a message that grows more important by the
album contains an amazing combination of poetic lyrics and edgy music that make it an
The 1960s and 1970s was an influential time in history, especially in the music industry. Between these two decades many new music genres were created and legends that are still praised today were born. There are many similarities in the type of music that was listened to at these times but each decade is different and unique in their own way.
*Note: Judy Garland died in 1969, the same year we put a man on the moon ... "I'll see you on the Dark Side of the Moon."
In Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, the moon is an object that is depicted in many images that might often be overlooked. The readers of this story will often pay attention to the main action taking place in this story without noticing the significance that moon may represent about Max’s behavior, or rather, misbehavior and his encounter with the Wild Things. In common folklore, the presence of a full moon is known for being the cause of a man becoming a werewolf, or in other words, bringing out the beast in people. What many readers may not realize is that this seemingly simple children’s book may actually be a soft story of lycanthropy. Even John Cech’s analysis of this story in his book, Angels and Wild Things, points out Max’s
Hades has always wanted to be more powerful than his younger brother Zeus so one day Hades decides to storm up to Athens and take his army with him and fight Zeus for his palace. The reason for this all was so that Hades could not just be powerful by ruling one world he wanted to rule two worlds. Zeus really got a good laugh out of this one saying ,“ Hades you have tried to defeat me before it just cannot be done.”
“WHICH ONE,” shouts the lettering on the alternate cover to Kanye West’s new album. Its boldface type and repetitive hammering reads less like a question and more like a blunt statement - and no matter how unusual or unimportant it may seem, it offers an adequate representation of this album and Kanye West in general. There’s almost no denying that West is a narcissist and/or egomaniac - he has supplied evidence a thousand times, on his Twitter and in real life. But in spite of - and perhaps because of - his flawed personality, West is the most influential figure in music, period, the turn of the century. Glancing at the contemporary radio stations, it’s hard to hear a song that doesn’t have West’s influence. His early albums The College Dropout and Late Registration revived the use of soul samples in hip hop, and 808s & Heartbreak played a pivotal role in popularizing AutoTune-driven R&B, as well as promoting sensitivity and emotion in hip hop artists. Later albums My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Yeezus were undeniable classics, showcasing West at the top of his game; these were elaborate projects where West’s antihero archetype ruled over mayhem, where minimalism met maximalism and the
The darkness of the night, the light of the moon; these are the metaphors of the brain. The darkness refers to all of the negative experiences and stress the brain endures. While the moon light refers to the experiences we love to undergo and pray they never cease. No one can choose what things their brain can reject and take in. If that were the case we wouldn’t have the need for psychologist and social workers and others in this line of work.
However, the rhetorical question that immediately follows the title, "Isn 't the moon dark too, most of the time?" presents a different story; turning the attention back onto the reader (lines 1-2). Also in the seventh stanza when the speaker states yet another rhetorical question, "Why are you sad so often?" the reader will start question, why they were even pondering, why poems were so dark (line 14). Pastan does this in order to make her theme stand out, the reason poems are so dark is due to the fact that poets write about the world, which happens to be a dark place. The theme is also supported by the structure of the poem as well. Pastan 's poem is a short 16 line poem, organized into 8 couplets, this structure causes Pastan 's sentences to be cut up into short telegraphic lines with no more than five words to each line, "Ask the moon. Ask what it has witnessed" (lines 15-16). These coupled lines are quick, sharpe and to the point, drawing attentions to Pastan 's message: poets do not intentionally write about dark phenomenons, they just see dark events in the world and feel the need to write about
Thus the moon takes on another more comical and amusing role in contrast to the darker, more serious roles it holds towards the other groups.
“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody” – Mark Twain
Radiohead’s third studio album OK Computer released in 1997, has had a remarkable impact and influence on the music produced within the 90s - especially looking at the genre of rock music (Azad, 2007: 139). The Album OK Computer attracted attention within the time of its release through the fact that they had the courage to confront what effects suburban division and technology’s impact on the human psyche, this encouraged the album in becoming a ‘Classic Rock Album’ (Azad, 2007:139).
As a general rule, light is identified with good and safety, while darkness is associated with evil and danger. The sun sheds light and refuge on the good, while the darkness of night cloaks the personifications of evil and creates uncertainty and fear. This idea about light versus dark has been held as principal for years and years, and can be seen in various myths and stories throughout the ages. Vampires, creatures of evil, come out at night to hunt, but are burned by the sun. In greek mythology, Helios, the god of the sun, is a strong hero while Selene, goddess of the moon, is a seductress. God and Jesus are frequently depicted with the Sun, but what is depicted with the moon, other than cackling witches? The idea has reasonable foundations. Good, honest men ar...
Our entire lives have been shaped by the events happening around us. Along with us many factors in our day to day lives have evolved too, including musical genre. One such genre is rock. Rock is a genre for the youth, by the youth, it has evolved to stay with the times and stand up for what’s right. In this essay I will prove why rock is a good example to show how genre has been defined, maintained, constructed and negotiated through the past 60-70 years since the very first Proto Rock song came out.
The song I chose to do my project on is “Money” by Pink Floyd from their 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon. I chose this song because I grew up listening to Pink Floyd on the old record player with my father and this song was one of his many favorites. He used to tell me about this song and how it was relevant in the 70’s and to this day the old cash register noise always brings back memories. The song itself was Pink Floyd’s first hit in the US. The song represents the American dream of getting more money and the thought of money solving all the problems. People spend a great amount of their life trying to gain more money, whether it is investing their money, purchasing lottery tickets, spending it in casinos, working for it, or even stealing it. This song is about the bad things money can bring. Overall, I picked this
On March 1, 1973, Pink Floyd released what some consider their best and most famous album, “The Dark Side of the Moon.” The album holds the record for time spent on the Billboard Top 200 albums with a total of 861 non-successive weeks, (Billboard) and includes prominent songs such as “Time,” “Money,” and “The Great Gig in the Sky.” It is characterized by the cover, which shows a prism separating a strand of light into a rainbow over a black background. When the album was released, the image impacted the music’s success by gaining the attention and support of a broader audience. In the recent year of 2011, the album cover proved itself once more when it was ranked the number two album cover of all time by the readers of “Rolling Stone.”