More Than The Sum of Their Songs

There are certain albums where the album itself, in its design or concept and composition, transcends being a mere collection of songs, and becomes a work of art in it's own right. The following is collection of some of my personal favorites in no particular order:

Vitalogy: Pearl Jam

From the album's title to the encyclopedia-like booklet to the strange tracks scattered through-out the album, the whole work conveys the feeling of some sort of bizarre 19th century text-book complete with instructional phonograph record.  The illustrations in the booklet take on an unsettling quality in the context they're placed in, and the raw cut & paste composition of the random scraps and pieces makes the whole thing seem like the manifesto of a deranged inmate of an unsanitary asylum where a bespectacled doctor is smoking his pipe and trying to decide whether shock-therapy or a frontal lobotomy would be a better course of treatment.  Tracks like "Aye Davanita" and "Bugs" help establish the atmosphere of cobweb-covered, grungy creepiness, and "foxymophandlemama" may be just about the most disturbing thing I've ever heard.  

Appetite for Destruction: Guns 'N Roses
Yep, this one was the real deal.  It was the product of a certain time and place.  It came out in the middle of the whole "glam" era when everything was all posing and choreography and hair spray.  This album was a kind of backlash against all that.  It was gritty, hard rock 'n roll.  It was like the rock-bottom dregs of a whiskey bottle that people had been throwing their cigarette butts in all night.  It made everything else look fake and ridiculous by comparison.  These guys were the real thing, and the album told the story of the raw side of the rock 'n roll lifestyle.  Not to mention it was really, really good.  Every track is excellent with Slash's unmistakable and inimitable guitar style and Axl's versatile vocals and scathing lyrics.  The final track "Rocket Queen" is the perfect example of the album's driving concept.  They didn't just dub in some orgasmic sound bites.  They brought an actual groupie into the studio and...well.  It's controversial, messed up, and a little too brutally honest, but that's Appetite for destruction.  And how many album's could be forced to discard their original, controversial cover-art and come up with something just as iconic to replace it?  

Dark Side of the Moon: Pink Floyd
It's hard to pick just one Pink Floyd Album for this list.  They were the veritable masters of the "concept album."  It's a close call between this and The Wall, but in the end I have to go with Dark Side of the Moon, even though The Wall probably has more of my favorite songs on it.  No, I have to go with Dark Side of the Moon because of its tight composition and unique sound.  Nothing else sounds like Dark Side of the Moon, not even another Pink Floyd album.  It has this soft, dream-like quality about it.  It's soothing and unnerving at the same time.   Roger Waters wrote each song about the different pressures in modern life that drive people insane, and you feel just a little bit like you're going to lose your mind listening to it.  Pink Floyd is great at making music that actually...sounds like things.  The intro to "Time" sounds unmistakeably like a giant, massive clock towering over you, oppressive in its stoic indifference to human mortality.  "Money" sounds like a hedonistic orgy of excess amid piles and piles of cash.  I won't get into the whole "Wizard of Oz" thing; it's probably nothing more than a coincidence or synchronicity.  But if someone were crazy enough to try and pull something like that off, it would be Pink Floyd.    

Home: The Dixie Chicks
This might seem like a strange entry on the list, but there are really very few good solid country albums.  Most of them are just a random collection of songs with no real theme or style holding it all together.  In the world of country music Home is almost a concept album.  It has a very stripped-down bare bones style to the sound that runs through the whole album.  It has the charm of sounding like a family gathered around a campfire singing songs; a really talented family.  It's just basic old school, down home, country music.  The songs are great from start to finish, from the catchy "Long Time Gone" to the haunting "Top of the World."  It's unfortunate that their country music careers got sidetracked over their comments concerning the Iraq war.  Their name is unmentionable in certain country music circles even today.  But people's opinion of their political views really should have no bearing on their evalution of their musical talent.   

Bat Out of Hell: Meat Loaf
If you haven't heard this album, you're really missing something.  The term "Rock Opera" gets thrown around, but nothing quite captures the essence of the idea like Bat Out of Hell.  The lyrics are almost deliberately cheesy, bordering on the ridiculous, and yet it's all so damn...uplifting.  You find yourself swept away by it all in spite of your better judgment,  and that's kind of the whole point and the real achievement of the album.  Even after listening to it like a million times, it's hard to say whether there's a single storyline here or just a bunch of separate love songs.  I like to think it's all one big story.  It's a kind of tongue-in-cheek treatment of the male fear of commitment and the restless yearning for conquest that finally gives way to tenderness and true love.  It's epic musically and in its concept.  There are only a few things, books, movies, ect. that I would describe as "the great things in life" with the hope that you would know what I'm talking about.  Bat Out of Hell is one of those things.

Melancholy & the Infinite Sadness: The Smashing Pumpkins
Much like Vitalogy, Melancholy & the Infinite Sadness is held together more by a style than a concept.  There's something about The Smashing Pumpkins' music that conjures up images and memories from early childhood.  It's that brief glimpse of the rocking horse in the sunbeam or those colored blocks you used to play with.  It's that time you chased fireflies with the neighbor girl or you cried because you were lost in the dark.  It's the illustration of the fairy god-mother in your book of bed time stories that lulled you to sleep when your hair was still wet from taking a bath.  Nowhere is this feeling more evident than Melancholy & the Infinite Sadness.  This is definitely the band's masterpiece; the full achievement of their signature sound.  As a double album, it's overflowing with creative energy.  Nearly every one of it's 28 tracks is indispensable.  As long as it is, I can listen to the whole thing through without growing restless or bored with it.  Time slips away as I'm lulled into it's unique dream.

This is hardly a comprehensive list, and I could probably go on.  But I think that's enough for now.  I might do another one of these lists some time.  I'll see what the response is to this one.  It might read as a collection of over-enthusiastic plugs to some people, but whatever.  This is my blog, and if I can't occasionally use it as a platform to ramble on about the things I love, then really...what's the point?