Eternal recurrence of the concept album

According to the Christian Science Monitor, concept albums are hip again. The uncharacteristically anemic article drops names like Brian Wilson, The Streets, Camper Von Beethoven, and Green Day (for God's sake) as the heirs apparent to a new flourishing of rock-operas. The CSM notes that all of these people have put out concept albums since 2001, as though that were some mystical milestone year in which the form was exhumed and reanimated at the altar of Lou Reed.

This is just wrong and overemphasizes a new crop of concept albums as the first of their kind in a long time. Some of the best albums of the late 90's and early millennium were rock operas (and hip-hoperas as appropriate).

It just takes someone with a name like Elvis Costello or Green Day (for God's sake) to get people to take notice I suppose (and lament).

I won't even talk about Radiohead's seminal OK Computer, which really did kick start the concept album thing, at least in my own mind. That, of course, was back in 1997.

Maybe that was too Sci Fi to be considered a rock opera (what, then, of Ziggy Stardust), or didn't follow a single character. It did though, create and fully flesh out a world of human angst, hatred and bigotry that was perfectly fluid and cyclical. It's certainly better than American Idiot (this is a prediction, as I haven't yet heard American Idiot).

There are a half-dozen or so (that I know of) absolutely brilliant concept albums that I'm sure will equal or surpass in quality almost anything in this new wave of conceptualitude. Most of these, now that I think about it, are rap albums. They are, of course, rap albums you may not have heard of because, as in pop music, brilliance always gets pushed to the bottom while the immense pile of more-accessible (and crappier) thug and dance hall ephemera floats to the surface, free of the ballast of creativity and insight. They also, almost without exception, have deep ties to the world of comics and Sci Fi that I'm sure many listeners would be turned off by. Chronologically, they are:

Dr. Octagon -- Octagonagologist -- 1996
Maybe my favorite hip-hop album ever. Dr. Octagon is the alter-ego of rapper Kool Keith, who did a string of back to back concept albums in the late 1990's. This one is the first and best. Keith drops post-apocalyptic, gross-out, comic-book bombshells on every track. His style in general is insane, consistently fashioning rhyme schemes that still create small wormholes in the dope-cortex of my brain, changing me forever. Octagon is a Super-Anti-Hero for the new millenium, and the perfect instantiation of Keith's paranoid schizophrenia.

All of this is laid over brilliant and perfectly fit acid-funk-drive-in-horror-show beats by Dan the Automator, who has collaborated on a number of concept albums himself. Automator's beats always fit the occasion perfectly and show a deep knowledge and respect for the pop culture of the last 50 years. Dr. Octagon is transcendent.

The RZA as Bobby Digital -- In Stereo -- 1998
Orchestrating the beats and dropping most of the best rhymes for the Wu-Tang Clan wasn't enough for the RZA (aka Rzarector, the Razor), nor was fronting and producing the Gravediggaz, nor was writing film scores for movies like Ghost Dog (most recently, Kill Bill), He wanted to do something that was uniquely his own. Here, In Stereo, is something unique, a rap album with no guests. RZA did everything himself and made the journey intensely personal. He mostly drops the Wu's Eastern Mysticism and to a large extent the low-fi samurai samples in favor of beat-boxed computer bleeps and thrumming bass. It's a hip-hopera about the man he was, the hard drinking, one-time-loving, fast living, aimless kid that became one of the most prolific and influential producers ever. It's probably the best Wu-Tang connected album to date. Digital Bullet, the 2001 sequel, continues the theme, but it's just not the same somehow.

Dr. Dooom -- First Come, First Served -- 2000
Dr. Dooom effectively kills Dr. Octagon on the first track of this album, solidifying the serial pulp universe Kool Keith builds around himself. He's an ever evolving persona. Still tight, just not as. Also look for Kool Keith in Black Elvis/Lost in Space (1999), which is more Flash-Gordonish and break-beat centered.

Deltron 3030 -- Self-titled -- 2000
Del the Funky Homosapien teams with Dan the Automator to create a post-apocalyptic world of high technology and apartheid. This time it's not so much a matter of race as it is a matter of style. On Earth, in the year 3030, those in power have "imprisoned/all citizens empowered with rhythm." The resistance, in Fahrenheit 451 fashion, are a group of rhythm aesthetes who find alternate ways to express themselves: "we keep the funk alive by talking with idioms." Del's world is more carefully crafted than either the RZA or Kool Keith's, and Automator's beats have matured significantly since Octagon. Here Dan elects to drop the horror movie motif and adopt a far more sweeping cinematic style. The feel remains oppressive however--good, for an album about dystopian apartheid. The beats would be at home in 2001: A Space Odyssey just as easily as they fit Deltron's scenario. Dan the Automator is a beat chameleon who never fails to impress the hell out of me.

Grandaddy -- The Sophtware Slump -- 2000
Grandaddy is one of my favorite bands. They're often and unfairly compared to OK Computer-era Radiohead. They're only like Radiohead inasmuch as they're focused on an uncertain future and they utilize electronic beats. They have none of the angst of Radiohead and pop sensibilities more akin to Weezer, but the inexplicable comparison remains. Unlike OK Computer, which was filled with sapien-centric paranoia about androids in our midst, The Sophtware Slump takes a compassionate look at our creations. At a time when the only thing faster than the pace of technology is the pace at which technology becomes obsolete, what happens when our gadgets become smart enough to be self-aware? When we move successively through the onrushing generations of gizmos, how does that make the obsolete and forgotten feel? These are pointed metaphysical quandaries not being explored outside of Japan at the moment. It's a lush and beautiful album.

Gorillaz -- Self-Titled -- 2001
Finally getting to the year the Christian Science Monitor has arbitrarily denoted as the reawakening of the concept album, we are given something brave and unique, if something that doesn't quite fire on all cyllendars. Rather than presenting a story or thematic narrative, the concept of the Gorillaz is the band itself. A Pop-hop experiment masterminded by Damon Albarn of Blur and (yet again) Dan the Automator and featuring the likes of Sean Lennon, Del the Funky Homosapien and even Ibrahim Ferrer (Buena Vista Social Club) Gorillaz is an undead Spinal Tap. Each member takes on the life of a zombie, with it's unique perks and pratfalls. For the first time ever a band asks, how can someone be undead and stay funky--even fresh? It's far from perfect and a few tracks fall right on their ass, but it's courageous and did a lot to further the synthesis of pop and hip-hop.

Kid Koala -- Nufonia Must Fall -- 2003
I just noticed this. Kid Koala is a Montreal-based DJ deeply entrenched in the indie scene. Nufonia Must Fall is, apparently, a wordless graphic novel with accompanying soundtrack. Kid envisioned in the vein of a silent movie, where emotion can only be demonstrated via the faces of the actors and through the orchestral score. Very cool. This certainly pushes the boundaries of a concept album far beyond anything Green Day (for God's sake) or Elvis Costello are doing at the moment.

Yes, you have met the dangerous 208 year-old uncle of Dr. Octagon.
I myself Mr. gerbik. half-shark, half-man, skin like alligator.
Carrying a dead walrus. check it.