Concept Albums

Well, as you know, concept albums generally have all their songs act as pieces of one much longer song due to a constant set of themes and stories.

The best thing you could do is to look at other artists’ concept albums. One of my favorites is Thrice’s most recent set of albums called The Alchemy Index. They were released in a series of 4 discs (2 for each album) and were named after elements. The first album contained “fire” and “water”, and the second album contained “air” and “earth”. Even though each disc had its own sound (as the elements are their own, and have different properties) they were united by the content and meanings.

You should first start thinking of the story or concept you’d like to tell. Think about things that have happened in your life or the people’s lives around you; the best content generally comes from our lives, that’s why music is such a universally shared interest.

Common themes are love/heart break, tragedy, society, etc… sometimes artists take stories from literature and reference them. Again, Thrice- looking at the “Air” disc, in their song “Daedalus” they wrote about the Greek story of Icarus and his father who created wings of feather and wax. Cradle of Filth also drew inspiration for a concept album from a historical figure named Gilles de Rais.