Does Anybody Remember Concept Albums?

Being that my favorite band is Pink Floyd-if that's even fair to say since it's so hard to pick one-I am no stranger to (arguably) their most famous album, "The Wall". We've all heard the song with the iconic lyrics "We don't need know education, we don't need no thought control." What some may not have noticed was that that song was only a microcosm of the entire masterpiece; it's merely a chapter in the novel. "The Wall"  is what's known in the music world as a concept album. The question is why are concept albums so amazing? And why aren't they as popular today?

     The Beatles were the first to make the concept album so iconic with "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band," the concept being the time period and the lifestyle of that time, which is quite different from the apparent story line in "The Wall." Concept albums vary, some like "The Wall" and The Who's "Quadrophenia" have very blatant plot lines while others are more abstract and are left up to the listener to determine the story. In the 60's and 70's concept albums were very popular and made by artist's such as Pink Floyd and The Who as well as Meatloaf, David Bowie, Rush, Styx and Queen. As a songwriter, concept albums can be very fun to create because it gives you a basis on what to write on but they also lock you in. As a listener they are fun to imagine the story as if listening to a movie; when I first heard "The Wall" I was under the impression it had much to do with the Cold War, that's a theme in the album but it was not the central concept. Listening to a concept album and trying to find the concept is like it's own little Easter egg hunt. Concept albums added a whole new artistic element to song writing;  they made the vinyl worth the buy rather than the single as well. So again, why did they seem to die out?

Off the top of my head the only band that I know of today that releases concept albums with distinct story lines would be Coheed and Cambria; they release albums with graphic novels tied together with them. Radiohead is another band that creates concept albums but their's are more abstract such as "Sgt. Pepper's." Some theories are that artist's today don't have enough talent to pull of a concept album, other's say that with iTunes and the ability to download track by track that the concept album would be pointless and lost if people just bought the fraction of the masterpiece. Then there's the argument that concept albums didn't really die, they still exist but as this blog here puts it, they just take a collection of songs they wrote when they wrote when they were sad and throw "depression" a the concept. I suppose you could make an album, find a theme, and THEN make it a concept album, that would be the backwards way to do it. In reference to that blog I linked to you, maybe the concept albums died about because people do see it as a cop out and may not be too fond of an album with a theme to it; from experience, sometimes listening to a concept album becomes grueling because some of the songs represent those chapters in books we've all read that are merely there to fill in plot holes but not much really goes on. So what am I getting at here?

I'm not entirely sure, I just felt like enlightening some of you on some music I guess and I suppose I am reiterating that music is slowly becoming less about art and more about greed. Concept albums barely exist, quality music is fading, and everything's been done before really. Good music doesn't die, so let's all listen to "Animal's" by "Pink Floyd" and relive George Orwell's Animal Farm.