Mystical Rock Concept Albums
May 17, 2013 5:27 AM Subscribe
I'm looking for rock concept albums from the 70s and beyond that veer towards the mystical, magic(k)al, and otherwise weird. Specimens so far include Poe's (no, not her) Up Through the Spiral, Black Widow's Sacrifice, and a whole lot of Hawkwind. I get the sense there was a lot more of this in the 70s, but who knows.
Individual song recommendations are welcome as well. I'm looking for themes along the lines of 'dude embarks on mystical quest' or 'there's more than just reality out there'. Rock genre is important, but willing to branch out to anything that isn't harp-tinkly New Age.
This is for an ongoing writing project. Ideally, the music would be findable on Spotify for easy playlist building.
Individual song recommendations are welcome as well. I'm looking for themes along the lines of 'dude embarks on mystical quest' or 'there's more than just reality out there'. Rock genre is important, but willing to branch out to anything that isn't harp-tinkly New Age.
This is for an ongoing writing project. Ideally, the music would be findable on Spotify for easy playlist building.
Best answer: The album Imaginos by Blue Oyster Cult (though that's 1980s)
Song: "The Wizard" by Uriah Heep
posted by fings at 5:42 AM on May 17, 2013
Song: "The Wizard" by Uriah Heep
posted by fings at 5:42 AM on May 17, 2013
Doesn't this describe pretty much everything by Mahavishnu Orchestra?
posted by bfranklin at 5:45 AM on May 17, 2013
posted by bfranklin at 5:45 AM on May 17, 2013
Best answer: Early Fates Warning is Iron Maiden-esque progressive rock and on their 1986 album No Exit they have a 22 minute song "The Ivory Gate of Dreams" which is very much a mystical quest song though unfortunately the only Fatez on Spotify is a compilation.
Their previous album, Awaken the Guardian (with a different singer) has a number of fantasy rock though they are all less than 10 minutes.
posted by mountmccabe at 5:47 AM on May 17, 2013
Their previous album, Awaken the Guardian (with a different singer) has a number of fantasy rock though they are all less than 10 minutes.
posted by mountmccabe at 5:47 AM on May 17, 2013
Best answer: The Moody Blues' On the Threshold of a Dream is a concept album from 1969 about a man exploring his dreams (literally nighttime dreams, not like "hopes and dreams"). I'd say it's borderline magical/mystical but the opening track sure freaked the fuck out of me when I was a kid.
posted by telegraph at 5:51 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by telegraph at 5:51 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Rush's 2112 is another sci-fi/fantasy epic multi-part song that is available on Spotify.
posted by mountmccabe at 5:54 AM on May 17, 2013
posted by mountmccabe at 5:54 AM on May 17, 2013
Kilroy Was Here by Styx is early 80s, but fits the weird-concept definition to me. Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick was supposed to be the (tongue in cheek) mother of all concept albums. It's one long album-length song.
posted by jquinby at 6:01 AM on May 17, 2013
posted by jquinby at 6:01 AM on May 17, 2013
Not sure Hawkwind was mystical so much as SF, they epitomized space rockers to me.
Some of Hendrix's stuff was mystical as was Marc Bolan's Tyrannosaurus Rex (before T Rex). A lot of 'acid' influenced music from the 70s would be good candidates. EDIT, someone has to say it, "Stairway to Heaven".
posted by epo at 6:02 AM on May 17, 2013
Some of Hendrix's stuff was mystical as was Marc Bolan's Tyrannosaurus Rex (before T Rex). A lot of 'acid' influenced music from the 70s would be good candidates. EDIT, someone has to say it, "Stairway to Heaven".
posted by epo at 6:02 AM on May 17, 2013
There's also Rush's two-part song Cygnus X-1, which is split across two albums (A Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres).
posted by sinfony at 6:07 AM on May 17, 2013
posted by sinfony at 6:07 AM on May 17, 2013
Is Parliament's Mothership Connection too funky, not enough rocky? The Grateful Dead's "Terrapin Station" suite always struck me as allegorical. More documentation on that here. Blues for Allah was a bit more clearly influenced by the Middle East and maybe wasn't viewed as a concept album, but the Help On The Way+Slipknot+Franklin's Tower suite might work on its own, as would Side B, or maybe just the title track.
posted by knile at 6:08 AM on May 17, 2013
posted by knile at 6:08 AM on May 17, 2013
Also - Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars has an entire narrative that frames the album.
posted by jquinby at 6:09 AM on May 17, 2013
posted by jquinby at 6:09 AM on May 17, 2013
Nektar, Remember The Future. (badly compressed utube version)
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:15 AM on May 17, 2013
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:15 AM on May 17, 2013
It's only half an album, but Karn Evil 9 from Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery is a prog extravaganza in a dystopian-future-computers-vs-humans vein. (You usually only hear 1st impression, part II on the radio, but the whole piece is almost 30 minutes long.)
posted by usonian at 6:16 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by usonian at 6:16 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Mastodon! They might veer a bit close to metal for your tastes- but most of their albums follow a mystical narrative type bent. Particularly great are Blood Mountain and Crack The Skye.
posted by Philby at 6:20 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Philby at 6:20 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Sorry- I should have mentioned that these albums are from the 2000s to the present day- so maybe not as 70s as you're looking for. Still great stuff that otherwise fits the bill!
posted by Philby at 6:25 AM on May 17, 2013
posted by Philby at 6:25 AM on May 17, 2013
Response by poster: Oh, if they are later that's fine. Wolfmother sounds pretty 70s and I'd say they fit the bill as well.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:27 AM on May 17, 2013
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:27 AM on May 17, 2013
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, by Genesis, seems to fit this description.
posted by newmoistness at 6:41 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by newmoistness at 6:41 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
This is much more recent than the 70s, but Murder by Death has written two concept albums along this line: the first one, Who Will Survive, and What Will Be Left of Them, is about the Devil waging a war on a small Mexican border town because someone there shot him in the back. The second one, which is probably a prequel to the first, is Red of Tooth and Claw, is about a man trying to get revenge on his lover for leaving him. It's a little less explicitly mystical and a little harder to follow the plot than Who Will Survive, but authorial statements of intent indicate that several of the songs are from the point of view of an angry old god trying to stop the man. Which I enjoy.
posted by Caduceus at 6:53 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Caduceus at 6:53 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Gong certainly fits!
From Allmusic: "Camembert Electrique contained the first signs of the band's mythology of the peaceful Planet Gong populated by Radio Gnomes, Pothead Pixies, and Octave Doctors.
These characters along with Zero the Hero are the focus of Gong's next three albums, the Radio Gnome Trilogy, consisting of Flying Teapot (1973), Angel's Egg (1974), and You (1975).
On these albums, protagonist Zero the Hero is a space traveler from Earth who gets lost and finds the Planet Gong, is taught the ways of that world by the gnomes, pixies, and Octave Doctors and is sent back to Earth to spread the word about this mystical planet."
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 7:13 AM on May 17, 2013
From Allmusic: "Camembert Electrique contained the first signs of the band's mythology of the peaceful Planet Gong populated by Radio Gnomes, Pothead Pixies, and Octave Doctors.
These characters along with Zero the Hero are the focus of Gong's next three albums, the Radio Gnome Trilogy, consisting of Flying Teapot (1973), Angel's Egg (1974), and You (1975).
On these albums, protagonist Zero the Hero is a space traveler from Earth who gets lost and finds the Planet Gong, is taught the ways of that world by the gnomes, pixies, and Octave Doctors and is sent back to Earth to spread the word about this mystical planet."
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 7:13 AM on May 17, 2013
Do you need to understand the language? Because, if not, pretty much anything by Magma will totally do the trick. [ignore this qualifier if you do speak Kobaian]
posted by .kobayashi. at 7:19 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by .kobayashi. at 7:19 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Olias of Sunhillow by John Anderson.
It's your standard building a space ship to flee a doomed planet story - except, well:
"There stands Olias to outward to build a ship
Holding within all we hope to retain.
The frame will be so built to challenge the universe
clasped with the skins of the fish of the plain."
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 7:46 AM on May 17, 2013
It's your standard building a space ship to flee a doomed planet story - except, well:
"There stands Olias to outward to build a ship
Holding within all we hope to retain.
The frame will be so built to challenge the universe
clasped with the skins of the fish of the plain."
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 7:46 AM on May 17, 2013
As long as people are recommending such prog dinosaurs as ELP and Genesis (not to mention Styx and Rush), I'll say Yes, Close to the Edge, Tales From Topographic Oceans, and the first side of Relayer.
Close to the Edge is supposedly inspired by Hesse's Siddhartha, Tales by a footnote in Yoganada's Autobiography of a Yogi, and the first side of Relayer by Tolstoy's War and Peace.
posted by goethean at 7:54 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Close to the Edge is supposedly inspired by Hesse's Siddhartha, Tales by a footnote in Yoganada's Autobiography of a Yogi, and the first side of Relayer by Tolstoy's War and Peace.
posted by goethean at 7:54 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Helium's No Guitars EP and The Magic City are often described as "oh yeah, that phase Timony went through with castles and dragons and stuff". Not quite concept album in a streamlined way (their earlier Pirate Prude was but that doesn't fit the mystical bill), but.
Dunno if it's rockin' enough for you, but Kate Bush's Hounds of Love has been described as a concept album (or at least half of it) about drowning and has a buncha folklore sprinkled in.
posted by ifjuly at 8:46 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Dunno if it's rockin' enough for you, but Kate Bush's Hounds of Love has been described as a concept album (or at least half of it) about drowning and has a buncha folklore sprinkled in.
posted by ifjuly at 8:46 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
And maybe not mystical enough, but it is a dude on a quest: Mastodon's Leviathan is a concept album about Moby Dick.
posted by ifjuly at 8:48 AM on May 17, 2013
posted by ifjuly at 8:48 AM on May 17, 2013
Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd? Oh wait, that's not on Spotify. Neither is Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, unfortunately.
As for what's on Spotify, there's always Quadrophenia and Tommy by The Who. And, if you're interested, the Smithereens covered Tommy. It's pretty good.
posted by luckynerd at 9:51 AM on May 17, 2013
As for what's on Spotify, there's always Quadrophenia and Tommy by The Who. And, if you're interested, the Smithereens covered Tommy. It's pretty good.
posted by luckynerd at 9:51 AM on May 17, 2013
Best answer: Lessee, this is what we mostly listened to in the 1970's, not sure about Spotify availability:
King Crimson, Larks' Tongues In Aspic
Pink Floyd's Saucerful of Secrets
The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour and Abbey Road were considered concept albums when they came out, all a bit mystical
Pre-Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham Fleetwood Mac, especially Kiln House, Future Games, Bare Trees, Penguin
Pentangle
Fairport Convention
posted by Lynsey at 10:45 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
King Crimson, Larks' Tongues In Aspic
Pink Floyd's Saucerful of Secrets
The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour and Abbey Road were considered concept albums when they came out, all a bit mystical
Pre-Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham Fleetwood Mac, especially Kiln House, Future Games, Bare Trees, Penguin
Pentangle
Fairport Convention
posted by Lynsey at 10:45 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Best answer: The album 666 by Aphrodite's Child has an entire Book of Revelations narrative going on, although it's pretty tongue-in-cheek (sample).
posted by Nomyte at 12:26 PM on May 17, 2013
posted by Nomyte at 12:26 PM on May 17, 2013
Can't believe I forgot to mention the most recent High on Fire album, De Vermis Mysteriis. According to frontman Matt Pike (according to Wikipedia), "It's a concept record, a little bit. I got this idea about Jesus Christ and the Immaculate Conception: What if Jesus had a twin who died at birth to give Jesus his life? And then what if the twin became a time traveler right then? He lives his life only going forward until he finds this scroll from an ancient Chinese alchemist who derived a serum out of the black lotus—which is actually in Robert E. Howard's 'Conan' stories—and then he starts traveling back in time. He can see the past through his ancestors' eyes, but his enemies can kill him if they kill the ancestor that he's seeing through at the time. Basically, he keeps waking up in other people’s bodies at bad times. It’s kinda like that old TV show Quantum Leap. Kurt actually pointed that out to me after I told him the idea. But whatever—time travel is a killer concept."
posted by sinfony at 1:24 PM on May 17, 2013
posted by sinfony at 1:24 PM on May 17, 2013
Best answer: dont know nuttin bout no Spotify, but Alan Parsons Project - Tales of Mystery and Imagination
posted by Billiken at 1:50 PM on May 17, 2013
posted by Billiken at 1:50 PM on May 17, 2013
Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestions so far, folks. Gonna have to set aside some time to give albums the listen through they need (sadly, I'm too old/lame to know where to locate any listening enhancing substances) but some of the songs I've picked through on Spotify have fit the bill! I'll follow up with a playlist once I get one nailed together.
More, please!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:03 PM on May 17, 2013
More, please!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:03 PM on May 17, 2013
There's the mind-blowing Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft by The Carpenters, which is a cover of the song by prog-rock band Klaatu.
wikipedia:
wikipedia:
The idea for this track was suggested by an actual event that is described in The Flying Saucer Reader, a book by Jay David published in 1967. In March 1953 an organization known as the "International Flying Saucer Bureau" sent a bulletin to all its members urging them to participate in an experiment termed "World Contact Day" whereby, at a predetermined date and time, they would attempt to collectively send out a telepathic message to visitors from outer space.posted by Room 641-A at 5:36 PM on May 17, 2013
Cul de Sac's 1996 album China Gate (released, incongrously, on Flying Nun) plays around with a sprawling, psych-rock "journey to the mystical East" theme, as filtered through '50s imagery and '70s cannibal exploitation flicks. It is also very trippy.
A couple of more recent pieces of neo-psych rock that may fit your bill:
(1) the 2011 Gnod/White Hills collaboration Gnod Drop Out with White Hills II.
(2) Swedish afrobeat/psychrockers Goat, World Music (2012).
And also: Weird Owl, Ever the Silver Cord Be Loosed (2009).
I also want to second the Mary Timony/Helium recs., because those albums are completely insane and totally, totally awesome.
posted by Sonny Jim at 12:15 PM on May 18, 2013
A couple of more recent pieces of neo-psych rock that may fit your bill:
(1) the 2011 Gnod/White Hills collaboration Gnod Drop Out with White Hills II.
(2) Swedish afrobeat/psychrockers Goat, World Music (2012).
And also: Weird Owl, Ever the Silver Cord Be Loosed (2009).
I also want to second the Mary Timony/Helium recs., because those albums are completely insane and totally, totally awesome.
posted by Sonny Jim at 12:15 PM on May 18, 2013
Oh, I nearly forgot: try also Teeth of the Sea's sprawling, album-length ode to London psychogeography and murkily occult creepiness Orphaned by the Ocean (2009).
posted by Sonny Jim at 2:01 PM on May 19, 2013
posted by Sonny Jim at 2:01 PM on May 19, 2013
If you wind up digging The Magic City or No Guitars you might also like Syrup USA's People of the Lake. They toured with Helium around that time IIRC, and the aesthetic and lyrics are rather similar--female-oriented stuff about castles and unicorns etc.
posted by ifjuly at 2:29 PM on May 19, 2013
posted by ifjuly at 2:29 PM on May 19, 2013
I don't know if they have concept albums, but check out Monster Magnet. And Warp Riders by The Sword.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 10:34 PM on May 19, 2013
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 10:34 PM on May 19, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by pearlybob at 5:28 AM on May 17, 2013