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conceptual discussions



Jeff:
>Rock Opera Conceptual Album: Music and lyrics used to tell a story.
>Examples: "Tommy", "Quadrophenia", "Kilroy Was Here" Styx, "The Elder" 
Kiss,>"Operation: Mindcrime" Queensryche, "Psychoderelict"

Does this mean Rock Opera is a subset of Concept Albums?  Hmmm.  I had 
it categorized as something separate.  Or are you just collapsing the 
two together (or three together, if you consider PsychoD something 
that's neither) for convenience?

Mark:
>>Except Pete DID have a story for LIFEHOUSE, which he hoped the
>songs would tell.
>
>Incorrect. He did have a story...does have a story...but the songs were 
never meant to tell it. They were to be in the background, to add to but 
not tell the story.

You're expecting another something like "Psychoderelict" or "White City" 
for "Lifehouse" then?  Do you think PT had this idea that far back?

>> Hmmm.  This implies that you have to preplan the whole thing.  It's 
not always done that way.
>
>Examples, please. I think a concept album implies that the songs are
>written to further the concept. If no concept exists when the songs are 
being written, the entire thing breaks down (you see). Townshend did 
tend to bring in songs he'd already written, BUT he also changed them to 
suit the story (not vice versa).

Which is an example of process development.  You start off writing songs 
and then you notice they're all similar (because of how you've been 
feeling lately) or maybe one of them just trips an idea, and then you go 
to work from the center out.  And then maybe you revise your idea and 
start off in a different direction.  It's not preplanning.


>A hard definition is: an album with songs which further or compliment a 
planned unifying theme.
>
>> but WAY strikes me as fairly conceptual.  All the songs have to do 
with birth/rebirth/retread, a unifying theme.
>
>I'll refer you back to the hundreds of thousands of "love" concept 
albums this would mean exist.

That's because people think about sex about once every ninety seconds, 
on the average.  They don't think about reincarnation that often.


>BTW, ALL of the songs do not have this theme. Sister Disco, Music Must 
Change, Who Are You, and Guitar And Pen all have to do with the music 
industry in some manner. WAY itself is about a real-life encounter with 
members of the Sex Pistols (I'd like to see how you think that ties into 
Lifehouse). Love Is Coming Down is just a song about love, and not the 
greatest one in the world either. 

Look at them again.  "Sister Disco" and "Music Must Change" are about 
needing to change.  "Love is Coming Down" has that first chance, second, 
etc. structure that could be interpreted as living through various 
lives.  "Who Are You" is the cosmic question that the others lead up to.  


> WBN he attempted to repeat the success of WN rather than progress
>like QUAD.

Why do you feel Quad was progress and WBN and WAY aren't?  Where do you 
think PT should have gone after Quad?  More of the same, just louder and 
longer?


>(RE Roger)
>I think on TOMMY his "true voice" had started to emerge. Listen to 
Smash The Mirror, for instance. And live he was already there; Fillmore 
East 1968 proves that (not to mention numerous earlier live material). 

The earliest examples are his "true voice."  Later on he'd learned 
technique and style--which he still has BTW.


>> I rather like the idea of the WAY version, the incorporation of the 
>> Eastern salvation philosophy.  That gives it more depth as an 
>> intellectual piece.
>
>You mean in Trick Of The Light or Love Is Coming Down? WHAT Eastern
>philosophy??? Reincarnation, is that what you mean? 
>A) That's not specified in ANY of the songs, so you are reaching to 
include it B) that is only ONE aspect of the philosohy, and the other 
elements are conveniently missing I think if I were to grant ANY 
reoccuring theme of aging and recycling in WAY, it's not about rebirth 
but instead dealing with the weariness of life after you've lived a very 
full one early (as Pete had done). And THAT, my
friend, is a distinctly WESTERN philosophy (if a philosophy at all).

Pete Townshend is the master of double meaning (or confusion, if you 
want).  He says in some interview or other that "See Me, Feel Me" was 
too obvious.  Why do you think he'd specify anything in the songs?


>> Is a blending of styles imitation, though?  I don't think so.
>
>OK, but by the same token it's not innovation either.

It can be.  You can follow the roots of any composer.  Where did the 
British rock revolution come from, anyhow?  It didn't spring up out of 
nowhere. Putting two things together and coming up with something new is 
considered innovation.  

keets
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