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I discussed this a bit on my facebook the other day, but just wanted to clarify with you guys. For no big reason, just to get things straight in my mind. For fun.

A musical will have songs that help tell a greater story, as well as acting.

An opera is all songs, no acting.

A (genre) opera is all (genre) songs, where genre can be rock, punk, whatever. A (genre) musical is the same, but with acting bits.

If a cd is all songs that tell a greater story, it can be considered a (genre) opera, and also be considered a form of concept album.

Is that all there is to it? Am I missing anything? Do I understand things correctly? Is a rock opera only a rock opera if it's performed on stage or in a movie, or can it still be classified as a rock opera even if it only exists in sound form (record, cd, whatever).

What about concept albums with no lyrics? Would they be called soundtracks?

Cryptowen wrote:What about concept albums with no lyrics? Would they be called soundtracks?

I wouldn't consider Daft Punk's "Discovery" (which has barely a few words) to be a soundtrack for "Interstella 5555," I think of it more as a concept album.

I think the prerequisites for something to be a concept album are pretty broad. If someone writes music intended to cloudgaze to, it could be considered both a concept album or soundtracks, I guess.

Opera does have acting, but no spoken dialogue. All words are sung.

Er, yeah, that's what I meant. No dialogue :P Thanks :)

I think for an album to be considered a concept album, it has to consist of more than just a collection of "singles."

There needs to be some kind of overarching idea or theme that ties all the songs together.

Crimson Chameleon wrote:I think for an album to be considered a concept album, it has to consist of more than just a collection of "singles."

There needs to be some kind of overarching idea or theme that ties all the songs together.

...and some "concept albums" consisted of only one side that had a continuing theme.

Of course by discussing "sides" of an album, we are most certainly dating ourselves.

Crimson Chameleon wrote:I think for an album to be considered a concept album, it has to consist of more than just a collection of "singles."

There needs to be some kind of overarching idea or theme that ties all the songs together.

That's my thinking on it. A concept album is where the artist(s) started with an initial album idea, & wrote songs to fit that idea (or picked material from their archives that already fit). A non-concept album is where they decided to make a playlist of tracks they had done over the last little while & associate some pictures with it.