Sunday 10 February 2013

Says she's gonna get some records by the Status Quo...

Here are the runners and riders for the next @lpgrp vote. The theme is 'Concept Album'.

The listening session will be at 9pm, Sunday 3rd March.

You can vote for five albums by sending the numbers of your choices to the @lpgrp Twitter account (via a direct message or an ordinary tweet mentioning @lpgrp).

You are allowed to vote for the albums you nominated. 

The deadline for voting is 8pm, Tuesday 19th February.




1. The Antlers – Hospice (Death seen through the eyes of a nurse and patient in hospice)
2. David Bowie - Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (Oscillating career path of certain Martian arachnids)
3. Robert Calvert - Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters (Germany's purchase of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter)
4. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife (inspired by a Japanese folk tale, and centres on two song cycles)
5. The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love (a woman falls in love with a shape-shifting forest dweller)
6. Deltron 3030 – Deltron 3030 (Deltron Zero's struggles against corporations that rule the universe in the year 3030)
7. The Eccentronic Research Council - 1612 Underture (Pendle Witch Trials)
8. Fucked Up - David Comes To Life (Factory worker David & girlfriend Veronica build a bomb to blow up a lightbulb factory)
9. South San Gabriel - The Carlton Chronicles (About a sick cat)
10. Marvin Gaye - What's Going On (State of the Union address)
11. Grandaddy  -The Sophtware Slump (Failure of humans and the emergence of technology)
12. Luke Haines - 9½ Psychedelic Meditations on British Wrestling of the 1970′s and Early ’80′s. (Growing up, back then)
13. Hawkwind – Live Chronicles (The Chronicle of Elric and the Black Sword books by Michael Moorcock)
14. Darren Hayman and The Long Parliament - The Violence ( Cromwell/ Civil War/Witch Trials)
15. The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday  (Story album about lives of four friends)
16. Isis – Oceanic  (Man falls in love, then finds out lover is in incestuous relationship with her brother, commits suicide by drowning)
17. Jóhann Jóhannsson -  IBM 1401 - A User's Manual (The artist’s father’s work at IBM)
18. Soweto Kinch - A Life In The Day Of B19 - Tales Of The Tower Block (documenting the lives of three inner-city Birmingham men)
19. The Kinks - Arthur (Decline of the British Empire)
20. The Kinks - Face to Face (Class and Britishness)
21. Lift To Experience -  The Texas Jerusalem Crossroads (Three Texas boys' experience in a biblical apocalypse)
22. The Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs (self-explanatory)
23. Anais Mitchell – Hadestown (A folk opera based on the Orpheus myth)
24. Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid (An android sent back in time to save the world and rescue freedom and love from an evil dictatorship)
25. Morton Valence - Bob & Veronica Ride Again (Lover’s  adventures as she tries to forget her past)
26. The Mountain Goats – Tallahassee (The further breakdown of the Alpha Couple's relationship)
27. Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero  (Story of an imagined USA c.2023)
28. Willie Nelson - Red Headed Stranger ('Stranger' on the run after killing his wife and her lover)
29. Neon Neon - Stainless Style (DeLorean)
30. Noah and the Whale - The First Days of Spring (Break-up and redemption)
31. The Pretty Things - S.F Sorrow (A life story)
32. Lou Reed - Berlin (Tragic couple and family caught up in a cycle of drugs, prostitution, violence and death)
33. Lou Reed and John Cale – Songs for Drella (Andy Warhol's interpersonal relations and experiences)
34. St Etienne - Tales From Turnpike House (The inhabitants of said block of flats)
35. Bruce Springsteen – Nebraska (Ordinary, blue collar characters who face a challenge or a turning point in their lives)
36. The Streets - A Grand Don't Come For Free (Everyday love and loss in modern urban Britain)
37. The The-Infected (Narrative on man’s lust for greed and power)
38. Titus Andronicus - The Monitor (American Civil War Drama)
39. The Turtles - Battle of the Bands (They pretend to be a different band in each of the songs)
40. The Upsetters - Super Ape (Nature will always prevail)
41. Various (folk) Artists - The Transports (Transportation of criminals to Australia – written by Peter Bellamy)
42. Roger Waters - Radio K.A.O.S  (A boy in a wheelchair hacks a military satellite)
43. Jeff Wayne - War Of The Worlds (The story of Earth (or at least Surrey) being invaded by Martians)
44. XTC – Skylarking (Song cycle about the life cycle)



 

Tuesday 5 February 2013

The Concept



March’s @lpgrp theme is ‘concept album’. 

For the nomination stage this month, there are a couple of one-off changes to the usual routine. First, each person can nominate one album instead of two. I’m happy to be proved wrong, but I’m hoping a shorter shortlist (just this month) will result in less quibbling whether a certain album is actually a concept album or not. 

Also, I’d appreciate it if each nomination was accompanied by a brief mention in brackets of what the concept of the album actually is. This’ll be quite interesting and educational, I reckon – and may push people to discover new material purely by being tempted by an unusual concept. 

Send your nomination via a Direct Message to @lpgrp or via a tweet ordnaire that mentions @lpgrp. 

The deadline for your nominations is 6pm on Sunday 10th February. I can then draw up a shortlist for voting. I shall issue more details about voting on Sunday night. 

Thanks, all. 

PS A few links:

Wikipedia's list of concept albums (handle with care!)

Songfact's Top 10 Concept Albums (some decent pages of comments)