Plenty of Rock Albums Tell Story, Too

Both the trophy cases and the cutout bins of rock history are well-stocked with efforts to turn the simple rock ‘n’ roll album into something much bigger: a story, a play, an opus. The Who’s “Tommy,” currently at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, was the first to go legit with a Broadway staging.

With “Tommy” on the local boards, here is a rundown--not intended to be comprehensive--of some other rock albums you can hunt up if you feel like hearing a story and a big beat at the same time.

For our purposes, only albums written and preformed by bona fide rockers count; no theatrical interlopers like Andrew Lloyd Webber and the “Hair” gang allowed. We’re also sticking to albums that, while they may not have been staged, manage to include enough story development to have made a theatrical adaptation possible. Excluded are albums such as Prince’s “Purple Rain” that don’t stand alone as narratives but rely on accompanying films or texts for most of their plot and character development.

Ratings range from * (poor) to ***** (a classic). Three stars denote a solid recommendation.

***** The Beach Boys, “Pet Sounds” (1966). The first rock album to hang together as a story. Working with lyricist Tony Asher, Brian Wilson told a tale of young love that blooms (“Wouldn’t It Be Nice”), staggers (“You Still Believe in Me”) and ends in crushing disillusionment (“Caroline, No”). Along the way, the song cycle captures much of the idealism, anxiety, self-doubt and elevated passion that come with growing up. One of rock’s most moving and beautiful achievements.

*** Pretty Things, “S.F. Sorrow” (1968). One of the original British Invasion bands, the Pretty Things made the then-common, but in retrospect remarkable, progression from imitating their blues and R&B; influences to broadening rock’s possibilities with a swirl of folk, psychedelic and music hall-ish elements. This album’s nebulous story sends protagonist S.F. Sorrow off to World War I, where he apparently is killed off by the end of Side 1, setting the stage for much metaphysical and darkly philosophic musing the rest of the way. This is worth hunting up as a musically well-wrought artifact of the period, with strong parallels to the sound that Traffic and the Who were creating around the same time.

***** The Who, “Tommy” (1969). A story this preposterous could only be carried by music this strong. Catatonic kid becomes pinball-playing savant, wakes up, gathers cultic following, and is overthrown when he starts making testy demands of his disciples. In terms of dramatic development, Tommy himself is virtually a cipher; some of the more vivid scenes belong to his tormentors, Cousin Kevin, Uncle Ernie and the Acid Queen. Ultimately, Townshend has a valid point to make about the solitary nature of spiritual questing: Disaster befalls Tommy when he tries to bring others along on his spiritual journey, but even after his fall, he remains a faithful searcher on his own personal path to enlightenment. The album is based on riffs and melodies of enduring appeal and is brilliantly sung by Townshend, Roger Daltry and John Entwistle (Keith Moon is wonderful, too, in his comic turn as Uncle Ernie). The main problem is the production, which is a tad too neat. The thunder and ferocity the Who could muster in the late ‘60s is largely absent. Get “Tommy,” by all means, but also get “The Who Sell Out” and “Live at Leeds” for the full picture.

**** 1/2 The Who, “Quadrophenia” (1973). Townshend set aside messianic musings and wrote about something he knew: the teen-subculture conflicts of mid-’60s England that swirled around the Who during its formative days. “Quadrophenia” traces the progress of one mixed-up kid trying to find himself amid the brawling and boozing of the rival Rocker and Mod factions. Such peak rock songs as “The Real Me” and “5:15” find the Who in good, brawny form. But Townshend had fallen in love with synthesizers by this point, which left some selections sounding a bit overstuffed.

Pete Townshend, “The Iron Man” (1989, * 1/2) and “Psychoderelict” (1993, ***). As he moved into a post-Who career, Townshend remained bitten by the theatrical-album bug. A 1985 album, “White City,” had a unifying concept (a visit to a housing project in a hard-pressed section of London), but the story didn’t take shape without Townshend’s accompanying notes. “The Iron Man,” his adaptation of a children’s story by Ted Hughes, stands as an example of just how bad rock can be when it aspires to be theater first and rock ‘n’ roll second. The music is toothless and diffuse; the only memorable moments in the whole bland affair are cameos by John Lee Hooker (as the heroic Iron Man, who chomps on anything made of metal that’s threatening to humanity) and Nina Simone. With “Psychoderelict,” conceived as a radio play, Townshend once again wrote whereof he knew, telling the tale of a jaded, aging rock superstar’s attempt to make a comeback and recapture an idealistic spark. It’s a plot-heavy potboiler, but a number of sharp rock songs and attractive ballads make it a partial comeback for Townshend himself.

The Kinks, “Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire” (1969, *****) and “Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround (Part One)” (1970, *****). The excellent “Arthur” offers rich historical sweep and a funny and poignant portrait of a struggling British Everyman who watches his family fall apart as his nation’s economy hits the skids. Written as the soundtrack for a television drama, it’s more a “Purple Rain”-style companion piece than a stand-alone work, but it is perhaps the most insightful and least escapist of all rock concept albums, and it launched bandleader Ray Davies on a long string of narrative works. “Lola Versus Powerman” tells the story of a young British rocker of humble beginnings and high ambition who achieves stardom only to wind up feeling used and abused by the music business in particular and modern life in general. It’s carried by excellent and varied material, coupled with the Kinks’ lean, bristling performances. The song “Lola” appears in the middle of the tale as the protagonist’s career-making hit--a function it also filled for the Kinks in real life.

*** The Kinks, “Preservation” (1973-74). The Kinks issued this opus in two parts, then took the show on the road, becoming one of the rare bands to record a theatrical album and turn it into a self-produced, self-contained piece of live theater. As a rock album, “Preservation” is a middling effort by the Kinks’ standards. But as a stage production, it was a marvel. Davies, one of rock’s warmest performers and biggest hams, clearly relished the central role of Mr. Flash, a greedy but charming scalawag who rises from petty gangster to crooked real estate tycoon. Flash gets his comeuppance at the hands of Mr. Black, a moralizing crusader who roots out Flash’s colorful brand of corruption only to install a bleak, totalitarian regime. Not bad as political parable, OK as rock music, splendid as theater.

The Kinks, “Soap Opera” (1975, ** 1/2) and “Schoolboys in Disgrace” (1975, ***). “Soap Opera” was sub-par musically but, again, the Kinks redeemed it with a vibrant and imaginative stage show that relied on Davies’ aplomb as a showman (the band wasn’t big enough to afford elaborate, pricey technical effects). The piece satirizes the concept of celebrity with its tale of a glitzy show-biz hero, the Starmaker, who turns out to be a mere construct of a humdrum white-collar working man’s imagination. “Schoolboys” is a catchier collection, but its premise is thin: Davies, overly infatuated with his “Preservation” protagonist, spun a little tale about the boyhood trauma that started Mr. Flash on his criminal career.

*** 1/2 David Bowie, “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars” (1972). Not much of a plot here, as Bowie sketchily depicts the meteoric career of the decadent, sexually ambiguous, possibly extraterrestrial Ziggy. The album served mainly as a springboard for the decadent, sexually ambiguous, mock-extraterrestrial persona that Bowie rode to stardom. Although “Ziggy” includes the pounding “Suffragette City,” Bowie was more concerned here with stagy musical settings that gave free rein to his theatrical vocal style.

***** Lou Reed, “Berlin” (1973). One of the most sordid stories ever told in rock music, “Berlin” soars (or wallows) on the strength of Reed’s brilliant characterization of its narrator. Set to a combination of edgy, sparse rock songs and deliberately bombastic orchestrations, the story depicts a couple bent on mutual humiliation and destruction. Caroline, a drug-addled, habitually unfaithful nightclub singer, drives her husband (the narrator) to a vengeful betrayal of his own. She winds up a suicide but maintains some dignity during her descent. Dubbing himself “the water boy” (“I’m just the water boy/the real game’s not over here”), the narrator appears in the end as a morally shriveled, hollow man unable to take responsibility for the disaster he has brought down. An album with the richness of a fine prose story, but not for the squeamish.

**** Electric Light Orchestra, “Eldorado” (1974). One of the best marriages of a rock band with a sweeping orchestra, “Eldorado” is an ode to the power of fantasy. A bank clerk dreams away his dull life, escaping into a world of dashing adventure that’s part Oz, part Camelot. By the end, his escape is complete, as he enters the world of imagination vowing never to return.

** 1/2 Genesis, “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway” (1974). Despite some prime progressive rock moments, this opus ultimately founders on a flimsy story by Peter Gabriel that is both nebulous and outlandish. A New York street kid named Rael is spray-painting his tag all over Times Square when he suddenly is swallowed into a subterranean world. There, he is alternately imprisoned, enchanted and tormented until, unaccountably, he discovers the true meaning of life (which Gabriel doesn’t bother to spell out). Gabriel left Genesis after “The Lamb” and sharpened his focus considerably by the time he launched his much-praised solo career in 1977.

*** Willie Nelson, “Red Headed Stranger” (1975). Driven mad by a romantic betrayal, lovable Willie’s fictitious alter-ego goes on a bloody rampage throughout Side 1, gunning down his wife, her lover and a prostitute (and you thought gangsta rap was bad). On Side 2, he finds a new territory, a new love, and a new lease on life. This is a heartwarming tale of redemption--or a morally bankrupt, willfully anti-tragic farce, depending on how you look at it. More important than the story is the musical style Nelson used to tell it: a low-key, simply arranged, almost folkish approach that marked a radical break from the overheated production style common in ‘70s Nashville.

** Emmylou Harris, “The Ballad of Sally Rose” (1985). Harris has had a marvelous career in country music, but this labored song-cycle isn’t one of its high points. There’s many a plot twist but little memorable music. The songs recount the career of an unwanted girl who finds love with a musician and loses him, first to infidelity and then to a fatal car wreck, whereupon she labors mightily to become a star herself so she might keep alive the flame of her dead husband’s greatness. Some of this unlikely myth is spun loosely from Harris’ relationship with her own ill-fated mentor, Gram Parsons.

**** Pink Floyd, “The Wall” (1979). Roger Waters’ bitter dystopia of the mind portrays an isolated rock star sinking into madness and megalomania. Pink Floyd performed it on stage with the help of a lavish array of props, then saw it expanded into a film. The album is laden with prosy filler delivered in Waters’ half-spoken bark. But there are enough memorable songs, among them “Another Brick in the Wall” and “Comfortably Numb,” to justify its legendary status.

** Roger Waters, “Radio KAOS” (1987). After “The Wall,” Waters kept the concept albums coming. “The Final Cut,” his forgettable last album with Pink Floyd, was a screed against militarism. “The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking,” his solo debut in 1984, was an album-length dream sequence on the theme of sexual desire and marital infidelity, distinguished chiefly by some excellent lead guitar work by Eric Clapton. Scenes from “Pros and Cons” might have played theatrically, but the album is too vague to qualify as a narrative work. “Radio KAOS” does sustain a plot as Waters imagines his hero, an electronics and computer wiz named Billy, seizing control of the global communications grid to create a fearsome illusion of nuclear destruction. It is Waters’ most hopeful album: In the end, it appears that the world’s powers have been scared off their path of mutually assured destruction. With “Amused to Death,” from 1992, Waters was again conceptualizing bleakly, envisioning a humanity dulled by its own mass-entertainment options. Like all of his work since “The Wall,” it is a melodically dry album that underscores how important former partner David Gilmour’s melodic gifts had been.