 I know I should record this too. And we are alive. A surprise edition of the Metal Voice Allen, shall we say? They're pro. The last minute edition. You're looking at a focus, Jeff. Recording in progress. Recording is in progress. So I kind of. You and me had a great idea today here on the Metal Voice. I relabeled it. I relabeled it, Allen. It's top 10. We started with Metal Concept Albums. I put in Hard Rock Metal Concept Albums. So it's a little loosey-goosey there, OK? So what we're going to do is count them down. And if everybody could hear the vacuuming in back, just please tell me if you hear vacuuming in the background. There's a little bit of a mess from renovators who are just here. And my wife's kind of just cleaning up a bit. I think what we've got to do is set this up. I mean, there's songs that are conceptual. And we're trying to go with an album. But there's a common thread and a narrative from A to Z all the way through the album. That's what we're aiming for today. That's what we're going to limit ourselves to. Not the 2112 side of Rush. We want the whole album to contribute to the overall concept. That's the basic premise. I like that, Howard. An album, and I Googled this right before we got on, an album featuring a cycle of songs expressed a particular theme or idea. That's exactly what you said. You should be an English teacher. Try not to be as vague. Like, you know, there's a few out there. There are albums that there's an overall kind of blurry concept. Those are gone. We're not using those. We're really going to try to focus on a linear storyline and some, or everything contradicts. Right off the bat, I'm seeing some comments saying Nostradamus by Sigmund. So how do you want to start? And we'll start off right now. So we don't want to start with the honorable mentions or you mentioned those at the end. I think we'll mention them at the end. That'll be the suspense of it all. Lots of suspense today. All right, let's go. With number 10, this is an album. Oops, there we go, let me go back. There we go, there it is. Kiss the Elder. A lot of people are going to give a lot of flack on this one, but let's be honest. 1981. Including myself. 19, Bob Ezrin, Mr. Pink Floyd, you know, The Wall, which is basically, The Wall is the one of the greatest, at least in my opinion, one of the greatest concept albums of all time, probably not for this show. If it was called Rock, Hard Rock Battle, then it would work. But of course, Pink Floyd is the bar, the bar of all concept albums. And I think Kiss the Elder deserves a nice number 10 because there are a lot of good songs on the album. World Without Heroes, Dark Light, The Oath, Mr. Blackwell, I, yes, it's a little weird because Kiss, we're so used to them singing about party rock and roll all night. It's the story of a little boy who's recruited and he's trained by the elders to combat this mysterious group of evil. So that's pretty much it. I love the artwork, Alan. I just love the artwork. Jim loves this album. I do. I mean, this is their attempt to finally get Rolling Stone to notice them. They turned their backs on their fans. They try to do some high concept that Ace freely couldn't even understand it and didn't wanna do it. So it is what it is. It's one of Jim's favorite and that's why we put it on the list. I think I love it because it's Kiss out of the box. And Ace, he's got a great Dark Light. They're just out of their element and they're sort of, I'd look at Gene, A World Without Heroes, Alan. It's a beautiful song. Yeah, yeah. And Tanvir agrees I do like A World Without Heroes. Okay, so there we go. That was number 10. That was Kiss, The Elder. And Alan didn't do well at the time. I remember back then, Alan, The Elder comes out. It was like, I don't even know if they toured, maybe they toured Australia for that album, but it was basically a tank. But I grew, I've grown to love it after all these years, all right? It's a simple, organic-like album. It's not your typical sex drugs and rock and roll. All right, let's move on. I'm listening to, I'm just a boy in that album. It's like, it's a farting part from- I'm just a boy. He's not Pete Townsend, man. There's a fart cry from I'm a boy off of Tommy there. But listen to the overall album. You can tell it's definitely Bob Ezrin influence, the sound and everything. Like you said, it's like so many other albums, including the Alice Cooper albums that Bob Ezrin did. I went back and revisited it. Equally unimpressed as the first time I heard it for 30, 40 years. All right, Alan, let's go. Number nine, let's go to number nine here. Look, a lot of people might criticize this choice. Blaze Bailey, Infinite, Entanglement, part one, part two, and part three. Blaze, you know, people could criticize this, but I think the amount of work that he put into this sort of a trilogy of three albums, there's a lot of made and influenced there. He's singing in the right key, so he doesn't kind of seem out of step, like back in the made and days, you know, out of reach perhaps, vocal-wise. It's just three great albums, and I find that, I'm not gonna name the songs. Number one, number two, and the albums just get that much better as you get to number three. I was fairly impressed with number three, but you know what? A book is supposed to come out, and as Rune says, Blaze is well-deserved. Look at his output, Blaze Bailey. It's just phenomenal. A lot of work went into those three albums, that's for sure, and we were lucky enough to have Blaze on many times, and the passion that he had, semi-autobiographical, I think, the three albums, and the passion he had to get this music out there to the people says a lot, and again, some of your favorite music that he's released in his whole career, I know that you really enjoy those three albums. And you know, hats off to Chris Appleton, his partner and writer, you know, from Obsolva, and of course, Obsolva, and just so everybody knows the concept, just in one sentence, the story follows William Black, who actually appeared in the 10th dimension in 2002, a man selected to take a journey into outer space. He lives for a thousand years, and it's basically his sort of his journey. We'll just say, is he a man? Is he a machine? Is he both? Well, you gotta pay attention to the albums and listen to the albums and you'll find out. All right, you guys ready for, do you agree everybody out there or disagree? All right, this is number eight. This is Alan's fave. I love this album. You'll love this album. Borealis Purgatory is the album. I love Borealis, they're great, their albums I find always interesting. But Purgatory was just, when it came out of the time, it really affected me. We got to interview the band when they were here opening for Evergrey. So this is a concept album where mother dies giving birth and the father can never forgive his daughter for the loss of his wife, to the point where the daughter is so neglected or feels so disenfranchised from her father that she decides to commit suicide, to go to alleviate him of his pain, alleviate her of her pain and she can be with their mother except the catch is by committing suicide, she's condemned to Purgatory for the rest of her life and she'll never get to see her mother. So that's the concept behind this album. It's just that the, again, the sound, the music, the vocals, everything, drums, guitars, it's a great listen. And a little known band from Canada, Borealis. But I highly recommend you guys checking it out. I don't think you'll be disappointed. So it's good, Alan, not only putting up the ones that everybody expects, but we're tossing in a few of the Solar Smaller bands or mid-level bands. Right, B. People might not know. That's right. All right, let's go to number seven. This is another fave of Allens. Aventasia. Aventasia. The Metal Opera. It's not my favorite Aventasia album, but I mean, we gotta choose that one because it's kind of led to, you know, that offer to the trilogy concept albums, the Scarecrow, Wicked Symphony, and Angel of Babylon. Here's another one, All On Its Own, The Mystery of Time, that's a concept album, Ghostworks, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So we'll start with the Metal Opera that started it all. The concept, oh my gosh, we have two or three hours to explain the concept. Let's try to do this briefly. Monk, Junior Monk, Senior Monk are there, getting the demons out of witches until he discovers his stepsister is accused of being a witch and he questions everything around him. He questions them and then there's the materialistic world where senior clerics are condemning people as witches and he gets to go to a fantasy world called Aventasia that's non-materialistic and there's a tower and there's the seven seals and the gang, you know, it's very, very intense. So that's briefly, it's kind of questioning the, you know, the rituals with the witches and finding a better way to go about things. So, but a great cast of musicians like always, you know, Kai Hansen, Michael Kiske, Sharon Den Adel, Andre Matos, Timo Tolki, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, various. And of course, I think Bob Catley, Bob Catley should do this, maybe not. Bob Catley was all the other ones, so. Bob Rock from Impelletary, Axel Rui-Pel, right? It's a great listen, they're still playing farewell, songs that they play, you know, not only every time they tour for Aventasia, but even Ed Geis played farewell in their tours. Aventasia farewell, reach out for the light, unbelievable, Toby and Michael going head-to-head, signed the cross and then the great finisher of the tower. If you haven't had a chance to check out any of Aventasia, this is a great start to their career. All right, that's it, so let's go. We're gonna go move up to number six, and listen, number six, this is where the hard rock category comes in, right? Welcome to my nightmare by Alice Cooper, and of course we could also do number two as well, you know, we could put it in there because it's part of the same sort of concept. It's, oh, I forgot his name there, the boy, you know, it's, it's Stephen, it's Stephen, it's sort of his journey and all his little nightmares throughout each little song and all the things he's scared of. And Stephen, you know, like only, I'm not sure how Only Women Bleed works into that, but it does. Little boy. Some great songs, you know, very 70s, late 70s disco-ish feel sometimes, but still, still very, like, I mean, the sax, just on a welcome to my nightmare and the drum beat, it's got a little bit of that disco vibe happening, but nevertheless, it's a very, an album that, you know, has held its own, you know, from the 70s or whenever it was released in 705 to today, right? When you were listening to your Kiss album, I was listening to Alice Cooper, so great, I love, I mean, we can name so many Alice, we can name the Last Temptation, we can name this one, Along Came, Comes a Spider, Along Came a Spider, there's so many concept albums that Alice Cooper has done, but of course, this is the originator, I would say welcome to my nightmare. You know, not only a great opening track, but if you listen to the three that I really love is years ago, Stephen, and then leading into the awakening with that piano, and it sounds like the soundtrack from Halloween, you know, it's just great, great, scary. You got to listen to that with earphones on and you get the chills out when you listen to that, so. And then I think it needs to be mentioned because lots of time we do reviews, and Jimmy's like, come on, let's do a review, and I don't have time to get into it and listen to it, and I'm trying my best, and I'm giving first impressions, and Jimmy's had it for three weeks, so this gives me a chance to revisit my original review from welcome to my nightmare two, and I think this is a great album of much more variance, and the concept again, it's all little snippets of what all the different nightmares could be, and just Stephen alone on the original one is worth it. So, you know, somebody at K-man goes, I think Keeper The Seven Keys is a loose concept. I don't think the first two key albums were even concept, they just tried to make it seem like they were concept albums, but they really weren't, but I think the third one, even the third one is a very, very, very loose. I think the only thing they had in common was the Keeper The Seven Keys, those words, but if there was, you know, I mean, read all the tracks on Halloween's album. I don't think it's really, really tied in. It's just tied in. But no, it is, again, that's why we had to kind of narrow this down. Yes, I guess in theory, they're conceptual albums, but are they really, you know? Like 2112 is the perfect example. A lot of people think that's a concept album. It's not. It's just one long song with many little songs that have nothing to do with each other, right? So 2112 is not on the list. And even Aaron Maiden. Spoiler alert, spoiler alert. Jimmy just tells everybody we're only at number five. We'll talk about Aaron Maiden very soon, okay? Let's move on. Do you have anything else to add? Black Widow is another great song, Black Widow. I love it. We can name quite a few of his albums, the concept albums. Yeah, all right. So the next one is one that I chose. And you know what? It's in this room. It's somewhere in this room. It's somewhere in this room. There it is. There it is, Alan. Jimmy's able to sneak in another King Diamond on every show. King Diamond, Abigail. Yes, King Diamond, you know, almost every album he has, solo album that is, is a concept album. But I'd have to pick one that is the most loved by fans. Time and time and time and time again, it's Abigail, right? I don't know how many times I could talk about this, Alan. It's the story of a young couple. Let's look at this. Miriam and Jonathan Lafay, and where Lafay came from, who move into an old mansion, takes place in 1845. And the ghost of this stillborn child, Abigail, possesses Miriam and the baby comes out as Abigail, as it sort of possessed the little baby and Miriam dies. And that's just basically the story, you know? Of course, there's a lot more to it. Great songs like Omen, Omen's Abigail, Mansion in the Darkness and the Family Ghost. King Diamond at his best, you know? There's not too many highs. There's a lot of, you know, it's kind of like 50, 50, 60, 40 on the highs and lows, because I know Alan, you get really frustrated with all that falsetto singing with King Diamond. But you made me listen to this album years ago, and I think I really enjoyed it compared to some of the other ones. So, and I know it's one of your personal faves. Are you saying it's probably one of your top 10s? It is. And again, I probably have, I love a lot of King Diamond albums and there's a lot of themes and a lot of stories. But the point is I had to pick one that everybody loved, equally. Cecile's saying, Jimmy, what was Canadian actor Chris McApeace involved with the... Make peace. Make peace, that's right. He's the kid from the meatballs and my bodyguard. You are correct, my friend. I think they hired him because they were going to do the movie and there are sort of some sort of snippets with Chris McApeace, but it just kind of all fell, just all fell apart. So I'm still waiting for that elder movie, Alan. I'm still waiting for it. Keep waiting. And I just want to say something about the elder. When it was originally released, it was out of sequence of the story, but they corrected it on the CD on the remasters later on. Oh, great. I can't check the album that I'm sorry. Cut to the middle at the beginning. We'll tell you the end at the beginning. Then we'll put the beginning at the end. Tavir is saying, I will pick up Abigail tomorrow. I haven't heard it in decades. I want to know what Jimmy thinks about Abigail 2. I will tell you quickly before we move on to the next number, Abigail 2 is probably one of the worst King Diamond albums that he has a couple of good songs, but overall not as good as Abigail 1. All right. We're off, Alan. Number four, you ready for this? The Crimson Idol, right? Look at this. There it is, the Crimson Idol. Yeah. Wasp, Blacky. Maybe semi-autobiographical story of a rocker, right? The highs and lows, reaches these top drugs, alcohol, sex, destroys them. How's all this followers? Bad management, everything, just the works. Blacky and a boy. Here's a little bit that we forgot. You know, he has a brother. Before he moves out and he goes into the world of rock and roll, he has a brother that his parents love more than him and his brother dies in the story. And the parents, you know, sort of wish it was him instead of, what was his Jonathan Steele? What was his name? Jonathan Steele, that was the name of the main character. And he goes through all these sort of, you know, his parents trying to, you know, please his parents as it, as you will. And then at the end, he takes the guitar string, puts it around his neck and kills himself. I think he kills himself or he tries to kill himself. Anyways, that's the story. Put on the scene. I mean, again, with Wasp, we could have done, you know, Neon Guard, God, part one, part two, try to get other concept albums in there. Yeah, but I don't know. Go, maybe, you know, it was supposed to be a solo album, right? Cause if you notice, like Chris Holmes wasn't on it and Ben kind of fell apart and Frankie Benally plays on it, Bruce Coolick, Bob Coolick plays on it. And yes, came out saying Blackie, Rob Lawless, re-recorded this album. But I want to say something, and I know this is gonna hurt your feelings there, came out, I have the re-recorded version too. I like it. They include, they re-did the vocals, they re-did the sound. I like it. I really do. I don't know. Did you ever see the movie? It's here. You got the movie? The DVD is here too, but it's sort of like a very, like you and I could have made it. No. That's what it's like. All right, Roone is saying rehash besides as inflated and pompous as Blackie's ego. He's referring to the remaster or the remake. It's a poor man's The Wall, very overrated. That's what I envy you're saying. Roone says Crimson Isle was and remains such a disappointment. Alan, do you agree or disagree? I don't think it lives up to the hype. It's a good album. I love the drumming, of course, Ranki Van Alley. But I was expecting more of myself when I first heard it because I mean, it's been hyped up for decades and... But yeah, I don't disagree with what people are saying. For me it was, it's a great album, but just not as great as I thought it was going to be. Interesting enough, last note on the Crimson Isle when it was released, I was working at a record store and absolutely nobody knew in Canada that this was even being released. Very little promotion in Canada, probably last in the US as well, but in Europe it seemed to have done a lot better than in Canada was 1992 at the time, so times are changing. Tough times. All right, here we go, number three, are you ready for this? Yeah. Let me get this ready. Number three, here we go. There it is. Dream Theater, Metropolis. We gotta put this on. This goes out to my buddy Cork, a huge Dream Theater fan. Kind of a concept of reincarnation and lust and love triangles and I think if I had to do it short, I'm real short. Hypnosis, my, Alan, the main character is put under some sort of hypnosis where you realize that there was some sort of murder mystery. Past lives. That's right. And he has to solve this murder mystery. It was inspired by the film Dead Again in 1991. Again, this is just like Wasp when the album came out at Metropolis. It wasn't like this big, like they sold millions and millions of copies. It was good. It did okay. But over time, it has become their sort of go-to masterpiece. Again, having the live show with the actors and you know, kind of like Operation Mind Crime and other ones, it's an interesting listen to it. Got the DVD special edition, so I've always enjoyed watching this. Now, as Skander says, hello, guys. My advice from Venezuelan, from a Venezuelan band, it's a concept album. It's Gilman Escalofro, part one and part two. I'm sure there's other bands around the world who have great concept albums. The idea of a concept album goes back way back in the late 60s, you know, from Genesis and actually the 70s, Genesis, Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. And you know, there's so many bands or prog bands used to do concept albums, but metal has really taken to it in the 80s and 90s and beyond. All right, let's go. Number, where are we at, Alan? Two. Number two. This was a, we didn't know if we were gonna do this or not. Do we know The Chemical Wedding by Bruce Dickinson? Like this was, we had a little bit of a discussion this morning about this. Is it really a concept album? Should we put it on the list? What should we do? Is it really a story? And we decided that we're gonna put it on the list. Great album inspired by the art and poetry of William Blake. William Blake, sorry. Yeah, yeah. And it's about alchemy and the failure of alchemists. Alchemists are a part chemist, part magician, part philosophers, and they're sort of, they used to turn, they used to believe they could turn metals into gold. And their ideas or the ideas that they had sort of failed and it's about failure. That's what it really is about failure throughout and just different parts of failure throughout the whole album. So yeah, it's a very loose concept, but it does, you know, it doesn't veer off into other songs or anything like that. So what do you think about that album? Yeah, I mean, I had it here on cassette, actually, in a cassette worn out. So, oh, it's a great album, it's like, it's sort of a Bruce's better solo album, as I find. Yeah, I think it's, yeah. When you listen to songs like Chemical Wedding, you know, Title Track or The Tower of Tempo and it's just, you know, like a line, like there are 12 commandments, you know, like just the way Bruce is singing on that, and Adrian Smith is on that album too, right? He's a, he co-writes a track or two and Roy Z, of course, co-writing and producing it. It's, to me, it's one of Bruce's best solo albums. Though before getting to number one, we can do our honorable mentions. I got two honorable mentions. All right, go ahead. And I know I'm going with, and I love this album because they really stepped outside their wheelhouse. Judas Priest, Nostradamus. We weren't allowed to say it. I know some people are like, don't even mention it. Don't you dare talk about it. But you know what? It was great that they did something really, really different. They attempted something different. I think KK was right. It would have been fantastic if they did the whole album live on tour. And again, it's all about the predictions, various predictions of Nostradamus and they were able to incorporate it on there. What I think is a very interesting listen, so. And KK's last album with Judas Priest. Did you mention that? No. Then I mentioned it. So that's one of my honorable mentions. Yes. There was Clockwork Angels by Rush as well. I think they could have made this quite easily. The Old Magica, it's not my favorite album. We both agreed it was a little weak to include. I think some of these other albums are stronger. But that is another concept album that would support. There it is. I would throw in Blue Oyster Cult, Imaginose. It's similar to the Kiss. They, there was a story. It was supposed to be like a three album trilogy story. And just because of the record company got involved, to sort of putting things out of sequence. And it's a very bizarre album by Blue Oyster Cult. Not to say that the other stuff isn't. Sandy Proman and Albert Bouchard put that together. And if you listen to it today, it holds, it stands a test of time. I just think it's great. And I'm sure there's a couple other ones I forgot. But I think we're gonna go to number one now, Alan. But if anybody else has something they'd like to throw out there before we go to number one. I mean, you know, like you and I discussed earlier, you know, there's the glorious burden all about the civil war, right? All three days into one song. It was great. And the whole album, I mean, Ice Earth, we can name, you know, the horror show, right? It's all about these horror, but it's individual songs telling individual stories. Yes, the overall concept is a horror show. Thank you, thank you, Weir Wolf, I should say, but did it feel a linear storyline? And like you said at the beginning, that was our criteria for today. An A to Z kind of storyline that goes right through the album. So I think our number one choice illustrates this. Yes, yes, but let's hold on. Seven Son of the Seven Son. That was a controversy, yes. That was a big, that was like phone call in the afternoon. Is this a concept album? So sure it was based on a story, you know, that Steve Harris wrote and Bruce Dickinson got involved, but the band has stated that the whole album is not part of that. It's sort of just because it's their seventh album. Very loose concept album. Yeah, yeah. You know. So to Rune, who's saying without Seven Son is a joke, it's not a concept album. It's like 2112. Yes, there's a lot of it that is. Oh, here we go. Somewhere in time, they were obsessed with time, right? After touring for what, 18, 20, 23 months there across the whole world. So he had all these songs that were written about time, but you can't say it's a concept album either, so. Yeah. So Phil was saying guns and roses, use your illusion. Well, it's not really, not even close to a concept album. Maybe the part one and part two, two albums with the same name, with the part one and part two, it could be perceived, but it's not. Okay, here we go. Number one. And I think there's a no brainer. Yes, yes. I'm just kidding. Unbelievable album. Not that one, this one. My favorite from back in the day, still one of my top 10 favorites. Well, I talk about a storyline from A to Z. You know, Professor X influencing negatively a young drug addict that forces to kill his girlfriend who's a nun. It's an unbelievable, fantastic story. Revolution calling, revolution's calling. And again, seeing it live, it was great with, you know, sister Mary comes out and you've got Jeff rolling around and acting and then they released Operation Mind Time 2 and they did it back to back. It was just amazing. I love Queens right when they do that, so. Yeah, yeah. And the story is Nicky, a drug addict, like you said, becomes disillusioned and, you know, joins Dr. X and to assassinate political and religious leaders. Evil Dr. X. And then who? The needle lies. The needle lies. Who killed sister Mary? Who killed sister Mary? That was like, nobody knew for 10 years, Allen, right? Nobody knew, nobody knew. Recorded at the studio, More and Heights as we spoke about this many, many times inspired by the Quebec separatist movement. The political angle as Jeff Tate has told us. And he wrote the characters in Le Pub Saint Sulpice on St. Denis Street where he had friends and used to hang out there and look at all the different characters and based the characters off the people that he saw, having a couple of pints. So there you have it, Operation Mind Crime. Some great songs. What are your favorite tracks of it, Allen? Everything. I love every song. I think that album, that album was just so influential in my life. When it came out, I just couldn't get enough of it. I wanted to make films to reflect it. I wanted to write stories that reflected it. It had that much of an effect on me. One of my top 10s. You talked about Abigail for yourself. This is definitely one of my top 10 all time favorite albums. Yeah, same here. I mean, there's not, I remember when it was released and it didn't take off right away, right? It was more like an underground, people were like the real, there was no radio on Operation Mind Crime. There was no videos. That was kind of after the fact, like after six months or so, they started releasing the videos in the album actually then, took off. But I don't think they were playing any songs on the radio, at least not in Canada. Do you remember? Nada. No. Zip, zero. I was just waiting for them to see them live, to see what they were going to do with this concept, how they released a box set with the CD and the VHS at the time. You know, that gives you a feel of kind of what they're doing. But I mean, the stage show was quite elaborate, grew more and more over the decades. And again, if you have the chance to, the more, I think it's the more theater, the DVD Operation Mind Crime one and two, back to back. We were there, we saw the tour when they came here and it was just, it's a great DVD as a memento of that fantastic tour where they did it for the back to back. Yep, and there you have it folks. The top 10 according to us. There's lots more out there. There's lots more out there. Feel free. Yeah, yeah, feel free to add. Yes, of course. And that's it. So, leave your comments. Thank you for watching and we'll see you again. Here on the.