As long as there has been music, the form has been used as a vehicle for storytelling. Artists who have something to say often find that putting it into music is the ideal means of communicating thoughts and feelings to others. And the concept-album form is a logical extension of that storytelling impulse, often writ large. It allows the writer to tackle bigger themes, more involved story lines, more finely textured characters and ideas. In the pages of What’s the Big Idea? (Hozac, 2025), author Bill Kopp explores 30 remarkable concept albums, drawing on new, firsthand interviews with the artists behind their creation. Author of the critically acclaimed Disturbing the Peace, Kopp turns us down the darkest road of musical blind-spots yet, the concept album, a previously shunned genre, now worthy of your curiosity. And then you hear something like Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake, and The Turtles Present Battle of the Bands, or S.F. Sorrow, and you’re really second-guessing yourself now, right? As it turns out, there’s something genuinely interesting about this “concept” in itself, and it lends us a look into a world when musical creativity really had been unleashed in its full glory. Yes, those extravagances produced much audio garbage, but very few people even get that chance anymore, despite the ease of home recording. Even Captain Sensible and The Church committed this ‘big ideas’ into noteworthy efforts, along with Hawkwind, William Shatner, Ghostface Killa, and of course, Pete Townshend, who graciously offers an exclusive interview here. Bill Kopp is a freelance journalist and the author of Reinventing Pink Floyd: From Syd Barrett to the Dark Side of the Moon and Disturbing the Peace: 415 Records and the Rise of New Wave. Bill Kopp’s website. Bradley Morgan is a media arts professional in Chicago and author of U2's The Joshua Tree: Planting Roots in Mythic America (Backbeat Books, 2021), Frank Zappa's America (LSU Press, 2025), and U2: Until the End of the World (Gemini Books, 2025). He manages partnerships on behalf of CHIRP Radio 107.1 FM and is the director of its music film festival. Bradley on Facebook and Bluesky. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.