Rock Opera: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"You're suddenly rather grateful of the explicatory notes -- making sense has never been foremost on Townshend's list of rock-opera priorities."''|'''Alexis Petridis''' on ''[[The Who|Endless Wire]]''}}

 

 

The "opera"-ness of the form varies significantly. Some are sung entirely from the point of view of a single (possibly unnamed) character, while others have explicitly-named characters interacting with each other in song (and likely performed by different singers). [[The Other Wiki]]'s entry for ''[[Tommy]]'' suggests that "rock cantata" or "rock song cycle" might be a more accurate term, since a rock opera is purely a musical performance that is not intended to be staged or acted out. This is odd, since ''Tommy'' was the [[Ur Example|first]] [[Trope Maker|widely]] [[Trope Codifier|heard]] Rock Opera, and was farther on the opera side of this scale.

Especially popular rock operas tend to get adapted as [[The Musical]], although as there may be staging difficulties or only one or two characters with singing parts, [[Pragmatic Adaptation|changes]] are often made. A few skip the whole "concept album" phase and are written explicitly for the stage.

 

 

 

 

 

* ''!Hero'' is a Christian rock opera that asks "What if Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania?". It notably featured a number of major players in the Christian Rock world, such as former dcTalk member and current Newsboys frontrunner Michael Tait as the title character, along with John Cooper of Skillet, Audio Adrenaline's Mark Stuart, and Rebecca St. James.

** They also did a trilogy of pieces collectively called "fear" (yes, lower-case "f" and all). Strangely, the three parts were not only on three different albums, but appeared ''in reverse order'' of their numbering.

*** Then they put a semi-official "Part 4" on ''Vapor Trails'' years after the other three parts were released.

** ''Cygnus X-1'' and ''Hemispheres'' could be considered companion pieces, as the hero from the former shows up in the middle of the latter {{spoiler|after his ship is destroyed by the titular black hole.}}

* ''Ambo'' by [[Myst|Robyn Miller]] and Keith Moore. Seen [http://tinselman.com/ambo.html here.]

* Arjen Anthony Lucassen's band [[Ayreon]] is built on this trope. ALL his works tie together, somehow- at least, right up through the current album, 01011001, wherein it may or may not be [[All Just a Dream]]. Of course, Arjen loves to fuck with our perceptions of reality like this- his first album as Ayreon, The Final Experiment, tells a (presumably fictitious god we hope) story about visions of man's doom in 2084 being sent back to a blind minstrel in Arthurian England. That whole album is a musically-rendered tale of [[Cassandra Truth]]. His successive works are... just as strange, in particular Into the Electric Castle. Amazing storytelling, trippy story. If you can actually FIND his work anywhere, give it a listen (but make sure you've got a couple hours free, he likes double albums).

* ''Ashtray Rock'' by the Joel Plaskett Emergency has an atypically simple plot for a rock opera: two guys fight over a girl and break up their band.

* ''[[Days Of Rising Doom]]'' by the supergroup Aina, bonus points as it was their ''only'' album.

* Pretty much every album by Coheed and Cambria tells the story of ''[[The Armory Wars]]'' (the band name itself is part of the plot).

* ''[[Arthur Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire|Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)]]'' by [[The Kinks]]

* [[Trans-Siberian Orchestra]]. TSO exists to write rock operas, most of which are Christmas themed. Their rock operas are ''Christmas Eve and Other Stories'' (1996), ''The Christmas Attic'' (1998), ''Beethoven's Last Night'' (2000), and ''The Lost Christmas Eve'' (2004). The aforementioned "Christmas Eve / Sarajevo 12/24" is now universally known as a TSO song.

* [[Baltimore Rock Opera Society]]: A Maryland theater troupe of young artists and musicians who put together wholly original rock operas designed to be the craziest type of theater experience ever conceived.

* ''The Crimson Idol'' and ''The Neon God'' by WASP

* ''The Downward Spiral'' and ''Year Zero'', by [[Nine Inch Nails]]

* Every single GWAR album. Significant in that several albums have corresponding ''movies'':

** ''America Must Be Destroyed'' has the movie ''Phallus in Wonderland''

** ''[[Music/Rag Na Rok|Rag Na Rok]]'' has ''Rendezvous with RagNaRok''

** ''Carnival of Chaos'' has ''Dawn of the Day of the Night of the Penguins''

* ''[[Hedwig and The Angry Inch]]''

** Almost all of the songs written for the group by its manager/lyricist Sandy Pearlman were part of an operatic [[Myth Arc]], of which Imaginos is merely a ''fragment''.

* ''The Iron Man'', by Pete Townshend, based on the children's book known in the US as ''[[The Iron Giant]]''

* ''[[Jesus Christ Superstar]]'' by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice

** Along with its namesake, ''Antichrist Superstar'' by Marilyn Manson. It's part of a triptych of rock operas, along with ''Mechanical Animals'' and ''Holy Wood (In The Valley Of The Shadow of Death)''. Apparently the chronological order of the story is the reverse of the release dates of the albums. It's all really an extended version of ''The Wall'' with more [[Nightmare Fuel]].

** That's ironic, considering [[Pink Floyd|Roger Waters]]' enduring hatred of Andrew Lloyd Webber.

* ''Joe's Garage'' by Frank Zappa

* ''[[Juno And Avos]]'', a Soviet Rock Opera by [[Alexei Rybnikov]] and Andrey Voznesenskiy.

* ''Lifehouse'', initiated by [[The Who]] in 1970, ultimately released 30 years later as a Pete Townshend solo album. (Note that Townshend was quite prolific in this genre.) The aborted Who version of ''Lifehouse'' is considered by Townshend to form a trilogy with ''Psychoderelict'' and ''Wire and Glass'', each of which feature [[Author Avatar]] Ray High in different stages of his career.

* [[Meat Loaf]] had two 10-minute operatic suites on his ''Bat Out Of Hell'' album; the title track, which songwriter Jim Steinman described as "the ultimate car crash song", and ''Paradise on the Dashboard Light'', which he described as "the ultimate car ''sex'' song". Much of the rest of his music has [[Epic Rocking|an operatic feel to it]], if not necessarily a narrative progression, resulting in the term "Wagnerian rock" being coined to describe him.

* ''The Metal Opera'', parts one and two, by Avantasia

** And since then, ''The Scarecrow'', which they subsequently turned into a trilogy with the release of ''The Wicked Symphony'' and ''Angel of Babylon''. Avantasia pretty much exists purely for Tobias Sammett to release rock operas.

** And the title track (i.e. entire second disc) of their ''Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence'' album.

* ''Magica'' by [[Dio]]

* ''The Novelist'' by Richard Swift is a surprisingly short example, taking only 27 minutes to tell the story of a writer undergoing a nervous breakdown.

* ''Tyranny'' by Shadow Gallery

* ''Room V'' by Shadow Gallery

* ''Zen Arcade'' by Husker Du

* ''Psychoderelict'', by Pete Townshend

* ''Radio KAOS'', by Roger Waters

* Separation Sunday - The Hold Steady.

* The oft forgotten ''S.F. Sorrow'' by the '60s British group, The Pretty Things. S.F. Sorrow tells the story of Sebastian F. Sorrow, who endures World War I, and then returns to his love, who is killed in a dirigible accident. Sorrow falls into a severe state of depression, and is then taken on a journey by the mythical Baron Saturday. The Baron throws Sorrow into a room of mirrors, where he sees the horrible truths and revelations of his life, ending with Sorrow secluding himself from society and building a mental and emotional wall. And this was ten years before Roger Waters had even thought of The Wall yet. Notable for being considered one of the first Rock Operas. Produced at Abbey Road, during the same time The Beatles were recording Sgt. Peppers and Pink Floyd were recording Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

* ''[http://www.spacecrackers.com Space Crackers]'', by indie band Clawjob.

* ''[[Tommy]]'' by [[The Who]], in reference to which the term "rock opera" was coined.

** ''Quadrophenia'' was their second rock opera. ''Who's Next'' started out as a rock opera too. They have also done many mini operas, such as the recent ''Wire And Glass'' or the early ''A Quick One While He's Away''.

* ''Traveller'' by Slough Feg

* ''White City'', by Pete Townshend

* ''[[The Wall]]'' by Pink Floyd.

** There's also the more recent two-part Something Wicked: ''Framing Armageddon: Something Wicked, Part 1'', and ''The Crucible of Man: Something Wicked, Part 2''.

** And let's not forget their first rock opera, ''Night of the Stormrider''.

** Rhapsody of Fire's first five albums (when they were still just Rhapsody) comprise the Emerald Sword Saga. Sadly, the narrators are not up to Christopher Lee, but the music is often brilliant.

* King Diamond is to horror what Rhapsody is to fantasy. All but two of their albums tell a story and there are several stories that span multiple albums.

* A notable failure would be 1981's ''Music from the Elder'' by Kiss, which flopped commercially, causing the planned tour and feature film to be cancelled, alienated much of the band's fanbase (those who hadn't already given up on the group after a set of subpar solo albums, a cheesy over-the-top TV movie, a switch to cartoonish superhero-like costumes, two straight disco records and the departure of drummer Peter Criss) and led to the departure of founding lead guitarist Ace Frehley, who opposed the idea of a concept album from the start and hardly appears on it.

* ''[[Clone High]]'' did an episode that was billed as a Rock Opera. Jack Black basically convinces all the kids that smoking raisins gets you high, with the typical "dangers of drugs" story as a result. It was very trippy and paid tribute to Tommy and The Beatles a couple of times. The music was actually pretty good.

* Street Fight Round 1 by Man Factory, a musical roughly based around the plot of the street fighter game series, it's available on their myspace. Round 2 has been released, continuing the story of the first.

* Kamelot did this recently with their twin albums Epica and Black Halo, which retell the story of Faust to melodic metal.

* ''These Are Not My Pants'' by Christian band [[Five Iron Frenzy]] is parodic rock opera about a person [[Better Than It Sounds|wearing pants of unknown origin]].

* ''Misty Beethoven: The Musical!'' is a rock-opera remake of 70's porn ''The Opening of Misty Beethoven'', which was in turn based on the musical ''My Fair Lady''.

* [[The Decemberists]] have a mini-rock opera in ''The Crane Wife'', which isn't quite a concept album, but features three tracks that together tell the story of a Japanese folk tale. ''The Hazards of Love'', however, is a full-blown rock opera concept album about a romance between William (A man that, as a child, was adopted by the Queen of the taiga and turned into a shapeshifting white fawn) and Margaret. Their romance is threatened by the aforementioned Queen (Who is angry at her adopted son having impregnated Margaret), and by a murderous scoundrel called the Rake, who simply wants to kidnap, rape, and presumably murder Margaret. [[Squick|Hopefully in that order]]. On the way, William and Margaret are aided by the spirits of the forest, and the vengeful ghosts of the Rake's murdered children. {{spoiler|[[Downer Ending|William and Margaret die anyway.]]}}

* The Hold Steady, while never going so far as to write a full-on Rock Opera have such an incestuous musical canon that you could probably construct one with minimal effort and at least one album seems dedicated to the experiences of 'Holly', a Catholic schoolgirl in way over her head with the local indie/druggie scene.

* Depending on who you ask, Tool's Lateralus

* Excluding the eponimous ''Mägo de Oz'', ''La Bruja'', and ''Belfast'' all Mägo de Oz albums are this. In fact ''Gaia'', ''Gaia II: La Voz Dormida'' and ''Gaia III: Atlantia'' form a trilogy

* 10cc's ''One Night In Paris'' is a mini-rock-opera (about 10 minutes long) regarding an American tourist's experiences in the French capital.

* [[Rent]] was a highly successful rock opera.

** It set the bar for other rock operas not made by bands to thrive on Broadway, such as: [[Spring Awakening]], [[Passing Strange]], [[Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson]], [[Memphis]] (although created by Bon Jovi's keyboardist) and [[Next to Normal]].

* Virgin Steele have several rock operas under their belt... pretty much everything from ''Invictus'' on.

* Ahab's 2 albums to date have both been rock operas. Crushingly heavy funeral doom rock operas, but rock operas nonetheless. And given the band's name, it shouldn't be too hard to guess their favorite [[Moby Dick|theme]].

* The album ''Terrifyer'' by deathgrind band Pig Destroyer is, if not a rock opera, certainly sequential of narrative. It details the narrator's obsession with Natasha, the 'Terrifyer' of the title.

* ''Colonel Jeffery Pumpernickel: A Concept Album'' is unusual for being both an original rock opera and a various artists compilation: Chris Slusarenko came up with a [[Mind Screw|thoroughly confusing]] version of the standard [[Rock Opera Plot]], then got indie rock acts like Guided By Voices, Stephen Malkmus, and Grandaddy to write and perform songs based around it.

* [[Willie Nelson]]'s Red Headed Stranger surely counts as a Country Opera...

* [[Steely Dan|Donald Fagen]]'s ''Kamakiriad''. A [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]] album about a man and his car.

* ''[[Rocky Horror Picture Show]]''

* [[Sound Horizon]] has created a number of these, such as ''Moira'' and ''Marchen''.

* [[Tom Russell]] wrote one of the most famous folk operas of the 1990s, his 1999 release ''The Man From Nowhere''. It took him 10 years to write, tracing his family tree back over a hundred years to do so, but boy does it pay off. Each and every character is developed in an incredibly strong way, and the lyrics have amazing effort put into them.

* ''The Divine Conspiracy'' by [[Epica]] could also qualify. It's a concept album that turns around the concept of religion from the view of a character.

 

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