Crate Digging is our recurring feature series that takes a deep dive into music history to turn up several albums all music fans should know. In this edition, comedian and musician Tim Heidecker makes his picks for the best concept albums of all time.
Tim Heidecker, when given the opportunity to suggest a topic for a Crate Digging, chose concept albums. This is because, he tells Consequence, “in a self-serving manner, I think I tend to put out concept albums” — including his newest studio album Slipping Away, as well as past releases like Fear of Death and High School.
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In terms of his own creative process, Heidecker says that when he’s working on a record, “I’m trying to think of what’s connecting it all — what I am trying to say or what I am trying to talk about, and how the songs can inform that idea. I think the record is obviously like not doing well as a concept, as a piece of art — like, the idea of an album. I think kids aren’t quite so tuned into that, but I’m a believer in it and I like albums that do that.”
Of course, the question of what a concept album is becomes important, and Heidecker fully acknowledges that it’s “kind of hard” to answer it. His definition, though, is a record with a point of view: “There’s a continuity to the songs, but it doesn’t verge into full-on rock opera or musical. There’s a lot of thought put into how the songs work together, and you could write a caption for what the album is about, more or less…”
He laughs. “Which I’ll attempt to do with these.”
Elvis Costello — The Juliet Letters
Each song is in the form of a letter: It’s a concept of imaginary letters being sent to an imaginary recipient. It’s very eclectic music because it’s a string quartet and Elvis Costello — but it’s a cool writing exercise, like, can these songs exist as something that you would read as a letter? There are love letters, there are breakup letters, there’s a cease-and-desist style of letter… I thought it was very creative and inventive and cohesive as a project. While it doesn’t tell a full story, it’s certainly a concept.
I discovered this when it came out, because I was a big Elvis Costello fan. He’s such a great lyricist. I’m such an admirer of his way with words, and this was a great exercise in showing how clever he can be.
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Randy Newman — Good Old Boys
It’s probably Randy’s most cohesive concept. I think it started out even more literal — the name of the original record was Johnny Cutler’s Birthday, and it was all about this guy who lives in Birmingham, Alabama, and all the songs are kind of from his perspective. That doesn’t end up being the full record — it veers off, which makes it less of a musical and more of a concept record, about the various voices of people from the South.
It’s a controversial record because the first song has got the N-word all over it. But he’s coming from the satirical place of talking about race and racism and definitely putting putting it on trial, or commenting on it from the right perspective. And it’s a beautiful record. I love the continuity of the music, the band that plays on it is top-notch, it’s got Southern flavor to it, and the songs are very funny. There are some very sad songs on it, too. It’s just a great capturing of a Northerner’s perspective of the South.
The great thing about the redneck song is he’s singing about this idea of a white man in the South, but he is also very critical of the North when it comes to race relations and how the ghettos of the big cities have been treating African-Americans, in a lot of ways just as bad as the South. Everybody’s on trial, on Randy’s record.
The Band — The Band
Also a record about the South from Northerners. I don’t know if I’ve seen [The Band’s second album] described quite as a concept album, but it’s very similar to Good Old Boys, in that I know Robbie Robertson wrote a lot of the songs after talking to his bandmate Levon Helm about growing up in Arkansas and telling stories about life in the South from their perspective.
I mean, obviously, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” is a fascinating song, because it’s from the point of view of a poor Southern soldier, someone who isn’t too interested in the issues of the war itself, just kind of like, “I gotta do my duty.” And the whole record has this continuity of sound, that feels like these are characters who know each other or spend time together. A snapshot of a long-gone period of time.
Bob Dylan — Blood on the Tracks
An all-timer. This is the divorce record. This is the record you put on when you’re going through a breakup or thinking about breaking up. It feels like Dylan’s most personal autobiographical album; there are some very direct references to his own marriage, and again, it feels like all these songs belong together. It almost feels like a live record, in the sense that it feels like they just played one song and then kept rolling and played the next song. I don’t know how intentional the concept was — maybe it revealed itself after the fact. But it’s on my list as absolutely essential.
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