1. The Louvin Brothers, Satan Is Real (1960)
Before prog-rockers and heavy-metal bands started crafting 40-minute narratives about mythological heroes and dystopian futures, concept albums were mostly just collections of songs with a single theme. Few of those early efforts were as daring or memorable as The Louvin Brothers' 1960 country-gospel set Satan Is Real. The record's cover has a giant cartoon devil standing over the brothers, all engulfed in flames, but even creepier are the songs, which blend sermons and stories about the depths of sin. Satan Is Real features multiple songs about drinking and dying, and it's structured as a kind of back-and-forth delineation of the fearful power of God and the insidious influence of that other guy. At least the album's see-sawing story has a happy ending, for those who don't mind living "The Christian Life."
2. The Everly Brothers, Roots (1968)
In the late '60s, nearly every just-past-relevance Top 40 act with a recording contract tried to make its own Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, but Don and Phil Everly were among the few to come out of the psychedelic pop-art grinder with a legitimate classic. The 1968 statement-of-purpose Roots cuts together pieces of old Everly Family radio broadcasts, covers of country-and-western standards like "Mama Tried" and "T For Texas," and pretty, trippy songs like "Shady Grove" and "Illinois." It's a strange little pastiche, but highly listenable—even moving—and a far more original move than if the Everlys had bought a couple of Nehru jackets and hired a Sunset Strip hanger-on to write some material about rainbows and the Vietnam War. (Not that those other kinds of albums can't be entertaining too, as seen below.)
3. Bobby Darin, Bobby Darin Born Walden Robert Cassotto (1968)
Some people thought Kevin Spacey was being megalomaniacal when he wrote, directed, and starred in the Bobby Darin biopic Beyond The Sea, but he was only walking in his subject's shoes. In 1968, Darin released Bobby Darin Born Walden Robert Cassotto, an album that referenced his birth name and birth year (the LP's catalog number was 1936), and was, according to the back cover, "written, arranged, produced, designed and photographed by BOBBY DARIN." Even the songs were about Darin—or at least about his growing support of the hippie protest movement. Born's strongest statement was its lyric sheet, partially obscured by bold-faced fake headlines like "Four Year Draft Extension; Youngest First," "LSD—Revelation Or Paranoia?", and the priceless "Parents' Knowledge Outmoded." Thus a middle-aged pop star made himself over as a dude the younger generation could trust… at least until he got through this troubadour phase and went back to Vegas. Still, for a time there was something happening, and you knew what it was, didn't you, Mr. Cassotto?
4. The Four Seasons, The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette (1969)
Big girls don't cry, but big boys apparently lose interest in singing peppy little doo-wop tunes, and want to cast an eye toward the persistent silliness of modern society. Coming on like a cross between The Kinks and Butterflies Are Free, The Four Seasons' The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette is full of baroque, multi-part pop songs about people "taking off their masks" and revealing the ugliness within. Which actually makes them beautiful. Or something. Anyway, the album itself is likeably lush, showcasing the sophisticated vocal arrangements that this gang of Jersey boys developed over a decade of touring and recording.
5. Frank Sinatra, Watertown (1969)
Frank Sinatra is arguably responsible for the very concept of the concept album, thanks to his '50s collections of thematically linked songs, like In The Wee Small Hours. In 1969, Sinatra recorded the album-length story Watertown, conceived and co-written by The Four Seasons' house songwriter Bob Gaudio, and following the misery of a divorced father left stranded in a small town with his kids. Sinatra is in fine, morose voice, brightened just a little by the tastefully kitschy late-'60s contempo-pop arrangements. But what makes Watertown such a gem is the unusual conceit—a set of songs composed as letters to the singer's absent wife—and a depth of feeling that rivals Josh Rouse's recent death-of-a-marriage masterpiece Under Cold Blue Stars. It's a happy bummer.
6. The Osmonds, The Plan (1973)
The Osmond Family already had half a decade of teen-pop success when they decided to take a groovy swing at Mormon evangelism on 1973's The Plan, an eclectic explication of their faith, set to acid-washed country-rock. The songs reference spaceships and great battles—which makes the album sound more like a Scientology tract than a backdoor Mormon mission—but when those freshly scrubbed voices start shouting about "goin' home," there's no doubting which piece of celestial real estate they mean. It's that pearly-gated community in the sky, where the chosen people live in special subdivisions, and the dead can get married.
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