Way back in the 'old days' we had these big black, vinyl(Sp) things called albums. Also known as records. These things were kinda like large CDs. Well, a concept album, is a album, ( or CD now ) that has all the songs on it telling one story. I am wanting to try and hear and or get as many as possible. But I can only think of a couple. Pink Floyd, and Queensryche's 'Operation Mindcrime'. To me, Mindcrime is probably the best concept album ever. But apparently, since I can only think of 2, I have heard, or can't think of any others, I'm not a good judge. So if you know of any good concept CD's ( It still just doesn't feel right saying that ) could you list them here please?
If you know who Rush is, or like them...Rush: 2112 is a concept album I guess...it tells about the future without music, then BAM someone finds a guitar and everything changes.
The Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Cromatorium listen to that. it will blow you away. drums = amazing, vocals = amazing. the energy = amazing. quick rundown of the story...a friend of theirs was severley deformed (shrivled arm from shooting up rat poison, hunched back, etc) he tries to commit suicide by od'ing. falls into a coma. has crazy dreams. wakes up, kills himself. its a true story too.
Dan Swano seems to like concept albums. He was a big part of the Death Metal scene and known mostly for the stuff he did with Edge of Sanity. Your a Maiden fan, so you may like it.
you mentioned floyd, both dark side and the wall are good. sergeant peppers is another great one. also check out jethro tull's thick as a brick or the who's tommy (much harder to grasp, but still there and still great) are both really good, also. if you're looking for newer stuff i would recommend daft punks discovery (and interstella 5555) or pretty much anything by of montreal (hissing fauna, recommended).
Off the top of my head, I highly recommend Transatlantic's "The Whirlwind" (also, now available on CD/DVD). Hear this. Also, Ayreon's "Into the Electric Castle" is a concept album as well, but not so much my style. But I do believe it is good.
Like some listed, and you said, I like the older ones. DSOTM and The Wall are my absolute favorite, but that's because I'm a huge Floyd fan. Some listed Rush, great with long story type prog-rock, some of the albums aren't quite concept albums, but just one song is a concept album in itself, as they change so much like 'The Fountain of Lamneth' and so on. I like Captain Beyond's 1972 debut 'Captain Beyond'. It's very spacey and it does have some sort of concept to it, but it just goes through and each song kinda connects to the next, give it a listen. P.S. If you've never heard of CB, and you like Deep Purple and Iron Butterfly and Johnny Winter, well, they took Rod Evans from Purp, 2 members from Butterfly, and a guy from Johnny Winter Group. Bowie's infamous 'Ziggy Stardust' concept made a pretty good concept album imo, The Rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
That's my favorite one. I also like "Frances the Mute" by the Mars Volta. You have to listen to the actual song Frances the Mute, which isn't on the album, to figure out the mystery of the concept. The Mother, The Mechanic, and The Path by The Early November is all right.
^i second Deltron 3030. I'm a big fan of the Killers debut album, Hot Fuss, all about some girl getting arrested in hollywood or something