A Quote by Mike Portnoy

When you're putting together a concept album, it's all about the flow and the story.

Mike Portnoy

Quote Topics

About Album Concept Flow Putting Story Together

Quote Author

Mike Portnoy
American - Musician
Born: April 20, 1967

That's one of the hardest parts of putting together an album - finding that concept, that unifying idea. Especially as I write mostly in instrumental music, the idea of having a central concept that unifies the music is very important to me.

Johann Johannsson

I'm gonna stay an album guy. In fact, concept albums are really blowing my mind right now, because if you want to promote an album, think about it - a concept album might be the way to go.

Garth Brooks

'Love Letter' is a concept album, and whenever I do a concept album - and I love doing concept albums more than any other kind of album - it allows me to get dressed, in a way, musically.

R. Kelly

The craft of putting together a performance on film or television is incredibly intricate; you're putting together a story that is completely out of order, that you have to make some sense of, that you have to keep some coherence to the story, to the character.

Gabriel Mann

Sometimes, a concept is needed to spark myself and the vocalist; sometimes a concept isn't necessary for that spark. It all depends on the moment, because I don't want to be that dude that every album has to be this story or that story.

Adrian Younge

I read the reviews sometimes, but I don't let it really affect the next album because, for me, when I approach an album, it's usually coming to me pretty naturally. It's not like I set out, like, "Okay, I'm going to write an album this month." It's more like I'm just always writing songs and eventually I start to realize that a group of songs sort of fits together, and I go from there in putting together the album and themes and artwork and things like that.

Chelsea Wolfe

I've been putting together the story with Rob and putting all the details of it together and looking at all the various designs they have for the toys and stuff, it's pretty exciting.

Nicholas Stoller

I think record cover sleeves really led towards, but at the same time the album as we know it didn't come into being until mainly after the Second World War because record labels realized they'd be able to make a lot more money putting all the singles of an artist onto one album and selling the whole album as a kind of a concept.

DJ Spooky

Apple, iTunes, and streaming services have made the single a more easy thing to access. What that's done has made the album as a collection of songs almost meaningless. But an album that has a concept or story or reason to be an album, if anything, has more meaning now than it ever has.

Matt Bellamy

[Drizzy] ,it was dope. A great experience, especially with the topic he was talking about and to be... organic.I'm glad that it worked out the way it did where I got to tell my story, tell his story at the same time... and actually have it make sense as far as the whole concept of the album.

Kendrick Lamar

I like to envision the creation of a short story collection as being like putting together a jazz album. Yes, there's logic and literary structures imposed by me, but at the same time, all the tracks are shaped and ordered in a much more improvisational manner. The guiding principle for me is whether or not a story adds a layer or texture to the overall collection.

Daniel Olivas

For every album, I really try to make an album that you hopefully will listen to from the first track to the last track. I personally really like if there's a - maybe not a story, but there's a natural flow.

Trentemøller

I'd like to do a concept album, with the concept being about me.

Kyle Gass

There's the underlying feeling that writing must be easy, because it's all about putting letters together. That's only true in the same way that programming is all about putting numbers together.