I know that there are countless amount of movies/games soundtracks with leitmotifs, but other than that I’ve never found albums with leitmotifs.
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Portugal the man - Chris Black changed my life
The Near Future by I Fight Dragons. (A rock band that uses chiptune arrangements)
First 10 songs are a concept story where the prelude and battle themes are reprised in various parts. Pretty easy listening and good tunes 😁
there’s a few recurring motifs in Pink Floyd - The Wall but I’m uncertain if they count as leitmotif per se
I believe Haggard’s incredible album “Tales of Itheria” qualifies, and is insanely underrated.
Both The Downward Spiral and The Fragile by Nine Inch Nails contain lietmotifs.
Oh wow I completely forgot lol
I mean I’m reaching a bit with them because, at least for The Fragile, the motif isn’t particularly connected to a certain character.
Not really reaching, both the song The Downward Spiral and Closer has the same leitmotif, and I like it so much. Makes me wonder why I forgot about this one
Did you know as well that that lietmotif is also repeated in the bassline for Heresy?
Honestly I could infodump for hours about the sound design and composition of those albums, I love them so much.
PLEASE WE NEED IT
(make a separate post if it’s really long)
Haha alright, I’ll work on something and put it up when it’s ready.
Progressive metal is all about leitmotifs. Dream theater specially uses the technique to great effect. Like in Six degrees of inner turbulence or the meta album (each song in the album is in a different other album but construct a separate sequence) 12 step suite, about alcoholism.
Gawd I love Dream Theater.
I’ll have to listen again but I don’t recall 6doit having any recurring musical phrases that accompany characters or other ideas throughout the album. there is an overture at the beginning that introduces the songs.
It does, the overture doesn’t only introduces later songs (through leitmotifs), it reuses them again for a reprise and a finale. Other examples include Metropolis part II: scenes from a memory, which is almost a musical, including characters, scenes and acts, and A change of seasons, where leitmotifs are not for characters but concepts.
It does, the overture doesn’t only introduces later songs (through leitmotifs), it reuses them again for a reprise and a finale.
yeah what I’m saying is I don’t think that’s really what a “leitmotif” is.
How is it not?. If anything, DT’s instrumental use of leitmotif for composition is more classical and predates the crude and vulgar current interpretation of leitmotif=“this character is on screen”.
A leitmotif or Leitmotiv[1] (/ˌlaɪtmoʊˈtiːf/) is a “short, recurring musical phrase”[2] associated with a particular person, place, or idea.
I don’t think any of DTs recurring musical phrases are “associated with a particular person, place, or idea.” Like there has to be more to it than recurrence to be considered a leitmotif. Recurrence in music happened a lot for various reasons before the idea of leitmotifs, so if you use the term generically to that extent it loses any meaning.
OK.
The german gothic rock band ASP created the album Zaubererbruder, which is entirely about the folk tale of Krabat.
Man, that album is so good that I almost want to say it would be worth learning German just to understand it, but I’m afraid even then then cultural references might be lost on people.
Definitely a masterpiece however. Every track just clicks right where it ought to, and the story that’s told (while ending slightly different from the canon version) is fantastic. Absolute 10/10, and I’m not even a goth or a metalhead.
A Thousand Suns by Linkin Park is a concept album about (nuclear) warfare and the threat of technology to humankind. It starts with an intro song in which the lyrics reference the penultimate song, The Catalyst. And that song itself has an intro track that references back to one of the first songs on the album, Burning In The Skies. The album connects itself back to front and the other way around.
Also, midway through the album, there’s a track named Wisdom, Justice and Love, which features a speech by MLK, that gets progressively more distorted as it goes on, going from his normal voice to a completely robotic voice. In the intro to The Catalyst, the exact opposite thing happens, with the lyrics and melody going from robotic to natural sounding. Both these movements are a reference to the thematics of humanity vs. technology.
It’s a masterful, underrated album. One of my favourites of all time.
The only thing I know with absolute certainty has a leitmotif (several, in fact) is Peter and the Wolf.
And maaaaybe Come to Daddy by Apex Twin. Does it count if the sound is literally generated by an image of the artist transformed into a WAV file? It literally represents them.
W.A.S.P.'s conceptual album “The Crimson Idol” plays with leitmotifs a bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwnAzZF3_D8
The Dear Hunter, acts 1 through 5.
Hospice by the Antlers and Diamond Jubilee both immediately came to mind, both albums have recurring melodies and interpolations throughout
Red Headed Stranger -Willie Nelson
