Deltron 3030. from the wikipedia page: It is a rap opera concept album set in a dystopian year 3030. The album's story casts Del in the role of Deltron Zero, a disillusioned mech soldier and interplanetary computer prodigy rebelling against a 31st-century New World Order. In a world where evil oligarchs suppress both human rights and hip-hop, Del fights rap battles against a series of foes, becoming Galactic Rhyme Federation Champion.

‘In the aeroplane over the sea’ by Neutral Milk Hotel is an album written after lead singer Jeff Mangum had a mental breakdown after reading Anne Franks diary. It references Anne and her family, her life, death and her message. Jeff writes of his love for her & how he wishes he could save her in a Time Machine. There are loads of conspiracies online worth looking up involving his current wife and sister who both resemble Anne Frank. The album was released and following the shock of its success Jeff disappeared, refusing interviews and became a hermit. The band briefly reformed to tour a few years ago where mobile phones were banned.

Quadrophenia by The Who is about how it is to be a confused young man

NIN year zero is pretty underrated and overshadowed by other more personal concept albums by the band. Portraying different characters in a near future pre-apocalyptic/fascist America… plus checkout all the internet teaser art surrounding the songs’ release

• “To Pimp A Butterfly” by Kendrick Lamar. It’s a fantastic prog-rap view into his personal journey of gaining fame and the internal conflicts he experienced from it. The prog-rap nature of this album is unique and a work of absolute genius. There is an overarching poem that sums up the album and it is told in full at the end of the album, but is also given in parts throughout the album, with each song serving as an expansion of each individual part of the poem. There’s a great, cleverly-executed reveal at the end with an ‘impossible’ special guest.

• “The Hazards of Love” by The Decemberists. A folk/rock album of a kind of folklore story of a girl who meets a boy who has a magical ability given to him by the personified queen of the forest, and they fall in love. The story is about their budding love, and the forces that try to keep them apart. The end of the story is absolutely gut-wrenching and bittersweet, and beautifully told.

• The “Acts” albums (I through V) by The Dear Hunter. Follow the life story from birth through death of the main character, who is a flawed protagonist. There’s a variety of characters and they’re all interconnected, such as a Priest who moonlights as a brothel operator, where the protagonist’s mother once worked, unbeknownst to him, and where he meets the love of his life. The story takes place in the years leading up to and through WWI, and the character leaves the town to fight in the war before returning to the town with a stolen identity. Lots of issues ensue because of the protagonists poor choices, while he searches for redemption by the end of the story. The band incorporates lots of different styles and genres.

• “Thirteenth Step” by A Perfect Circle. Addresses how addiction affects people. Each song kind of covers a different facet of addiction and the people affected by addicts. Dark, but beautifully written.

• “Darkest Days” by Stabbing Westward. Follows the facets and emotions someone goes through after a bad breakup. Every 4 songs kind of personify 4 phases that such a person experiences following the breakup. Super dark and bleak, but with tones of hopefulness towards the end.

• “Coma Ecliptic” by Between The Buried And Me. In a world where a machine exists where a person can trade their life to be allowed to experience their past lives, a man takes the offer and is not sure that if the past lives was a better choice than the life he was trying to get away from.

• “Deloused In The Comatorium” by The Mars Volta. After entering a coma following a failed suicide attempt, a man discovers a bizarre and surreal world where he feels some sense of belonging, only to be pulled from it when he eventually wakes from the coma.

• “In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3” (and most albums by) Coheed and Cambria. In a futuristic world, a family is torn apart when the controlling leaders discover that the family has the ability to destroy the universe. Prog-rock masterpieces, and almost all albums by C&C follow different aspects of this ‘universes.

• “Passion of the Heist II” by I Am Abomination. This is a ‘part 2’ to a previous album in which, after being crucified on the cross, Jesus was resurrected, but done so by the aliens who created us. This album is about how the aliens decided that humans failed their experiment by killing Jesus, and decided to come back to earth to wage war on the planet. Starring Jesus as the cyborg main antagonist. Despite the goofy concept, the album is a musical masterpiece, incredibly well-structured, and is absolutely the best work by this incredible band.

Ween - The Mollusk

What if a Ween album leaned a little toward prog rock and was all nautical and shit?

Sturgill Simpson's "A Sailor's Guide To The Earth."

It's a letter to his son, telling him a bit about his old man (not all of it pretty) and also some Dad advice: "Motor oil is motor oil, just keep your engine clean."

Plus, a country guy in a rock band with the Dap-Kings backing them all up is going to be some pretty interesting music.

Rust in Peace was the last album Megadeth wrote while ALL fucked up on drugs. It's a masterpiece.

Edit: I didn't realize this post was asking about concept albums specifically.

Everywhere At The End Of Time portrays progression of dementia.

Pink Floyd The Wall - traumatic events in a boy’s life leads him to gradually withdraw into his own mind, adopt a fascist persona and spiral into depression and madness … until whatever minuscule shred of humanity and self-compassion he has left finally breaks through.

Absolutely stellar songwriting, production and performances.

Warren Zevon - The Wind. His doctors told him he was dying and he decided to write and record one more album with the time he had left. He just made it. The songs are mostly about the end of life.

Red Headed Stranger by Willie Nelson

A western tale about a man who finds his wife cheating on him, kills her and her lover, then later finds love and redemption. Very unique for a concept album because it uses both original songs and covers to tell the story. The album’s artwork included a storyboard of the tale. Maybe not the most original story idea for a movie or a song, but for an album it was groundbreaking. Considered one of the greatest country & western albums of all time, and they even made it into a movie.

Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime !!

Absolutely amazing.

Thick as a Brick by Jethro Tull is a prog "concept album" about how prog concept albums suck. Everything, from the vinyl sleeve from the album title to the lyrics is basically a gigantic meta/self-aware joke. The album was created as a response to critics thinking that Aqualung was a concept album.

What's really funny is that Jethro Tull would go over and release their first and only actual concept album just one year later.

Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino by Arctic Monkeys

The album is actually a really fun and interesting listen despite its reputation. About the first hotel and casino on the moon

Songs For the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age

An album that’s supposed to be a Road Trip from LA to the desert

The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance

An album about a person dying of cancer who is filled with regrets.

I used to listen to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips pretty often when I was a young hipster kid with a record player. The vinyl was bubble-gum pink, the theme really feels like it should be a Studio Ghibli movie: too much weight placed on the shoulders of a strong yet vulnerable protagonist, slightly otherworldly, cute tropes turned on their head (like, “she’s strong, she’s got this!”).

Nirvana’s In Utero feels like a series of meditations on reluctant parenthood by a depressed/suicidal person. I can’t imagine how Frances feels when she turns on the radio and hears Pennyroyal Tea or Rape Me. The poor thing is even named after a mental health tragedy.

Bowie gave us a perfect death album in Blackstar.

The Party by Andy Shauf and the follow up album The Neon Skyline are fantastic concept albums around a group of characters at a party in the former and revolving around a bar in the latter.

Not quite sure it qualifies (but comes close) is Lizard by King Crimson. Of course even they’ve said that album was way too extra.

Seventh Son of a Seventh Son - Iron Maiden

About a boy that's about to be born with the ability to see the future. God / Satan both want his allegiance.

But after his first prediction comes true, people blame the disaster on him. Then he decides not to use his powers anymore and live his life for him, partying and fuckin' bitches (at least that's the way I take it =))

John Frusciante’s The Empyrean is a journey, mostly sonically - though the lyrics also deal with the same material - about human existence and the experience of such, from the mere idea of you until your soul has long left your body.

XTC's Apple Venus doesn't have a firm concept, but I think it's brilliant that a group of middle aged men went to the trouble of recording at Abbey Road and renting an orchestra so they could sing about dinner parties, greenhouse gardens and pagan symbols.

Tales of Mystery and Imagination - Alan Parsons Project

The Poe-aligned songs, plus the spoken-word segment additions by Orson Welles...brilliant.

Crack the skye by mastodon

Dream Theater, Scenes From A Memory. Love, murder, time travel, mental illness, this one’s got it all!

Bookmarking this thread lots of good suggestions to listen to and draw inspiration from. I’m working on a concept album right now

The Chemical Brothers have two.

Surrender - masterpiece. The entire album is about surrendering to the experience. It’s a concept around dance and rave culture. The album cover is one person lost in the music holding their arms up victoriously, and I believe playing a tambourine. Musically, it was something that had never been seen before. An electronic music group making essentially the rock music electronic ablum, and they nailed it. The Cameos from Bernard sumner, noel Gallagher, hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star, and samples by missy elliot are perfectly laid. It’s an incredible psychedelic experience.

Further - they broke from vocal collabs, used a plethora of vintage equipment, and had multiple bridges between songs to make things feel incredibly cohesive. It’s another journey album And hilariously or intentionally named after the bud that the merry pranksters drove around in frying on LSD in the 60s.

Stage Four by Touché Amore. It’s about the grief of the lead singer losing his mom to cancer, but sets itself apart by being disturbingly honest and open with the lyrics. It’s raw, ugly, and forces the listener to feel the things he’s singing about. He’s not trying to tell you how much losing his mom sucked - he’s trying to show you exactly how it felt, the only way he knows how.

Operation Mindcrime by Queensryche. Progressive Metal. Tells the story of an angry young man seduced by sex, money and religion to become a killer for the new world order. More accurate today than it was 35 years ago. I'm looking at you Kyle Rittenhouse.

Thrice and the Alchemy Index. Four EPs based off the elements. It was panned by fans back in the day but the older I get the more I love it.

Tool - Lateralus

If u know what it "means"… pleased tell me.

ISIS - Oceanic The story of a person who drowned and becomes spirit (light) in water.

ISIS - Panopticon Story of Technical surveillance.

Red Sparowes - Every Red Heart Shines Towards the Red Sun The story of "The Great Leap Forward" from Mao Zadong era China where they starved over 45 million people to death

The normal album by Will Wood is a bizarre and wonderful masterpiece of musical achievement that masterfully mashed several genres resulting in a work of art that is equal parts explosive, insane and emotional, the songs themselves are intertwined through an agglomeration of leitmotifs and lyrical lines while the individual songs tackle with both hyperbole and sincerity various pieces of a broken mind and the society around it, from mortality to sexuality, from mental illness to the over reliance of pills and medication to control the illnesses. It may just be my favourite album of all time.

“What’s going on?” by Marvin Gaye. All about a guy coming home to America from the Vietnam war

The whole concept of the Pinball Wizard, a deaf, and blind kid who play pinball and the weird spiritual stuff is pretty great.

There's No Place Like America Today, by Curtis Mayfield beside not being a real concept album really pass the vibes of living in the city and going through hard times.

Ziltoid the Omniscient by Devin Townsend. It's a rock opera about a barista's day dreaming fantasy. It's amazing.

Journey to the Center of the Earth by Rick Wakeman. Based on the novel by the same name by Jules Verne.

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I like the concept behind "The Pros and the Cons of hitch Hiking" by Roger Waters, the narration Is circa 40 minutes of events that happens in a dreams sequence and in reality, and It's all narrated in real time, all the titles correspond at a precise lapse of time in that 40 minutes of a night. Some Songs resemble very much others from "The Wall" like Mother, and if i'm not wrong Is because this concept was one of the two that Waters proposed to the other members, the other was of course The Wall.

I'd rate either of the first two Nektar albums (Journey or Tab) as both being some clever concepts. Ditto VdGG's H to He

Opinions about execution may differ.

Autotheism - by the faceless. It plays on religion and atheism becoming so extreme it becomes a religion. Hail science

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Ugly Duckling - Meatshake

Ok ok maybe it’s not brilliant but maybe it is…

It’s a rap album about a fast food restaurant that serves blended meat drinks. It’s also at war with the vegetarian restaurant across the street. It makes a mockery of the American fast food diet.

The streets - A grand don’t come for free

Another rap album about a stoner guy who loses 1000£ behind his tv. Trouble ensued.

Surf Music by Paul Williams is a great album that follows a relationship from the beginning to the inevitable end, with recurrent comparisons to the true story of the fall of a basketball player from an exciting, rising star in the NBA to being quietly shunned to play in Europe after not living up to the hype. Fun album with a hilariously surreal, if a bit devastating, theme.

A Grand Don’t Come For Free by The Streets.

Cusp by Alela Diane. Here she explores the agonies and Ecstasies of the motherhood.

Ogden's Nut Gone Flake by the Small Faces is a sort of concept album, or maybe a shaggy dog story, about a guy's quest to find out where the other half of the moon has gone, wandering through a number of musical styles, with narration by the inimitable Stanley Unwin.

Exoplanet - The Contortionist. Incredible musicianship and one of my favorite metal albums of all time. So heavy.

Radio K.A.O.S - Roger Waters.

Nothing amazing, some of the songs (unsurprisingly) have a 'The Wall/Final Cut' feel. There are some catchy tunes and interesting story cumulation. I just fired it up on YouTube - probably haven't listed to it in 30 years!

His other album of the era 'Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking' is also a concept album and probably better musically but thematically/concept wise this is more memorable.

From Wikipedia:

The album follows Billy, a mentally and physically disabled man from Wales, forced to live with his uncle David in Los Angeles after his brother Benny is sent to prison following an act intended to support striking coal miners which results in the death of a taxi driver, and his dismissal from his mining job due to "market forces". The album explores Billy's view of the world through an on-air conversation between him and Jim, a disc jockey (DJ) at a fictitious local radio station named Radio KAOS.

Billy is a 23-year-old Welshman from the South Wales Valleys. He is mentally and physically disabled as a result of cerebral palsy, uses a wheelchair and is only able to work his upper body. Though he is perceived as mentally challenged, his disability has actually made him not only a genius, but also superhuman, as he also has the ability to literally hear radio waves throughout all frequencies without aid.

Jeffery - Young Thug. The concept that each song is inspired by one of his idols that curated a sound for each song

I've recently discovered this dungeon synth artist who works under the name Elyvilon, and his music is just ... really cool. Dungeon synth is a weird genre, to say the least, but it provides the space to approach various aesthetics and concepts in interesting and creative ways. I never quite "got" it until I found this artist.

Drums in the Deepwoods is the Elyvilon album I'm most enthusiastic about because its chosen aesthetic is Trolls. The true, Northern European folkloric/mythological Troll, not all the myriad other things that get called trolls these days. It's really hard to describe exactly how much Elyvilon understood the mission and how well he pulled it off. The song titles - I mean, Moss Laden and Shambling! A Hunger to Carry Off Flocks! And then the songs just sound like troll songs: heavy and lumbering, somehow moist and dark and earthy, but at the same time epic and immersive. And the album art! Dungeon synth artists really go all out on art, I swear.

I'd never call Elyvilon my favourite artist or dungeon synth my favourite genre, but man, any open-minded music listener really ought to try it at least once. It's such an indescribable genre and an unique listening experience, and the good stuff is way better than it has any right to be.

Pain Remains- from Lorna Shore. It's basically Inception the melodic Deathcore album

Spilt Milk, by Jellyfish. It’s an album that uses nostalgia and childhood imagery to discuss disillusionment both with religion and with pop music (or are they the same thing?). It’s incredibly dense with wordplay and music allusions, and takes a few listens to really take in.

Almost every song on the album is a stylistic homage to one of the artists who inspired Jellyfish, and not all of the pastiches are flattering; “He’s My Best Friend” riffs on Harry Nilsson but turns his famous “Best Friend” ode to fatherhood into a sarcastic tribute to chronic masturbation.

What To Do When You’re Dead by Armor for Sleep. It starts off with the first song being about this dude who kills himself after a break up, but he isn’t able to fully transition to the afterlife, so he spends the rest of the album as a ghost following his ex girlfriend around and observing her and how she’s coping with his death.

Kinda edge lordy and stuff, but honestly one of the best emo albums I’ve listened to

'Since I left you' by the avalanches. The album is almost entirely made up of samples (between 1000 to 3500 separate samples by various accounts) and it works waaaay better than it has any right to. Sounds like it would be a gimmick but it has incredible cohesion, little to no 'low points' (songs I might skip with company) and easily 5 or 6 incredible songs.. Whole album flows together so we'll. Best description I've heard is "a dance party in heaven"

Some highlights are:

Since I left you

Electricity

ETOH

Frontier psychiatry

Radio

Anghellic by Tech N9ne. It’s an intro song then three acts, Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, each one making the case for why Tech should end up there.

Queen of the Murder Scene by The Warning. Unrequited love turns to murder.

The first album I heard by The Ocean Collective was Pelagial. The musical concept is descending deeper into the oceans of Earth. So each song or suite of songs becomes slower and heavier as you journey deeper down. The vocalist rejoined the band and had a separate theme or concept for the lyrics, but the album is available both with and without vocals. I was lucky enough to catch them on this tour and they are fantastic live.

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I remember listening to one of my favorite band’s (Silverstein) CDs front to back for the first time and noticing how each song flawlessly transitions into the next one, making the album sound like one long song. A lot of post-hardcore bands used this concept pretty often from 2000-2015. Example/reference for this post: Shipwreck in the Sand(Album) - Silverstein.

Edit: spelling

Tryshasla by Seceed

Ambient/deep beat trip-hop instrumental album. It's about the journey from death to reincarnation. Begins with hospital sounds and a man's voice saying, "Where am I?" The song are gorgeous and are testaments to what the genre is capable of. Hard to describe. The last song ends with a baby's lullabye.

Just check out the song "Leraine" and tell me that it isn't one of the best songs you've ever heard.

Jekyll and Hyde - the musical (concept album version). So much better than what eventually became the musical. So much better.

Prince - The Rainbow Children. A concept album about protest movements and Jehovah's Witness spirituality

I like Sufjan Stevens' Michigan and Illinois albums. Huge records full of interesting, quirky folk songs about the states history, wildlife, characters, cities etc. They have such a warm feel to them, nice musical interludes, it is like having a road trip around an idealised maybe 1960s version of the states. There were rumours or plans for him to do all 50 states which I would be very interested in, but it never materialised.

Flatbush Zombies 3001: a laced odyssey is set up so you can just put on the album and vibe. They have some bangers up front then they have a smoke break interlude and the rest of the album is chill. I have listened to the album regularly for years and never get tired of it.

Monty Python's Matching Tie and Handkerchief Album. Not only did it "fool" you into thinking that the album included an actual tie and handkerchief with the album being the special free prize (I don't want to give away the spoilers), but the album contained two concentric grooves on side 2. So when you dropped the needle on Side 2, you never knew which set of skits were going to play.

The got the idea from carnival games of chance. One of the game was a horse race, and you would bet on the winner. The horse races were announced on records with concentric grooves, so the runner of the race wouldn't know which horse would be the winner. It would be a different outcome every time.

Nine inch nails - Year Zero.

Great apocalyptic album. The lyrics fit the music incredibly well, the feeling of rush and madness is captivating.

Spirit of Eden by Talk Talk

After painstakingly trying to recreate the largely improvised music of the smash hit album The Colour of Spring in concerts, Mark Hollis and Tim Friese-Greene of Talk Talk decided to just give up on touring altogether and create the album they were aiming for all the time. Loose sketches of songs were recorded with drums, guitars and a bit of bass. Then they invited an army of guest musicians to improvise upon the tracks for hours on end. The musicians were given no direction whatsoever, they were free to play whatever they felt like, the only rule was to try and not play the same thing twice. Then after that Hollis and Friese-Greene spent months editing down the material. Some musicians played for hours, while only seconds of their contributions made it on to the record, and some contributors never even made it on to the album.

The result was one of the finest and most unique albums ever created, where every piece of music is improvised, and later carefully orchestrated with digital editing. It inspired a whole genre (post rock) and countless bands from Catherine Wheel to Tortoise. Radiohead obviously took notice, although they are careful to never mention Talk Talk as an inspiration.

The funny thing is, the digitalization of sound, which made this music possible (it would've taken decades if you were to do the editing with tape), also made file sharing possible,which later took all the big money out of the music industry, assuring no one would ever afford to make music this way again, unless bankrolled by someone wealthy.

Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation 1814

Linkin Park – A thousand suns

It's about nuclear war and such. Includes some samples of speeches by Openheimer and Luther King Jr. Very immersive and cohesiv

The streets - a grand don’t come for free. A brilliant concept and a genre defining album.

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'Anonymous' by Tomahawk. Love how they curated and brought their own interpretation to Native American compositions. One of my favorite albums.

Doug by The Coolies.

After releasing their first album, dig...?, which was all covers of Simon & Garfunkel dongs along with a cover of "You're Having My Baby," they released this rock opera about a skinhead who kills a cook, steals his recipes, and becomes a famous chef. After feeling guilty & becoming paranoid that everyone knows what he did, he starts smoking crack & loses everything. Each song on the record riffs on another band's song, including The Who, the Beastie Boys, Led Zeppelin, & The Replacements. It came with a comic book of the album's story.

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Moody Blues - Days of Future Passed. Simple telling of time passing.

Frank Zappa: Joe's Garage Acts I, II & III

It details the life of a musician named Joe and the different stages he goes through in some sort of dystopian society where music becomes illegal. And the German sex machines sound pretty cool 😎

Acacia Strain's It Comes in Waves

1. our
2. only
3. sin
4. was
5. giving
6. them
7. names

Edit: This album is haunting from start to finish. One song blends into each other. Down tempo groove death metal.

Deloused in the Comatorium

Frank Sinatra: "...Sings for Only the Lonely"

Mostly sad or wistful torch songs.

Terminal Redux by Vektor.

In the future, the leader of multiple military projects gets unwillingly deployed on a suicide mission (unbeknownst to him) by his superiors. The attempt at his death fails, and while he is stranded in the abyss of space, he discovers the secret to immortality. He returns to his home planet filled with rage and wants revenge. He slips into a power-hungry state and subsequently takes over both worlds in the story, transforming them into his own dictatorship. Eventually, after he has obtained all military, political, and overall power over these two worlds, he goes insane and realizes the insignificance of all this power he has achieved within the grandeur scheme of the universe and time. He decides to put an end to his reign by destroying his empire himself, simultaneously attempting to warn future generations and other worlds of the dangers in doing what he has done; encouraging them to learn of his story to avoid the same colossal tragedy that he caused himself. The story ends with him sacrificing his soul to the same star/celestial-being that gave him the power of immortality in order to truly destroy his regime once and for all.

It is an approximately 70-minute epic album filled with some of the most intense, progressive, technical, badass, and downright beautiful metal I have ever heard in my life. It has elements of thrash metal, black metal, death metal, and is one of the most sophisticated metal albums of all time. It is a complicated story, so I may have gotten some parts wrong or forgotten some crucial parts, so here is a link for its story explained: Terminal Redux

King Diamond’s “Them”. Whenever someone says concept album always my first thought. The follow up and sequel Conspiracy was almost as good, but “Them” was just so good and the lyrics paint an awesome picture.

Dust Bowl Ballads by Woody Guthrie. Some believe to be the very first concept album. It’s about people who left Oklahoma and went to California. A lot of it based on his life.

I really love Electric Light Orchestra's Eldorado. I think it's really underrated in their discography and jn general. It's the story of an average, lonely guy who finds more comfort in the stories in his dreams than this life. His dreams are exciting, but are far from what I'd call pleasant. He's a traumatized soldier returning from war, a Native American living in the city after his people were driven out and way of life have been demolished, a man who gave his life fighting with Robin Hood, etc etc etc. It kind of speaks to me of deeper trouble in his life and the album ends with him being unable to cope with reality. He jumps to his death, having realized that it's the key to eternal dream. The orchestral arrangements are lovely, the music itself is pretty varied while sticking to the concept, and the vocals are incredible.

Tranquility base hotel and casino by the arctic monkeys is a really cool dark jazz album. It is based on a hotel and casino called tranquility base thats on the moon, the ending song the ultra cheese is one of my favourite songs by them, same with the title track, four out of five and the worlds first ever monster truck front flip. It’s an amazing album

Sargent pep peps

The Streets - A Grand Don’t Come for Free

It is a rap opera and concept album that follows the story of its protagonist's relationship with a girl named Simone, alongside the mysterious loss of £1,000 from his home (the eponymous "grand").

Voyd II or between II world's . I know people don't think computer music is real music but if you look past all that these are pretty solid in terms of the passion put into em . That's just my two cents tho so idk