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After 'Sports' came out in the fall of 1983, everything changed for me. Four of the album's singles became top-10 hits, and by the end of June in 1984, the album was No. 1 on the Billboard chart. It was quite a ride, and for the first time I had enough money to live the way I wanted.

I think the theme of the album probably was just that it was our first record.

Well, you know, back then there wasn't many albums, it was the singles. You sold singles.

When you look at what we can call the golden era of concept albums, which starts in the mid or late '60s and ends maybe in the early '80s, it's an interesting time for music. You see all these very established and popular acts and bands and artists that were somehow on the top of their game but really trying to experiment.

Each record is sort of like a brand new baby, where it's your favorite thing at that moment in time.

I guess the idea of doing albums in their entirety, in sequence, appeals to people. I guess it's the memory of being able to hear the music in the way it was originally presented.

I thought of a lot of people from the same era when I was making a lot of records that had continued making a lot of records. A lot of it didn't seem terribly inspired.

Everyone is looking for connections between the songs. I don't usually approach a record as a concept. There's no overriding theme I'm trying to represent. It's all about the individual songs.

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.