It's not weird enough for the list, but in high school I wore the grooves off Kenny Rogers' The Ballad of Calico. It was a concept album about the darker side of life in a wild-west mining town, sort of a prog-country Spoon River Anthology.

Hmm. I didn't know until following that link that the songs were written by Miachel Murphey, who before he got into horsey kitsch like "Wildfire" was the original cosmic cowboy. No wonder I liked it.

Now I'm curious - that album looks like "Winesburg Ohio" with steel guitars!

I have "The Plan" by the Osmonds, which I found at the swap meet a few years ago. Your post has inspired me to actually play it (once I locate it in the garage). Martin Phillips from the Chills raved about this LP in an article he wrote for Pulse (the late in-house Tower Records magazine)