Jeff Wayne
The War Of The Worlds

Columbia    PC2 35290  (2009)

Rock/Pop
LP, 2   Discs, 15   Tracks, 104:00  Length
The Coming Of The Martians 45:08
01 The Eve Of War Jeff Wayne 09:07
02 Horsell Common Ant The Heat Ray Jeff Wayne 11:36
03 The Artilleryman And The Fighting Machine Jeff Wayne 10:36
04 Forever Autumn Jeff Wayne; Paul Vigrass; Gary Osborne 07:42
05 Thunder Child Jeff Wayne; Gary Osborne 06:07

The Earth Under The Martians

58:52
01 The Red Weed (Part 1) Jeff Wayne 05:53
02 The Spirit Of Man Jeff Wayne; Gary Osborne 11:38
03 The Red Weed (Part 2) Jeff Wayne 05:25
07 The Artilleryman Returns Jeff Wayne 02:31
04 Brave New World Jeff Wayne; Gary Osborne 01:27
05 Dead London Jeff Wayne 12:15
06 Epilogue (Part 1) Jeff Wayne 08:35
08 Epilogue (Part 2) NASA Jeff Wayne 01:50
09 The Spirit of Man 2009 Jeff Wayne 04:17
10 The Eve Of The War & Forever Autumn Medley Jeff Wayne 05:01
Music Details
Product Details
Packaging Gatefold
Sound Stereo
Musicians  &  Credits
Keyboards Ken "Prof" Freeman
Guitar Chris Spedding
Guitar Jo Partridge
Santoor George Fenton
Bass Herbie Flowers
Drums Barry Morgan
Musician Jeff Wayne
Producer Jeff Wayne
Engineer Geoff Young
Cover by Geoff Taylor
Personal Details
Index # 3770
Owner Dave
Tags Prog Rock
User Defined
Purchased New
Notes
Released 40 years after Orson Welles' infamous radio version of the H.G. Wells tale, Jeff Wayne's musical version of War of the Worlds straddles old-style radio drama and contemporary orchestrated narratives by Rick Wakeman and David Bedford. And while it lacks the sophisticated arrangements of, say, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, it does boast an impressively odd cast -- this may be the only time that a member of Thin Lizzy worked with Richard Burton, and the presence of Julie Covington and the Moody Blues' Justin Hayward in very attractive singing roles attest to its pop/rock aspirations. It's Burton's sonorous tones that sustain this work; his frequent solo narrations are eminently listenable, whereas sections featuring dialogue with other characters often come off as a bit stilted. The music is competent studio rock, and "Horsell Common and the Heat Ray" does strike just the right balance between Burton's narration and an accompaniment built around a buzzsaw guitar riff. Overall, it's pleasant as a period piece, and still a fine way to introduce younger listeners to Wells' classic tale. (And if you can find it in a vinyl, it comes with a nicely produced narrative booklet with gloriously lurid illustrations by Geoff Taylor.) The album was actually appealing on too many fronts for its own good in many ways -- the Justin Hayward-sung ballad "Forever Autumn," extracted from a much longer piece on the double-LP -- showed some signs of appealing to AM radio listeners and climbed to the Top 40 based on airplay alone, but by the time Columbia Records in America (missing this boat entirely) got copies of the single into stores so that people could actually buy the record, the song had dropped back down; in the meantime, the record became a favorite of discos and dance clubs in New York and elsewhere, where its extended, highly rhythmic, synthesizer-driven sections delighted deejays and audiences, and Columbia missed another bet by not releasing an instrumental-only assembly of those long passages. (In New York, for years after it went out of print on vinyl, the album was sought after by club deejays eager to spin it). -- Paul Collins (allmusic.com)