threespires
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 7 Aug 2019
- Messages
- 5,688
- Team supported
- City
I knew ending that post with a question was a mistake.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
The Album Review Club - Week #139 - (page 1815) - Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War Of The Worlds
- Thread starter RobMCFC
- Start date
I knew ending that post with a question was a mistake.
threespires
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 7 Aug 2019
- Messages
- 5,688
- Team supported
- City
Wayne’s World?
It's not like I was even listening to ELO when I did that! Apart from Buckley, one musical Jeff is pretty much like another to me :-)
I’m not sure you’d get away with an album like this nowadays.
It’s very much of its time. The same goes for Rick Wakeman and Henry VIII and others that went down similar routes.
Au contraire, mon frère. One of my favourite albums, and certainly my favourite christmas album, is The Gritterman, and that was circa 2017, I think.
There was a strong group then and they rode the mood. But I recon if done well it can still work today.
FogBlueInSanFran
Well-Known Member
Given that there are about 5 quadrillion novels and very few have been set to pop music ever, I'd suggest almost no one has ever been able to get away with it really, and that it nearly never works.Au contraire, mon frère. One of my favourite albums, and certainly my favourite christmas album, is The Gritterman, and that was circa 2017, I think.
There was a strong group then and they rode the mood. But I recon if done well it can still work today.
Did I mention I hate musicals? :)
mancity2012_eamo
Well-Known Member
As I often say in the political threads ….Au contraire, mon frère. One of my favourite albums, and certainly my favourite christmas album, is The Gritterman, and that was circa 2017, I think.
There was a strong group then and they rode the mood. But I recon if done well it can still work today.
What do I know?
mexico1970
Well-Known Member
Cracking album which moves seamlessly from one track to another, Richard Burton and Phil Lynott on one LP it's marvellous. Vincent Price and Alice Cooper and Michael Jackson are other colabs that are worth a mention.
I slip the LP on every now and then, it's got a familiar comfort about it.
I slip the LP on every now and then, it's got a familiar comfort about it.
mrbelfry
Well-Known Member
War of the Worlds is a huge failure. The album explores the end of the world as aliens invade a small part of England and amass a frightening fighting force of five. Who can save the world from such an overwhelming show of force from creatures that are made out of rain or something? The ARTS can save the world that's who.
Witness as the aliens defeat the military, the sciences, religion, justice and the rule of law whilst the Burton voiced hero remains calm, logical but ultimately does nothing before the aliens get a cold and die. Our hero is a writer and everyone he meets is driven to ineffective madness under the gaze of the alien heat ray. First we meet the Artilleryman who's devices are futile against the massive metal things on legs bashing men against trees. They're just normal hunks of metal, innocent hunks of metal. He returns later clearly mad and disavowing the arts - they'll teach science underground and not poetry! His underground HQ ready to start the fightback is tiny - our hero using the power of poetry could have built more in a day. Science has failed man.
Parson Nathaniel appears in the story already seemingly dead. He's driven into religious paranoia and fanaticism seeing demons everywhere even in his wife. Obviously he dies. Religion has failed man.
Our hero witnesses the rich and the poor standing shoulder to shoulder stripped of wealth and dignity. The law, natural order, justice. It all falls. Man is failed by everything except the arts represented by our hero.
But ultimately we are failed by the arts because this album spectacularly fails to create any sense of the doom, destruction, death and despair that the story requires. The dispassionate narration seems to impact little of the music. The narrator tells us the martians create huge metal machines to fight so why is the music so devoid of percussion. Even Maxwells Silver Hammer released a decade earlier knows that an anvil strike is sometimes absolutely a necessity and that isn't even about the world ending. I think Jeff Wayne has never done a day of hard graft or held a hammer so doesn't know what metal sounds like.
Our hero visits London and small red bricked house and we are treated to Forever Autumn. A ridiculous pastoral tune that is totally out of place in the urban horror that must have greeted our hero. It should at least lament. The machines tower over Big Ben. Government has fallen and failed man.
The Spirit of Man decides to tell the story of the Parsons obsession with demons and the devil, and the religious mania that leads him to believe only he can defeat Satan, as a piece of musical theatre. Jeff Wayne doesn't know what metal sounds like.
The Red Weed at least attempts to be eerie and discordant but comes complete with overly bright synths that sound triumphant. At times the guitar wahs away in a gentle funk that is more spy thriller than apocalyptic. When our Artillerman returns he's built an underground lair and is only one note away from being Goldfinger.
Horsell Common with it's cheery tar and santur melody comes as the martians reveal their true intentions. It's a discarded Blur B-Side. Next morning, a crowd gathered on the common. Mars life! Hypnotized by the unscrewing of the cylinder they get rudely unalived by the heat ray. Mars life!
The narrator tells us all five fighting machines exulted, emitting deafening howls that roared like thunder. The music goes oooo laaaaaa.
So the arts fail man.The arts fail, man. It fails to create anything resembling the mood it is attempting.
I considered how much of this is due to it being made in 1978. Am I being overly harsh based on the technology available at the time? Technology that seemed to be pushed to the limit? No I'm not. This fails at the first totally avoidable hurdle. You cannot soundtrack an eerie alien invasion using disco. Disco is the most unthreatening musical genre. Black Sabbath came out in 1970. Jeff Wayne doesn't know what metal sounds like.
Maybe you don't want to make a metal album but with the brass and strings you could create something dark, sombre and unsettling. Listen to Age of Adz to hear how you can do dangerous religious fervour using all the instruments available to Jeff Wayne. Perhaps you'd have struggled to create the skittish drums but everything else is possible.
I can't excuse the lack of atmosphere and doom. And with no nostalgia to draw on this is a 3/10
Witness as the aliens defeat the military, the sciences, religion, justice and the rule of law whilst the Burton voiced hero remains calm, logical but ultimately does nothing before the aliens get a cold and die. Our hero is a writer and everyone he meets is driven to ineffective madness under the gaze of the alien heat ray. First we meet the Artilleryman who's devices are futile against the massive metal things on legs bashing men against trees. They're just normal hunks of metal, innocent hunks of metal. He returns later clearly mad and disavowing the arts - they'll teach science underground and not poetry! His underground HQ ready to start the fightback is tiny - our hero using the power of poetry could have built more in a day. Science has failed man.
Parson Nathaniel appears in the story already seemingly dead. He's driven into religious paranoia and fanaticism seeing demons everywhere even in his wife. Obviously he dies. Religion has failed man.
Our hero witnesses the rich and the poor standing shoulder to shoulder stripped of wealth and dignity. The law, natural order, justice. It all falls. Man is failed by everything except the arts represented by our hero.
But ultimately we are failed by the arts because this album spectacularly fails to create any sense of the doom, destruction, death and despair that the story requires. The dispassionate narration seems to impact little of the music. The narrator tells us the martians create huge metal machines to fight so why is the music so devoid of percussion. Even Maxwells Silver Hammer released a decade earlier knows that an anvil strike is sometimes absolutely a necessity and that isn't even about the world ending. I think Jeff Wayne has never done a day of hard graft or held a hammer so doesn't know what metal sounds like.
Our hero visits London and small red bricked house and we are treated to Forever Autumn. A ridiculous pastoral tune that is totally out of place in the urban horror that must have greeted our hero. It should at least lament. The machines tower over Big Ben. Government has fallen and failed man.
The Spirit of Man decides to tell the story of the Parsons obsession with demons and the devil, and the religious mania that leads him to believe only he can defeat Satan, as a piece of musical theatre. Jeff Wayne doesn't know what metal sounds like.
The Red Weed at least attempts to be eerie and discordant but comes complete with overly bright synths that sound triumphant. At times the guitar wahs away in a gentle funk that is more spy thriller than apocalyptic. When our Artillerman returns he's built an underground lair and is only one note away from being Goldfinger.
Horsell Common with it's cheery tar and santur melody comes as the martians reveal their true intentions. It's a discarded Blur B-Side. Next morning, a crowd gathered on the common. Mars life! Hypnotized by the unscrewing of the cylinder they get rudely unalived by the heat ray. Mars life!
The narrator tells us all five fighting machines exulted, emitting deafening howls that roared like thunder. The music goes oooo laaaaaa.
So the arts fail man.The arts fail, man. It fails to create anything resembling the mood it is attempting.
I considered how much of this is due to it being made in 1978. Am I being overly harsh based on the technology available at the time? Technology that seemed to be pushed to the limit? No I'm not. This fails at the first totally avoidable hurdle. You cannot soundtrack an eerie alien invasion using disco. Disco is the most unthreatening musical genre. Black Sabbath came out in 1970. Jeff Wayne doesn't know what metal sounds like.
Maybe you don't want to make a metal album but with the brass and strings you could create something dark, sombre and unsettling. Listen to Age of Adz to hear how you can do dangerous religious fervour using all the instruments available to Jeff Wayne. Perhaps you'd have struggled to create the skittish drums but everything else is possible.
I can't excuse the lack of atmosphere and doom. And with no nostalgia to draw on this is a 3/10
mrbelfry
Well-Known Member
War of the Worlds is unintentionally dumb, stupid and absolutely glorious. I didn't stop smiling throughout. This is obviously not the response it's meant to generate but this is so much fun. You can't dismiss it as camp as it's clearly trying to be serious but it's so ridiculous that I loved nearly all of it.
This was not a staple in my household growing up although i was aware of its central motif. I think there was a 90's dance mix of The Eve of the War or something but I definitely had not heard anything beyond that famous dun dun dun line. I would definitely have remembered something this nuts. Eve of the War sets things up nicely laying out that main line plus many of the other central motifs. The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one. But still they come is a great line over a great melody I was always happy to hear elsewhere on the album. The music is overblown, dramatic and exciting. It's also influential. At various moments I'm reminded of a thousand anime theme songs clearly paying homage.
Horsell Common is probably my favourite. I guess by playing the melody on an usual instrument it's meant to sound odd (i had to google what it was because i thought it sounded a little like a harpsichord but it definitely wasn't a harpsichord) but it sounds proper cheery to me. We hear the first of the voicebox that will reoccur fabulously elsewhere and the whole thing is underpinned by a proper mad bassline. It makes no sense if you question it just enjoy it.
In Artilleryman the narrator describes the deafening howls of the heat ray roaring like thunder and we are treated (seriously it's a treat) to the voicebox oooooolaaaaaaa. It's perfect in how stupid it is. Another great line in the narration - "bows and arrows against the lightning" gives way to some funky disco bass octaves for no reason. Yay! It peaks here for a while and becomes more restrained although still banana's.
All the motifs come in and repeat at various times as the narration progresses. It doesn't always land perfectly i think due to Burton's refusal to narrate over the music. When he says "I realised with horror that I'd seen this awful thing before" and the main motif reappears it's pretty cool.
After a fairly sedate section at the end of Side 1 and beginning of Side 2 it goes bonkers again for The Artilleryman Returns. We get his cheeky spy motif and then big brass Goldfingeresque stabs as it enters Brave New World. It makes absolutely no sense. I love it. The falsetto as Essex hits the word "again" is amazing. They will get some books and stuff and play cricket underground. When he screams "yeah!" it's almost like I'm listening to the Who
If you ignore everything it's trying to be and just allow it then you'll have a lot of fun. 8/10
This was not a staple in my household growing up although i was aware of its central motif. I think there was a 90's dance mix of The Eve of the War or something but I definitely had not heard anything beyond that famous dun dun dun line. I would definitely have remembered something this nuts. Eve of the War sets things up nicely laying out that main line plus many of the other central motifs. The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one. But still they come is a great line over a great melody I was always happy to hear elsewhere on the album. The music is overblown, dramatic and exciting. It's also influential. At various moments I'm reminded of a thousand anime theme songs clearly paying homage.
Horsell Common is probably my favourite. I guess by playing the melody on an usual instrument it's meant to sound odd (i had to google what it was because i thought it sounded a little like a harpsichord but it definitely wasn't a harpsichord) but it sounds proper cheery to me. We hear the first of the voicebox that will reoccur fabulously elsewhere and the whole thing is underpinned by a proper mad bassline. It makes no sense if you question it just enjoy it.
In Artilleryman the narrator describes the deafening howls of the heat ray roaring like thunder and we are treated (seriously it's a treat) to the voicebox oooooolaaaaaaa. It's perfect in how stupid it is. Another great line in the narration - "bows and arrows against the lightning" gives way to some funky disco bass octaves for no reason. Yay! It peaks here for a while and becomes more restrained although still banana's.
All the motifs come in and repeat at various times as the narration progresses. It doesn't always land perfectly i think due to Burton's refusal to narrate over the music. When he says "I realised with horror that I'd seen this awful thing before" and the main motif reappears it's pretty cool.
After a fairly sedate section at the end of Side 1 and beginning of Side 2 it goes bonkers again for The Artilleryman Returns. We get his cheeky spy motif and then big brass Goldfingeresque stabs as it enters Brave New World. It makes absolutely no sense. I love it. The falsetto as Essex hits the word "again" is amazing. They will get some books and stuff and play cricket underground. When he screams "yeah!" it's almost like I'm listening to the Who
If you ignore everything it's trying to be and just allow it then you'll have a lot of fun. 8/10
Last edited:
FogBlueInSanFran
Well-Known Member
It's arguable that this is the best post in the history of this thread.I won't be listening to this 3 times.
The main theme is repeated throughout - so you've got more than your three listens there.
This is more like a film or a book where you absorb the content over a long period of time. Does anybody read a single book or watch a single film three times in one week?
BimboBob
Well-Known Member
Except...Ghostbusters. Come on.It's arguable that this is the best post in the history of this thread.