― Tom, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― dave q, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Jeff W, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― RickyT, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
who is Jeff Wayne anyway?
― DV, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Andrew L, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Jez, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Richard Burton is fantastic. And there are some really scary synth sounds that used to freak me out as a kid.
Wasn't Jeff Wayne in somethiing like the Moody Blues, there seemed to be a conection.
― phil, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― michael, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Dud: Forever Autumn
Dudder: Disco mix
― Richard Jones, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Dr. C, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Norman Phay, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
What about Orbital nicking the martians ooooh laaah's for their track called Oooh! though. Genius or tacky?
― Mike Donnelly, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Richard Burton's narration between Forever Autumn and Thunderchild is the redeeming factor in this work. The timing of the this piece and the picture it paints is moving - like the orignal. Without it, the story would be lost to 70's disco.
― tomh, Saturday, 12 October 2002 03:43 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Charlie (Charlie), Thursday, 9 January 2003 02:27 (twenty-one years ago) link
― James Ball (James Ball), Thursday, 9 January 2003 14:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 21 May 2003 19:19 (twenty years ago) link
― Gerald the Mouse, Tuesday, 29 June 2004 08:16 (nineteen years ago) link
Richard BurtonThe illustrations (esp the underground one) amazing to an 8 yr old!The mega scary outro, that would probably still shit me right up.The Red Weed, thinly disguised stoner rock indeed!Phil LynottHearing the breaths between the vocodered OOOOOOLAAAAAAAAAA's
Dud -
Justin HaywardDavid Essex
― mzui, Tuesday, 29 June 2004 09:28 (nineteen years ago) link
Luxuriously appointed gatefold sleeve and booklet for CD featuring proper painted scenes of Martian-related apocalypse and (ick) crows eating Martian guts = dud, presumably
― Neil Willett (Neil Willett), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 17:56 (nineteen years ago) link
― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 18:36 (nineteen years ago) link
― stevie (stevie), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 15:46 (nineteen years ago) link
― webcrack (music=crack), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 15:57 (nineteen years ago) link
he has it proudly displayed on a shelf in the living room.
― latebloomer (latebloomer), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 18:14 (nineteen years ago) link
― latebloomer (latebloomer), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 18:15 (nineteen years ago) link
OOOOOLAAAAAAA!
― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 10:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 10:33 (eighteen years ago) link
― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 29 August 2006 11:22 (seventeen years ago) link
Why did I not go to the live concert of this? Apparently they had a martian war machine charging around on the stage.
― The Real Dirty Vicar, Friday, 25 January 2008 15:31 (sixteen years ago) link
This is probably the closest thing to disco I like.
― our work is never over, Friday, 25 January 2008 22:58 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.burningsuit.co.uk/images/head-in-hands.jpg
― Noodle Vague, Friday, 25 January 2008 23:00 (sixteen years ago) link
the live show is coming back to town. has anyone been to it? I hear it is AWESOME.
― The Real Dirty Vicar, Thursday, 2 April 2009 16:08 (fifteen years ago) link
This is of course a very silly record. But saying that, every sound and texture on it works so well and its so beautifully constructed, recorded and mixed that i'd probably much rather listen to this most days than say Dark Side Of The Moon or The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway.
― reallysmoothmusic (Jamie_ATP), Monday, 14 March 2011 17:35 (thirteen years ago) link
plus it wins for having this sort of thing at the live show:
3-tonne, 35-foot tall Martian Fighting Machine firing new and improved real flame Heat Rays at the audience & scanning them with its bug-like eyes. For the first time, a member of the cast will be incinerated on stage right in front of the audience's eyes!!
― reallysmoothmusic (Jamie_ATP), Monday, 14 March 2011 18:10 (thirteen years ago) link
Love this unreservedly, despite (or because of) the ridiculousness of the concept and its execution.
Didn't realise that Forever Autumn goes all the way back to 1969, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coF5k3jq1VY
― Cluster the boots (Billy Dods), Monday, 14 March 2011 21:45 (thirteen years ago) link
for some reason they adapted this into a real-time strategy computer game in like 1999. i played it once. all i remember was that it had obscenely high system requirements for the time.
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 14 March 2011 22:04 (thirteen years ago) link
When I was in primary school we had a music teacher who played side A of this about six times in separate classes through one of those Sharp upright portable record players. While it was playing she'd pass around the insert (which was missing what 1/3 of the paintings).
Found this thing called ULLAdubULLA a few years ago, basically a load of imaginationless remixes of parts of the album. Really it only serves to illustrate how good the original was.
― Head goes goes goes (Schlafsack), Monday, 14 March 2011 22:13 (thirteen years ago) link
I recall a youth club leader inflicting this on us 13 yr olds in a minibus back from Wales. I kind of knew that concept albums were a bit lame by then, but this one had a real charm. Drew the line at fucking Supertramp tho.
― Dr X O'Skeleton, Tuesday, 15 March 2011 00:32 (thirteen years ago) link
ha ha, someone will pop up now saying what's wrong with the s-tramp?
― Dr X O'Skeleton, Tuesday, 15 March 2011 00:33 (thirteen years ago) link
I listened to this last night for the first time in ages. Once you get past how silly the whole thing is it's really very absorbing. The music reflects the narrative quite accurately (I love how the musical themes in side B become progressively harsher and more hectic) and the red weed bits sound genuinely alien (until the electric guitar chops in). Phil Lynott as an American priest (WHAT?!) is a ridiculous piece of casting though.
This was probably my first exposure to anything resembling prog (I don't count Pink Floyd singles on FM radio as prog exposure), and probably set me up for my initial surge of prog discovery/exploration/obsession in the '90s.
― Head goes goes goes (Schlafsack), Tuesday, 15 March 2011 23:53 (thirteen years ago) link
i've been singing the THE CHANCES OF ANYTHING COMING FROM MARS part all day.
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 15 March 2011 23:59 (thirteen years ago) link
http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/1197/tzrvs.jpg
― the Sandalled Vandal (dog latin), Tuesday, 28 June 2011 18:24 (twelve years ago) link
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 14 March 2011 22:04 (3 months ago)
I had this game. It ran fine on my stepdad's computer, but it was so hard I could never get past the first stage.
― bamcquern, Tuesday, 28 June 2011 19:04 (twelve years ago) link
Once you get past how silly the whole thing is it's really very absorbing.
fucking love the original version.
moody blues vs thin lizzy vs david essex vs richard burton vs aliens from mars.
recent revision ?
no desire.
― mark e, Tuesday, 15 April 2014 22:43 (ten years ago) link
this is airing on WFMU right now, never heard of it
Richard Burton musta needed divorce money
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 1 November 2018 03:12 (five years ago) link
it reminds me of Jesus Christ Superstar and that's mostly not great
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 1 November 2018 03:14 (five years ago) link
I got this album as a gift for Christmas 1978, aged 8. For the next year I think I listened to it on headphones a couple of times a week on average - every note, every nuance is etched into me, I can still call full audio memories effortlessly to mind despite not having listened to it in probably 20 years. Is there some kind of drug or surgery which could help me?I think I was about 13 or 14 before I realised that "The Heat Ray" was a metaphor for Jo Partridge's playing, rather than some character I had somehow failed to notice.
― an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK), Thursday, 1 November 2018 04:47 (five years ago) link
for the uninitiated
http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/82173
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 1 November 2018 16:08 (five years ago) link
I’ve never listened to it but my dad had the LP and I used to look through the artwork because it was so rad.
― latebloomer, Thursday, 1 November 2018 16:52 (five years ago) link
It fucking rules, in a cheesy and awful way. It has Phil Lynott playing a priest gone mad preaching violence.
What more do you monsters want?
― Defund Phil Collins (stevie), Thursday, 1 November 2018 17:21 (five years ago) link
Wow. This was big in the UK.
― Alma Kirby (Tom D.), Thursday, 1 November 2018 17:30 (five years ago) link
Jesus Christ Superstar is better tbf but it has its moments
― the Warnock of Clodhop Mountain (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 1 November 2018 17:31 (five years ago) link
That Lynott song is a highlight iirc
― the Warnock of Clodhop Mountain (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 1 November 2018 17:32 (five years ago) link
Heat Ray noise is good
The actual title is "Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds". HG Wells' estate must have objected.
― Alma Kirby (Tom D.), Thursday, 1 November 2018 17:35 (five years ago) link
but all the words Burton's reading... surely they could've stopped it if they wanted to, or was it 'public domain'
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 1 November 2018 17:37 (five years ago) link
I think it was probably just out of copyright under the old rules
― the Warnock of Clodhop Mountain (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 1 November 2018 17:50 (five years ago) link
Maybe had been for ages, was the 50s movie authorised?
― the Warnock of Clodhop Mountain (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 1 November 2018 17:52 (five years ago) link
Was still in copyright at the time:
I wanted to interpret musically, one couldn’t do it without finding out who was in charge of the estate of H.G. Wells. It took us about three months – there was so internet or email in those days – and when we eventually found it it was agents of Frank Wells, who is H.G. Wells’ son and the rights had been left to him. Frank had agents representing The War Of The Worlds and so I presented myself to them explaining what I wanted to do and they sold my dad and I all these rights because I was the first one who had come along who wanted to stay true to what H.G. Wells wrote, which was this very dark Victorian tale.
http://thequietus.com/articles/14162-jeff-wayne-interview-war-of-the-worlds
I see it’s touring again, almost tempted to see if any tickets are available.
― Dan Worsley, Thursday, 1 November 2018 19:10 (five years ago) link