Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of The Worlds

Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of The Worlds is a progressive rock musical album by Jeff Wayne. Normally I would say a musical shouldn't be on this list as you are missing all the visuals. In this case it has a narrator telling the story and this album is not only based on the book by H.G. Wells, but also on the radio show by Orson Welles. So we can skip that argument. The album is good not great (a solid 3.5 stars) as the first half contains far superior songs. One of my friends (who loves prog rock and early electronics) gave me this album (and other albums) when discarding his vinyl record collection. I must say each time I listen to it sounds better and that's a good sign.

15 year old me would have loved this album. As someone who was big into the Alan Parsons project around that time, with albums like I Robot, I'm surprised this album was not on my radar at all. 60 year old me enjoyed it. My only complaint, which is true of a lot of "rock opera" albums, is that sometimes the music can suffer in trying to land the story. In this case, the music was good but it feels more like a soundtrack album at times versus a set of really solid songs. 4 stars.

I have to give credit where credit is due, this is a ballsy project all around. A War of the Worlds prog/psych musical adaptation kinda works on paper, and disc 1 is pretty engaging with some great themes and fun campy vibes. Disc 2 really loses the plot though, focusing more on the human element rather than the story’s inherent grandiosity kills the momentum entirely. I’m bumping this up to a 3 because it’s a crazy add and an out-there, different kind of listen, may not stick the landing but wins on novelty for sure.

I am very familiar with this album and have loved it since I discovered it 15 years ago or so. Richard Burton’s narration over that disco opening “The Eve of War” works so well! Throughout the whole album his narration interplays with musical passages telling this compelling story of The War of the Worlds. “Forever Autumn” could be a Moody Blues track - it’s a great song. Great and unique suggestion! More people should know about this.

This might be some of the coolest music I have ever heard in terms of instrumentals. Really awesome guitar riffs mixed with some electronics I thought that the narration would get annoying after a while when it first came up but it was actually pretty sweet. The second disc did start to get a little too Disney movie like in the beginning with the characters, but the instrumentals were still top notch. This may be the weirdest 5 I give because I will never listen to this again most likely, but it was so dang entertaining the whole time.

Perfect addition. An album which was missing on the original list.

You know I saw this and immediately rolled my eyes, but halfway through the second song and this bassline has me groovin'. Having seen the movie (Tom Cruise version, not shite Ice Cube one) it was fun to kinda follow along with the story. That was a trip and not one that I expected. Pretty long for my taste but honestly was jamming along with the story and music. Ending on that eerie tone was also chill af. Surprise 4.

Cool version of this story. The music is the main component, and is very fitting

Maybe I should read the book

The Moody Blues just featured on this list and here we find Justin Hayward, sole survivor of the original lineup, featured on this oddity. And boy, "oddity" barely does it justice, this ranks as one of the strangest offerings on this list yet. Not really a musical or rock opera, a half-narrated, half-cast acted adaptation with musical framing and sung interludes. And apparently a big hit in its times (I'd never heard of it) and a live performance success for decades. Pros, you could do a lot worse than Richard Burton as the primary narrator of an English sci-fi classic. The narrative is clear and holds up well. Cons, the musical themes are pretty monotonous, the lyrical elements are sort of basic and not particularly artful, and it does all have this oddly disjointed chimeric quality, neither fish nor fowl. But I didn't mind the listen and it was certainly unique.

This was exhausting. It's way too long and the narration gets tiring after a while. It just doesn't work. My personal rating: 2/5 My rating relative to the list: 2/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No

I'm convinced by now that the user list is being randomly generated.

Good old fashioned pulpy fun. Great share!

Never seen this movie, expected this to be an unsatisfactory listen without context. Was pretty dang surprised at how much this jammed. Overall I think there is plenty here that the narration part could be left out, but it was entertaining enough to hear the story.

By golly this is a hoot! Two songs in I'm actually all about this. Quirky as hell, but this plays like some evolved ELP fused with Lindstrom. Horsell Common and the Heat Ray is a soulful jam. The Artilleryman and the Fighting Machine reminds me a ton of the sprawling synthy electro soundscapes that I remember of Lindstrom. I lost a little of steam through the back half, but this was way more entertaining of a listen than I initially expected. Low 4.

Really love the album! It brings back such great memories! The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to ine they say….. really interesting, Mars, no, but a whole universe… yes.

Not really an album in the traditional sense, but gets away with it because it cleverly uses a narrator as well as sung parts, and was written from the ground up as an audio piece (rather than relying on visual elements)

OK, well, I thought I would hate this, and at points it was certainly campy/cheesy. But it wasn't bad at all. Found myself tapping my toes every once in a while. Richard Burton is a fantastic narrator, too.

Musical Theatre? ❌ Theatrical music? ✅ I'm fascinated at how I never heard of this. Phil Lynott? Justin Hayward?? Almost makes me forgive the fact this is the 3rd album y'all have given me in the month of June that's over 90 minutes long Richard Burton is here too! Richard Burton is everywhere on this thing, in fact. I mainly know him from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)- together with Liz Taylor, I'd count their scenes as some of the better film acting I've seen. Unfortunately, I thought his spoken word narration was too prominent in this. I realized early on, when the Journalist's lines were split between Burton and the Moody Blues' own Hayward, that I'd rather listen to the singers do their thing. His delivery reminds me of an old timey radio play (a la the 1939 War of the Worlds broadcast). The friction between classic sci fi/horror vibes with symphonic disco/AOR/prog that could have only been produced in the late 70's was always present, but I will say that adds to its charm I've listened to too much Bon Jovi to take the talkbox-as-Martian seriously, but the Phil Lynott/Julie Covington parts provided some surprising pathos in this silly, extravagant rock opera. 3.5/5 HL: "Forever Autumn", "The Red Weed, Pt. 2", "Brave New World" June 23, 2026

This is a fun idea but maybe no

Strong first half full of some very cool prog. The second half where it goes full cheesy Disney opera mode was where it lost me. Overall an interesting, but kind of exhausting listen. Not great, not terrible. 3/5.

Progressive rock. Demasiado largo. Se me ha hecho pesado. Un 2.

What in the rhinestoned disco apocalypse is this theatrical casserole? A couple of decent musical ideas spread real thin on each disc (including an idea that's ENDLESSLY repeated during the course of the first one-- that main theme displayed on a disco pattern that couldn't sound more ill-fitted to describe the dramatic events of HG Wells' story), to which you can add a couple of proper songs thrown in almost as an afterthought -- one on which The Moody Blues' Justin Hayward does a nice enough job ("Forever Autumn"), while Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott goes into full-blown, badly sung hysterics on his own tune ("The Spirit Of Man") -- yes, *all of this* is not conducive to a pleasant listening experience overall. The whole thing feels awkward as fuck. It's overcooked and overblown. And *of course*, it massively hit the charts in Britain at the time. Oh, and it now gets a 3.11 global score on this generator (as of June 2026)... Jesus fucking Christ... 🙄 Quaint and kitschy is one thing. Ridiculous -- and also, ridiculously *long* -- is another. You have to go through vast expanses of annoying turf and dubious performances to get to the first section of "Dead London", one of the rare moments where the music actually sounds genuinely ominous. But then, just as the main disco theme endlessly repeated during the first disc suddenly surged ONCE MORE for the second section of this track, I simply wanted to strangle the person who suggested this thing. Metaphorically, of course. I wouldn't want to be considered as an annoying user making threats just because of the annoying choice of another user. I wish I could harness Richard Burton's monotone voice to end this review: "No one would've believed in the first years of the 21st Century that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. No one could've dreamed we were being scrutinized as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm in a drop of water. Those observers were real, however, and their diagnosis was unambiguous. Man as a species had fallen into an abyss of bad taste and destructive behaviour. The further men supposedly advanced, the more they made poor choices as how to live their lives and conduct their affairs. Catching a signal from the 1001 Albums generator on their red planet -- and seeing the global score of today's album -- Martians realized they couldn't let that dangerous debacle go on any further. Earthlings were *doomed*, and Martians *had* to wipe the fuckers out before their madness would contaminate their own homeworld. And who could blame the greenish tripod drivers here, really?" SKIP BUTTON, PLEEEEEAAAASE!!!!! 1/5 for the purposes of this list dedicated to essential albums. 6/10 for more general purposes (5 + 1) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 108 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 117 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 254 (including this one) ---- Émile, *quatre* nouveaux messages pour toi au dessus, du *Solid State Survivor* de Yellow Magic Orchestra au *Atrocity Exhibition* de Danny Brown !