Rate Albums
Cover of Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds

Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds

Jeff Wayne

6 September 1978, Soundtrack

Symphonic Prog, Electronic

Wikipedia

Average
6.8
Ratings
6
Your rating
Log in to rate
Reviews
5
Lists
0
Tracklist 12 tracks, 1:35:02

Disc 1

  1. A1The Eve of the War9:07
  2. A2Horsell Common and the Heat Ray11:36
  3. B1The Artilleryman and the Fighting Machine10:36
  4. B2Forever Autumn7:44
  5. B3Thunder Child6:06

Disc 2

  1. C1The Red Weed, Part 15:56
  2. C2The Spirit of Man11:41
  3. C3The Red Weed, Part 26:51
  4. D1Brave New World12:13
  5. D2Dead London8:37
  6. D3Epilogue, Part 12:45
  7. D4Epilogue, Part 2 (NASA)1:50

Reviews

10/10

Wait, I know Forever Autumn! That's from a 70's Orwell operetta album? Crazy. This whole thing was way better than it had any right to be. Didn't love Nathan getting the big ballad, but it is what it is.

6/10

This is a great rock musical, and agree it should make the list but just is too long for my preference and also the narration grates after a while,

5/10

Man, it almost really won me over, but unfortunately it turned out to just have that one motif in the tank. I did enjoy how much more disco-inflected it was than I ever would have expected, though.

6/10

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

8/10

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)