wow, so I can log this on here. okay. nice. I *have* seen the actual thing (this stage show recording), too. It's neat! My biggest takeaway years and years ago was the creepy floating Richard Burton head.
now, extremely unprompted hairball of thoughts about all things jeff wayne's musical version of the the war of the worlds:
okay, getting this out of the way. the thing I do not care for the most regarding JWMVoTWoTW are the things you see on the cover and all major iconography for the JWMVoTWoTW franchise: the fighting-machines. I do not care for them. I don't care if they are iconic. sure, they might be a good design on their own, but I do not care for them. they are overtly mechanical representations of what are described in the novel as almost lifelike; like the way an animal might perceive a locomotive or a steamship. no. here they are "boilers on stilts" through and through. sorry. and Wells' original text takes care to describe them as being made up of a lower body where the legs are connected and surmounted by a sinister hood. well, it's all one pod, here, see. and look at those wimpy little tentacles! "articulated ropes of dangling steel" my ass! and I don't give a rats ass if some Gerry Anderson alumnus made this design. for all the flak people rightfully give Spielberg's film, it did not do the fighting-machines wrong. they are terrifying and lifelike in that work. anyway and either way, Henrique Alvim Correa's bug-eyed monster depictions of the Martian machines, complete with their human eyelashes(!), are still the definitive interpretation.
okay, that's out of the way. now we can talk about the fucking music, babey!!!! this album was extremely formative for me and reinvigorated any semblance of interest in music I had when first puberty was killing me. like it was awe-inspiring. not a year has passed where I haven't revisited at least some part of the album. and I come into "opposition" with all things War 'o the Worlds every few years anyway, and that's when I know I'm due for a full re-listen.
now, there are two different mixes of the original album:
there is the original 1978 mix, heard on all releases until 2005, where Jeffy Boy did his own Shtar Warsh Special Edition remix using the multitrack masters. It is, of course, another victim of the Loudness War and has shittier mixing with regard to dialogue leveling, etc., but he also changed the synths on one track to be consistent with another, either through ignorance, or this being a Deliberate Creative Decision™. well, whatever version you listen to, the album still fucks, but be aware and informed of these differences:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FITpo163Mo
amid all my TWotW absorption, I also had the good fortune to stumble upon and listen to the five hour audio dramatization of the original novel with elements from the musical Jeffy Boy did for Audible. bar none, this is one of the definitive adaptations of the work, even with its to-be-expected coward erasure of Wells' comments on the Tasmanian genocide. there is some excellent condensation within by merging the narrator's wife's story with the brother's, and it expands on some of the characterzations, and there are some devastating bits with the Parson and the Artilleryman. along with the Welles broadcast and the Pal film, this adaptation is extremely recommended.
"Never before in the history of the world had such a mass of human beings moved and suffered together. This was no disciplined march. It was a stampede, without order and without a goal. 6 million people unarmed and unprovisioned driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout of civilization - of the massacre of mankind."
