Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds: Did We Really Need A Next Generation?

The story will more than likely be known to most if not all of you, either through films or the novel, and is explained in depth here, in my original review on my offsite music journal of the 1978 album, so I'll only be skimming over the plot during this review. I'll also be (perhaps maddeningly to some people but I feel it's not only necessary but inevitable) comparing it to the original, seeing how if at all it's improved, or where I think they may have gone wrong. It wouldn't be fair to compare Neeson to Burton; you may as well compare Tarantino to Hitchcock. No-one would ever be able to trump the original narrator of the tale, but to be fair Neeson does okay, at least at the outset. I find though as the album winds on that his voice is missing the gravitas and the sense of both horror and determination evident in Burton's on the original outing. That's not to say he doesn't put emotion into the vocal, but at times it just sounds to me like he's reading off a cue card and isn't sufficiently invested in the story. Burton on the other hand dragged you right down into the trenches, so to speak, so that you almost felt the searing heat of the Martians' deadly weapon on Horsell Common, and watched in horror with him as the "Thunder Child" was sent to a watery grave. I don't get that same sense of involvement in the story from Liam Neeson, though I will admit I'm biased towards the original. Still, I do want to give him a fair shake so let's put him to one side for the moment and examine the music. Well, it's still Jeff Wayne at the controls so to be completely honest not a whole lot has changed. The music sounds clearer, certainly, more vibrant and alive, but the actual melody remains and although a few little bells and whistles are stuck on, there's nothing too different here. Good thing, bad thing? I'd say good, because as I said in the introduction I really didn't want them messing too much with the classic original arrangement, and by and large they've remained faithful to it. There are nice little touches, like the cries of the newspaper vendor --- "Morning papers! Men from Mars! --- that reverberates around the still morning air the day after the first cylinder lands and the Martians chase the inquisitive humans off Horsell Common so that they can start building their fighting machines, and a few little extra musical bits just woven in and out of the basic fabric of the already established melody. But I'm waiting for the other protagonists, particularly the Artilleryman and Parson Nathaniel to see how they'll measure up to the characters I've come to know and love. After the panic on Horsell Common the next person to enter the story --- literally; he enters the Journalist's house looking for respite from the marauding aliens, who have wiped out the rest of his unit --- is the Artilleryman. Played originally by David Essex, this time out it's taken by the Kaiser Chiefs' Ricky Wilson. I'm not familiar with their music, and in fact like many of the players on this album I know but few, but for what he does I feel Wilson fulfils the role adequately, at least initially. I'm waiting for later, to see how he performs on "Brave new world". Could anyone be as manic as Essex on that song? We'll see. Next up is the "replacement" for the venerable Justin Hayward, on the classic hit single that was taken from the album (and is I think this time around again), the timeless "Forever autumn". Again, the basic song and melody are pretty much retained as they were on the original, and it's Take That's Gary Barlow who sings the vocal, his character being, as was Hayward's, the "Sung Thoughts of the Journalist". He does a good job on the song, sounding a little like the ex-Moody Blues singer if I'm honest, and I'm glad to report he does not butcher it. Is it better than, or as good as the original? I'd say it's on a par, though the original will always have a special place in my heart. Again though I find Liam Neeson's narration, while certainly competent, somewhat lacking in the emotion evinced by Burton on the original. In particular, the line where Burton breathes "One appeared above Big Ben!" is laced with shock, disbelief, horror but also a note of anger and indignation that the treasured English landmark should be threatened. Neeson does not give this impression: while he sounds dismayed, the outrage is not evident in his voice. Perhaps this is because he's Irish and Burton was English and so would not feel the same sense of violation, have the same burning nationalistic pride that Burton had, and imbued the narration with. I can't say that for certain of course, but he doesn't make me feel "How dare they!" they way I did when I listened to the original. And so as the Journalist attempts to get on board the last ship out of England and fails, seeing the steamer pull away with his beloved aboard only to then witness the Martian fighting machines block its path, we hear the "Voice of Humanity", embodied in Alex Clare, who sings "Thunder child", as the destroyer tries and fails to take on the invaders, nevertheless delaying them enough to ensure the escape of the steamer. Again, he does a good job and I can't fault it, though I can't honestly say it's that different from Chris Thompson's version on the original. Basically then "The Red Weed" is almost exactly the same, though at one point near the end it seems to stutter; whether that's a fault in my copy or deliberate I don't know, but I can't see how, if it's the latter, it adds anything to the music. My worst fears are then realised when we come across the crazy parson, whose role this time out is taken by up-and-coming soul artiste Maverick Sabre. I don't want to keep saying "this isn't as good as the original" --- though I will! --- but I have to say that his Parson Nathaniel has nothing of the fire, drive and wide-eyed lunacy put into the role by the late lamented Phil Lynott. Back in 1978 when I heard Lynott talk about the Martians being "just demons in another form" and when he castigated humanity for its failure to "exorcise the devil!" I really believed him. Sabre on the other hand, though he does a good enough job, just doesn't come across to me as, well, crazy or even fervent enough, and again it's like someone trying to duplicate a performance while missing the point altogether. A big letdown. Joss Stone, what can I say? In the role of Beth she's good, but then Julie Covington also did okay as Beth but never was, I felt, anything to write home about. There's about an equal feel of passion and heart to both ladies' performances, but whereas I would take Lynott's Parson anytime over Sabre's, I could listen to Stone or Covington and be just as happy. Faint praise perhaps, but there it is. However, if everyone's getting sick of me putting down the new generation and saying how much better the old guard were, you'll be glad to know that I have nothing but praise for the new Artilleryman, voiced again by Ricky Wilson, in a real star turn. When performed by David Essex in 1978, "Brave new world" was a tour-de-force by the singer/actor, one of the highlights of the album and a song that could so easily have seemed forced or even a parody if not handled correctly. Essex approached it perfectly, and I'm glad to say Wilson repeats that success. Capturing brilliantly the pretty unhinged overoptimism of the soldier who has convinced himself that he has worked out how man will be able to survive the invasion by moving to live underground --- without the slightest skill in engineering, architecture, electronics etc --- Wilson recreates the crazy dream of the Artilleryman, who believes himself something of a messiah. Relating his plan excitedly to the Journalist when he meets him again, he spouts on about how they'll build shops and houses, and play each other at cricket! The song, like all of them, is essentially the same one Essex sang in 1978, even retaining the whistling sound that so amused me when Burton then and Neeson now both declare "I must leave this strange dreamer", with the same lyrics and melody, and to be totally devil's advocate, Wilson almost duplicates Essex's performance on the song, but manages to imbue some of his own personality into the thing. It's quite an achievement, and the first time I can say that, while none of this is better than the original, one song actually stands up beside it. I'd like to take a moment here to explore the different ways madness affects people in this story. Naturally, the idea of aliens invading and rampaging across the world, killing and burning as they go, is enough to send anyone off the deep end, although our hero keeps his cool. Mostly. But Parson Nathaniel is forced into a rethink of his beliefs by the arrival of the aliens and the devastation they create, completely unopposed. His faith snaps, and with it his sanity, and he almost revels in the destruction being perpetrated on the Earth, as if it is a judgement from God. He believes the Martians to be demons, sent by Satan to destroy the Earth as a punishment for people losing faith in God. Actually, surely this is a theological conundrum, as if anyone was going to punish humans for losing faith it should be God Himself, not Satan? Anyway, his mind goes and he basically grins and points at the aliens, believing himself and everyone else now powerless to stand against them. At the last, his faith does seem to reassert itself though, as he declares "I shall burn them with my prayers! I shall destroy them with my holy cross!" although the Journalist stops him, knowing he has no chance. On the other side of the coin we have the Artilleryman, whose sanity has been stretched to breaking point at seeing how powerless the entity he would have believed all his life could defeat anything, the army in which he serves, turns out to be against this vastly superior force. He however goes the other way; instead of spiralling into self-doubt and despair, he formulates a plan for survival. Though he is clearly unhinged, he realises that humanity is doomed and that the only thing to do now is accept this and retreat, regroup and hope to one day overwhelm the invader. In that sense, his military training is kicking in; he's assessing the situation, weighing up the alternatives and coming up with a plan. The only problem is, his plan is completely unworkable. Apart from anything else, who is going to build all the necessary habitation that humans will need to live underground. He says "You should see it down there! Hundreds of miles of drains! Sweet and clean now after the rain!" Well that may be, but you can't just live in a tunnel. You need some sort of shelter, a way to purify water for living purposes, not to mention at least some rudimentary form of mechanics and of course a way to grow food. His plan has in fact not been thought out but his reason has gone to the point where he can't see that. All he can see is his great plan, not the holes in it. But to contrast him with the preacher, his insanity has not pushed him down deep into hand-wringing and doom, but made him (in his weird, cracked way) stand up and be counted. He believes he is the future of mankind, perhaps even thinking himself its new leader? After "Brave new world" it's pretty much the '78 album all over again. The music is more or less the same, very little difference: a bit more narration perhaps, and rather annoyingly for me Wayne has decided to keep the "NASA epilogue" which I thought almost ruined the original album. He even uses his brother, Jerry, as the NASA guy again, and I hate the guy's voice: just reminds me of Sergeant Bilko! Also, there's now a totally unnecessary alien voice talking at the end, just in case anyone is thick enough not to be able to figure out what's happening here. I mean, I hated the original epilogue, but at least that left it slightly to your imagination (although again it was pretty obvious what was going on); this one removes any such ambiguity, however small. They're only short of shouting "OH NO! THE MARTIANS ARE INVADING AGAIN!" Jesus Jeff! Give your audience some little credit for intelligence, wouldya? Once again, the (second) epilogue leaves a bad taste in my mouth and nearly ruins the album, but I've fumed about this enough in my original review so we'll just leave it there, and say he doesn't appear to have learned his lesson. I should however take issue before I close with something the composer said in an interview about this. He mentioned that revisiting the album thirty-some years on gave him a chance to dig deeper into the characters and explore them and their relationship to each other. I saw nothing of that on this album. Where maybe the relationship between the Artilleryman and the Journalist might have developed to some degree, it's as much as verbatim from the original album. As for expanding on his lover, I see no further mention of Carrie after "Forever autumn", other than the last few lines of his narration, in which her name was included anyway on the 1978 outing as he looked forward to her return. So where is the further exploration of the characters? I don't see it, unless it happens onstage and if so then it certainly isn't reflected in the album. But the big question remains: was this an album that was necessary to record? Well, that depends. If you've never heard it before, by all means you'll enjoy it, and though in places the original was better (Lynott's Parson, for instance) you won't lose much by starting your journey here. On the other hand, if you already have the original there is very little incentive I can see here to buy this. I got it out of curiosity, really, and to review and see how, if at all, it was different (good or bad) from the original. If you want to do that by all means go ahead, but if you know the album don't expect a huge update, because this is not it. Leaving aside the new voices, some of whom work better than others, it's essentially the same album. It's the same music, albeit with better recording technology and I'm sure on the right sound system it sounds amazing, but it is still the same music. No new songs have been written, no new parts have been added. Is that a good or a bad thing? Again, it depends. Some of us would be purists and say the story should not be tampered with --- though I personally think the album should have been left as it was and not revisited at all, at least not if this is the result --- and some would say it's time for an overhaul, that the original album compressed a whole novel into seventy minutes of music and narration, and surely there were other areas of the book Wayne could have explored? But if that's what they wanted, that's not what they get here. So I'm left with the feeling that, while it was interesting to hear new voices in old roles, and definitely fun to hear one of my favourite albums brought to life again after all these years, in reality if I wanted to hear "War of the worlds" again I could just have run it up on my ipod, and there wouldn't be that much of a difference from that to this. Was it worth buying? From a review standpoint, yes, because I wanted to know how it stacked up against the original classic. But now that I've reviewed it I doubt I'll ever listen to it again. If I feel the need, as I often do during the year, to hear the album I'll be going back to my original copy. It's more familiar to me, and I'd have to say it's superior to this twenty-first century update. But it's not a bad album. Just not worth getting, I think, if you already have the original. Really, in the end, the only people likely to get this who already possess the 1978 album are avid collectors and enthusiasts who probably already have all the remastered/special editions. I just think it doesn't stand enough apart from the original to make the case for its own recording. Not a pointless endeavour, not an ill-advised one, but perhaps an opportunity missed. TRACKLISTING DISC ONE: THE COMING OF THE MARTIANS 1. Eve of the war 2. Horsell Common and the heat ray 3. The Artilleryman and the Fighting Machine 4. Forever Autumn 5. Thunder Child DISC TWO: EARTH UNDER THE MARTIANS 1. The Red Weed, part one 2. The Spirit of Man 3. The Red Weed, part two 4. The Artilleryman returns 5. Brave new world 6. Dead London 7. Epilogue part one 8. Epilogue part two (NASA)