jeff wayne's musical version of the war of the worlds

Top Tracks:

  • The Eve of the War
  • Brave New World
  • Horsell Common and the Heat Ray

A rock opera style album released in 1978, based on H.G. Wells' sci-fi novel The War of the Worlds, featuring Richard Burton as the Narrator. This was one of my Dad's favourite CDs and he would play it in the car on the drive to school almost as often as he played the times tables songs. The CD he owned was actually an alternate release of songs edited down for radio play, called Highlights from Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. I discovered this almost a decade later, after trying to listen to the songs on YouTube and being extremely confused by how much longer they were than I remembered them being. Now that I've listened to the full version of the album I love it even more.

In 2011, Jeff Wayne released a new arrangement of the album subtitled The New Generation, with an entirely new voice cast, including Liam Neeson as the Narrator. I really like this version too! It's much of the same, but with more synths and more sound effects, and a bit more story between each track. I have both versions of the album saved to my regular Spotify playlist and enjoy listening to each in their own right, although the original is certainly more nostalgic, and Richard Burton's voice just can't be beat.

My favourite track is probably The Eve of the War, for being such an iconic opener. And slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us. BUM BUM BUUUM. It sets up all the best musical motifs and introduces the story really well. A close runner up is Brave New World, because it has the best character in the show, the Artilleryman!!! I don't know why but I fucking love this idiot. He's just so optimistic in the face of the end of the world that you can't help but share in his enthusiasm. Yeah, maybe we could all live underground! And we'll play each other at cricket!

I once tried to recommend this album to my friend. He took a listen, and reported back that "it was alright, but I'm not a massive fan of rap." What? I asked if he meant the narration. I was very confused. Then I found another version of the album, The War of the Worlds: ULLAdubULLA—the Remix Album which for some reason was the first result he found, and thought was the original. I don't care for this remix album in the slightest.


an awesome wave

Top Tracks:

  • Breezeblocks
  • Fitzpleasure
  • Tessellate

Alt-J's debut indie rock album, released in 2012. I think alt-J was one of the first bands I remember being obsessed with. I painted their logo in watercolour and put it on my wall. I smiled every time I saw the mention of delta in maths and chemistry. In GCSE music we had Macs and I entertained myself by typing alt + J over and over. Like every artist mentioned on this page, I enjoy many of their albums, but I picked this one because it has my favourite Alt-J song of all time, Breezeblocks. I love the way it sounds, I love the literary references, and I love the music video. It's still probably in my top ten music videos and has my favourite use of reversed footage (second being the music video for Coldplay's The Scientist) as well as a great plot twist.

The rest of the album are all bangers too. Intro is short but has some hauntingly good guitar refrains. Tessellate is about a love triangle? A threesome? It's definitely a metaphor for sex. I just like triangles. Triangles are my favourite shape. Something Good is just really calming. I got very excited hearing that played in Life is Strange as brief as it was. The entire album has a very soft vibe despite some of the dark topics the songs touch on, and Joe Newman's vocals are so soothing. I know people like to meme about how mumbly he gets but it just sounds so good with all the harmonies. This is still the best alt-J related video though.


self-ish

Top Tracks:

  • Hand Me My Shovel, I'm Going In!
  • Cotard's Solution
  • Mr. Capgras Encounters a Secondhand Vanity

It's hard to pick a favourite album from Will Wood, who I tentatively claim as favourite overall artist, but his second album Self-ish, released in 2016, is definitely a good option. The first Will Wood song I ever heard was Hand Me My Shovel, I'm Going In! from a random YouTube mix playlist, and I instantly loved it. The entire album is jazzy and chaotic and fun and just such a fantastic experience. I've tried playing tracks from this album for my friends and unfortunately they always describe it as "a car crash" or "circus music".

His latest albums, The Normal Album and "In case I make it," have some songs that people find more tolerable. A few of them actually got pretty popular on TikTok (famous, but at what cost?) which Will absolutely hates. The most recent album is more laid back and stripped down instrumentally, and includes my current number one song, Against the Kitchen Floor. A lot of fans didn't like the direction his new music was headed at first, but I think the album has grown on me and others. I'm happy that Will is sober and making music that reflects that, writing songs about his pet rats rather than acid trips. To be honest I'm just glad he's still making music at all. When he announced an indefinite hiatus after the tragic death of some of his rats, I was genuinely distraught at the idea that I would never see him tour or listen to anything new by him. Now, only one of those things is true (please come to London.)


death note: the musical

Top Tracks:

  • The Way It Ends
  • Stalemate
  • Playing His Game

I was a big fan of Death Note back in my early teens, but got back into the fandom recently. While I was away many adaptations were released, such as the Japanese movies, the drama series, and the Netflix movie everyone agrees was terrible. I did enjoy watching the J-drama, but out of everything the one adaptation I was most interested in was the stage musical. An English concept album written by Frank Wildhorn and Jack Murphy was recorded in 2014, starring Jeremy Jordan as Light Yagami, and Jarrod Spector as L. This was later translated into both Japanese and Korean for their respective performances as a full musical.

I managed to watch a proshot of the Japanese version (thank you to Japan for being more supportive of pro-shots) with English subtitles, and I was thoroughly entertained. The costume design for the shinigami in particular is incredible, the plot is fairly well paced and accurate to the manga considering they had to cram 12 volumes into two and a half hours, and the singing is pretty good too. Ryuk and Rem were definite standouts, Ryuk for his comedic acting, and Rem for her amazing voice. The musical covers the first half of the manga until L's death, and then skips past the second half with L's successors, which is widely regarded as the weaker half anyway. Instead, Ryuk kills Light, knowing that things will only be boring without L to antagonise Light, and the story ends with both of them dead in the same warehouse. In a way, we are Ryuk. I actually really like this ending, and although I do love a lot of the events that happen in the second half of the manga, it simply wouldn't fit in the time constraints of the musical.

I must admit that I prefer the English concept album, whether that's due to it being in a language I understand, or simply because of the star studded cast. I hadn't heard of broadway legend Jeremy Jordan before listening to this album, but my god am I obsessed with him now. The songs themselves are brilliant, my favourite being the finale track The Way It Ends, which offers L's last thoughts as he is controlled by the Death Note and knows something is very wrong, but cannot do anything to stop his demise. I also love Playing His Game which encompases the famous tennis scene and all of its homosexual tension: Get into his head and under his skin; the things that he said, the food that he likes, the places he’s been. I also have to mention Secrets and Lies, in which L and Light duet for the first time to show just how similar they are. Soichiro also comments on L's immorality and how he's almost just as bad as Kira. I really like mentions of L's lack of empathy for anything but the game; I don't care who gets hurt now, as long as I get one more shot. I'm also just a big fan of Soichiro and his relationship with Light.

This album stands as my most played album according to last.fm, which doesn't surprise me since I usually listen to the entire thing every time, but is still quite impressive considering I only started listening a few months ago.


zeal & ardor

Top Tracks:

  • Götterdämmerung
  • Golden Liar
  • Death to the Holy

I had the same issue of trying to pick a favourite album when all of them have at least one of my top tracks, but Zeal & Ardor's self titled album from 2022 includes most of my regular listening. Until I started listening to them, I pretty much only listened to indie pop and indie rock. A friend recommended one of their songs and I was hooked on the metal genre, which had evaded my interests for many years. Although I've listened to heavier stuff now, Z&A remains my favourite metal artist as the gateway to it all.

I would hesitantly call myself a satanist, specifically of The Satanic Temple (the cool chapter), so I appreciate all the athiestic lyricism in the album. It's full of rage and industrial metal. Manuel Gagneux, lead singer and writer, describes the concept as "a continuation of the alternate history narrative we have going on — what if American slaves had turned to Satan instead of God?" which I find very unique to the Z&A experience. They blend elements of black metal and African American work songs very well throughout their discography, with a great example being the call and response format of Blood In The River and use of a chain sound as percussion.

I was lucky enough to see them perform live right after their latest album Greif dropped in 2024. Their energy on stage is incredible and most of the songs almost sound better live. In fact, their 2019 live album Live in London features my favourite versions of Come On Down and We Never Fall, which just don't hit the same anymore on the original recording. Also, now that I've mentioned Greif I have to mention that the album as a whole is less metal than previous, but still a very interesting listen. Songs like Disease and to my ilk are probably the most "normie" friendly track they've recorded in a while but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I also enjoy Gagneux's solo project Birdmask which has more of a soul-pop vibe. Favourites of that are Set Me On Fire and Chillig Jangle.


gigs i've been to




  1. jeff wayne's musical version of the war of the worlds
  2. an awesome wave
  3. self-ish
  4. death note: the musical
  5. zeal & ardor
  6. gigs

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