Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds – The Remix

To read folks’ reactions at Amazon.com, you’d think ULLAdubULLA II’s remix of Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds was a Britney Spears version of Bach, or something. I mean, some of those folks didn’t just hate it, they’d’ve murderised it if they could’ve.

Me being a collector and all, I had to buy it, especially since I love Jeff Wayne’s source rock opera. I’ll tell you in advance my criteria for judging albums:

1) 0 – 1 songs I like: a waste of my money

2) 2 songs I like: Time to suck it up, but I won’t be buying from that artist again

3) 3 songs I like: I’m satisfied. I mean, come on, that’s $5 a song, each one I’ll probably enjoy for the rest of my life. Figure the amortisation on that. You think a $5 burger is going to be enjoyed by me more than once. Nuh-uh.

4) 4 or more songs: I’m bragging up the record to anyone who’ll listen.

ULLAdubULLA II’s remix album, frankly, is terrific. It’s a generous meal of seventeen songs, and I’d say easily nine of them are terrific. You might say, hey, you only liked half? To me, an LP is eight songs. Everything above eight is bonus tracks. So really, by that scale, this album is perfect +1. I haven’t decided about the tracks that didn’t make my preliminary list, yet, but some of them still might make the cuts.

Some highlights:

Zube’s wide-ranging hip hop journal entry employing samples from Phill Lynott’s and Julie Covington’s voices on “The Spirit of Man”

Tom Middleton’s excellent, danceable, remix of the opera’s opening anthem, featuring a new bass arrangement and Richard Burton’s opening narration

N-Trance’s delicate remix of “Forever Autumn” featuring Justin Hayward, with an arrangement reminiscent of the song “Direct” from Vangelis’s 1988 Direct.

Check it out and let me know what you think. And don’t dwell on the songs you don’t like–find something you did like and talk about that.

4 comments on “Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds – The Remix

  1. Paul Raven says:

    Ah, the Middleton, that was the one that charted. I remember it well… Amazon Marketplace can expect a nostalgia splurge real soon. Thanks for bringing this up!

  2. Cheryl says:

    No MP3 Download. No can haz immediate. Hiss boo.

  3. Cheryl, I’ll poke around to see if I can find you a link. Check back on Tuesday.

  4. Ann VanderMeer says:

    I love the way that you rate albums. I can’t tell you how many times I bought an album because I was in love with 3 songs. This one sounds intriguing. I’ll have to look it up (luckily my daugher works in the coolest record store in Tallahassee)

    Ann V.

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