sábado, 3 de noviembre de 2007

Jeff Wayne - Spartacus (The Musical) (1992)

spartacus_-_musical_by_jeff_wayne_a
El mismo que varios años atrás sorprendiera al mundo entero con su grandilocuente versión musical de la inquietante y exitosa novela de H. G. Wells “La Guerra De Los Mundos”, el productor musical y compositor Jeff Wayne, quien nos descubrió a David Essex entre otros artistas en los años 70, así como trabajó para diferentes campañas publicitarias y en sintonías para programas de televisión, entre ellas la de “Good Morning Britain” para la BBC Británica, volvió a trabajar para un musical sobre la historia del esclavo Espartaco, en una historia donde combinan temas de gran poderío sobre la opresión, la desesperación, el amor y la muerte. Para esta obra, Jeff contó con el apoyo de artistas tan dispares como las voces de los actores Anthony Hopkins y Catherine Zeta-Jones (que además canta en el tema “For All Time”) así como de Fish (ex-Marillion) y Ladysmith Black Mambazo. A pesar de este gran elenco de artistas, el disco no tuvo demasiada repercusión, ni siquiera tenía el empaque ni la fuerza del siempre inmenso “The War Of The Worlds”. No obstante, os lo ofrezco aquí para vuestra curiosidad.

For the follow up to “War of the Worlds”, Jeff Wayne brought together once again many of the same ingredients. Talented performers, orchestration, and a strong storyline (in this case the story of Spartacus from the epic film of the same name) all indicated that this would be another fine album.

It is then, all the more surprising that this such a disappointing album. The main problem here is in the quality of the compositions. There is a real dearth of strong melodies, and the performances themselves can be best described as average. Perhaps it was the fact that unlike “War of the Worlds”, the performers here, while highly competent, were not “stars”. It’s only speculation, but perhaps Wayne did not get the expert feedback from the performers this time which he enjoyed previously, and thus the quality control was compromised.

A quick examination of the list of performers reveals that the rock orientated musicians who dominated WOTW are largely missing, to be replaced by generally lesser know performers with dance music backgrounds. Ladysmith Black Mambazo play the part of the "crowd" giving the album a significant "world music" feel. Only Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s Chris Thompson remains from the WOTW guest singers. If that’s not concerning enough(!), the lead female role is sung (yes sung) and narrated by Catherine Zeta Jones! At the time, she was not nearly as well known as she is these days. To be fair, Jones is actually a pretty good singer in a stage show context, and the album does have the feel of a Lloyd-Webber/Rice musical, rather than a rock extravaganza. On the plus side, Fish (ex-Marillion) also appears, albeit briefly.

The tracks are lengthy but rather drawn out, with too little variety, and some sections become downright boring. The peculiar mixture of dance, world music, orchestration, story telling, stage show and a small amount of rock do not sit particularly well together resulting in a disjointed and unsatisfying mix.

The narration is shared by Anthony Hopkins and CZJ, and while the album tells the story well, it can become a bit tedious. It has to be said too, that while the film was undoubtedly a classic, the story has not transferred well to the audio only medium.

“Spartacus” may appeal to someone who enjoys all the diverse influences include in it. Unfortunately, for me those influences have not been put together in a coherent and enjoyable format, and when seen as a whole, the album fails to inspire. Indeed, inspiration appears to largely lacking from the project as a whole.

The lavish presentation of “War of the Worlds” is continued here, with a well presented booklet and box. © ProgArchives.com








TRACKLISTING:

CD 1
1- Destiny 5.26
2- Animal & Man (Part One) 7.26
3- Animal & Man (Part Two) 8.27
4- For All Time 7.21
5- Whispers 6.20
6- The Eagle & The Hawk 15.28

CD 2
1- Going Home 7.59
2- The Parting Of The Ways 7.09
3- We Carry On 8.23
4- Trust Me 7.22
5- Two Souls With A Single Dream 8.14
6- The Last Battle 8.46
7- The Appian Way 9.44
8- Epilogue (Part One) 1.04
9- Epilogue (Part Two) 1.51

Cómpralo aquí / Buy it here:

- Amazon.com
- Amazon UK
- MP3 Sparks (Disc 1)
- MP3 Sparks (Disc 2)

3 comentarios:

  1. This is to the one's who download without buying any CD's:And yet you encourage music blogs' keepers to keep on with their illegal activities. Is it because they are the ones who will get caught, and you are the one's who will not? Accourding to international law they are (and you too) the one who will get sued for loads of money. Not you downloaders. But to me, you are as guilty as bloggers are. "The Greedy record companies", as some of you insist to say, actually invest money and effort in every released album, and some of them (even the one's you say are very good) is not selling enough to even make it even. As you see the record companies are taking risks. Isn't it then reasonable that also you would be willing to take a risk and buy an album that you have only heard a couple of tracks from? Or do you think that it is only the record companies who should take the risks? If everyone used the downloads for checking out music to buy there would probably be no problem. If it increased sales record companies would find it a good idea and not only allow it. They would probably put up the music for free themselves. But it's so obvious that the more part of the downloaders are the greedy one's who do not give anything in return. And therefore, to work in the interests of the artists, they will not allow this. For the one's who actually do buy CD's (there are a few left and they are the reason why music industry is not down totally - yet) it is of course too bad that the blogs can not be allowed. But, to blame any others the the freeloaders, is to blame the victim. That is what you do when you justify yourself when talking about "greedy record companies" who" exploite the bands". You then are changing focus from being correct and you are blaming the victim. And, isn't that what criminal persons usually do? The rapist blame the victim by saying it was her fault because she dressed sexy! They are blaming the victim. And so are you.

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  2. You scoff under your anonymate and don't say if you really belong to music industry. Would have I to be worried for you?By first, you haven't read (unless Spanish made) the focusing "music removal" entry at the top of my blog on the left column. If you wouldn't mind to take your time to translate the message into English, there are things I'm not totally right with your words.There are other choices rather than CD's for record companies and artists to survive. The key is Internet because people is overwhelmed with the vaste information never seen before. Mass storage worldwide and only one key press to do what you want, for free (in some cases, like freeware programs and Creative Commons licences) and paying for the service, as happens with many opperative on-line shopping music centers around the net, that give you the chance to download music paying for it.I'm sharing my own collection I was bought or gifted long time ago, through original CDs or vinyl albums. I'm not justifying an illegal act, I'm not commiting piracy. Moreover, I offer the chance to check the music and if listener and downloader likes it, he'll buy it at his local music shop or just send an order to linked on-line shops like Amazon.com and relatives. Is that so easy to understand or not?I'm not stealing anybody and what you do is simply magnificating something embarrasing that doesn't matter to me.Downloading links are opened for a short time, and after that I make them delete. So there will be no problem. Right?You are the greedy one pretending commercial appealings for artists that doesn't make their names to me. And I'm talking about actual state of music. Music I won't buy somehow except those I like, however they are being few than before.Piss off and renew yourself, you crop berserk.

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  3. I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.Kaylee< HREF="http://grillsblog.com" REL="nofollow">http://grillsblog.com<>

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