The album features guest artists David Essex, Justin Hayward, Phil Lynott, Chris Thompson, and Julie Covington, with actor Richard Burton as the narrator.

In a prologue, the Journalist notes that in the late 19th century few people had even considered the possible existence of extraterrestrial life, yet planet Earth had in fact long been enviously observed by advanced beings.

The Journalist's account begins later that year, with the sighting of several bursts of green gas which, for ten consecutive nights, erupt from the surface of Mars and appear to approach Earth.

A company of soldiers is deployed at the common, and that evening an injured and exhausted Artilleryman wanders into the Journalist's house and tells him his comrades have been killed by fighting machines—tripod vehicles built and controlled by the Martians, each armed with its own Heat-Ray.

Nathaniel, driven mad by his horrific experiences of the Martian attacks, blames himself for the invasion and believes the invaders are demons arising from human evil.

He again encounters the Artilleryman, who is planning a new life underground that would allow humans to evade the Martians and ultimately strike back with reverse-engineered fighting machines.

In the second epilogue, set 80 years later, a NASA mission to Mars flounders when the control centre from Pasadena loses contact with the uncrewed spacecraft.

Wayne felt the composing side of his career "had diminished" by this time, and started looking for a story "to get passionate about" and interpret musically, to which his father Jerry suggested the science-fiction novel The War of the Worlds by H. G.

[8] He later said that a musical adaptation of other books was possible, and recalled being impressed by Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne, The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

[7] Wayne was aware of the famous 1938 radio drama adaptation directed and narrated by Orson Welles, but he wanted to stay close to the original story and set his version in Victorian England.

[13] At the same time, Wayne started to write the score and record demos in the studio, paying particular attention to how Wells originally wrote the story as a series of episodes with multiple cliff hangers to each chapter.

While walking his dog in the morning he often sat at the top of the hill, which inspired him to envisage what Wells was describing and in turn his score, which was particularly the case for "Dead London".

[13] In the early stages, he realised the importance of finding the right person to narrate the story, and actor Richard Burton was at the top of "a very short list" of candidates, and compared his voice to a musical instrument.

[6] Upon learning that Burton was in a production of the play Equus in New York City, Wayne delivered a letter with a copy of the album's script to the stage doorman and hoped for him to read it.

[8][10][7] Burton had already committed to start work on Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) in Los Angeles after the Equus run, so Wayne organised to record the narration there to avoid further delays.

Although Wayne had not previously met the other voice actors: Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott as Parson Nathaniel, Moody Blues vocalist Justin Hayward singing the Journalist's thoughts, and Manfred Mann's Earth Band guitarist and vocalist Chris Thompson as the Voice of Humanity, he was "thrilled" that they took part "because they each brought their own sort of magic, their style and performance and singing."

He changed his mind when a "young lad" and employee of The Moody Blues' record shop in Cobham, heard the demo and told Hayward it was an ideal song for him.

Wayne said the one that he is asked about the most is the sound of the cylinder unscrewing when the Martians emerge from their spaceship, which he achieved by turning and scraping two kitchen saucepans together that Young then amplified and captured in stereo.

[6] Wayne wrote out the various parts of the score for the band, which was performed live in the studio without any click tracks, leaving the group "to groove together, and then move onto the next tune.

[13][8][19] Although his contract with CBS did not guarantee a public release, Wayne consulted his wife and parents who encouraged him to continue and finish the album despite the substantial costs involved in its production.

[8][14] Wayne was "too chicken" to deliver the finished product to CBS himself, so he had his future wife Geraldine, then an assistant to the label's business affairs director, to hand it in.

[12][25] In 1979, the album was named Best Recording in Science Fiction and Fantasy, in a panel of judges that included George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Alfred Hitchcock.

[27] A positive review was published by Ben Ostrander in the science-fiction magazine The Space Gamer, who thought the album was "magnificent" and despite some differences between the record and the original novel, it "is a kind of rock/radio play with modern interpretations" and is "better than most crap on TV, and makes for a fun evening around the stereo.

On 23 June 2005, the original album was re-released in two forms: one in a remastered 2-disc hybrid multichannel Super Audio CD set; another in a 7-disc "Collector's Edition" featuring additional remixes, outtakes, the actors reading from the unabridged script, excerpts from the Quinn and Jürgens performances, as well as a seventh disc being a DVD showing the making of the album, produced by Phoenix Film & Television Productions.

The process involved a re-fit of Wayne's home studio, including the installation of a high end Pro Tools rig and a surround sound monitoring system.

[31] Wayne explained that the idea was to return to the original album and explore the characters in more detail, and develop the love story between Herbert and his fiancée Carrie.

The album replaces all of the original cast, including actor Liam Neeson as the Narrator and Kaiser Chiefs frontman Ricky Wilson as the Artilleryman.

[33] In September 1978, Wayne had entered negotiations with Paramount Pictures over the film rights and with two concert producers, one of which being Showco, to present a live stage version of the album.

[14] In 1984 CRL Group PLC released Jeff Wayne's Video Game Version of The War of the Worlds for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum home computer.

Wayne produced the musical arrangements for the game, consisting of 45 minutes of material rescored and remixed in a newer electronica style with techno beats.