Music and Transmediality: The Multi-Media Invasion of Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds

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Abstract

This article investigates music in the modern transmedial franchise. Popular culture franchises flow across different forms of media, taking the audience, and often the music, with them. Music plays an important role in articulating and developing textual relationships, while adapting to the possibilities of each particular medium.

To focus on the role of music, a case study that emphasizes audio is chosen, a transmedial franchise founded upon a rock album. Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds (1978) has served as the basis for several (very different) video games that also prioritize music. The article traces how musical materials are selected, transformed, and deployed as media boundaries are traversed. It ultimately argues that music is an important part of how media consumers engage with transmedial franchises.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)231-258
Number of pages28
JournalTwentieth-Century Music
Volume15
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2018

Keywords

  • franchise
  • transmediality
  • video games
  • ludomusicology
  • intermediality
  • prog rock
  • intertextuality
  • adaptation

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