Jesus Christ Superstar (Original London Concept Recording) by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice Decca U.S.

Product Description: It may not have been the first rock opera (the Who's Tommy was released in 1969), but Jesus Christ Superstar was a legendary album long before it hit the stage, thanks to Tim Rice's compelling book and lyrics combined with Andrew Lloyd Webber's irresistible music. Telling the story of the last days of Christ from the point of view of Judas (Murray Head), the still-unmatched original cast also stars Deep Purple's Ian Gillan as Jesus and Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene, the role she made into a career (with a cameo on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack). Decades later, such songs as "Superstar," "I Don't Know How to Love Him," "Heaven on Their Minds," and "Everything's Alright" still retain their extraordinary power. --David Horiuchi

Customer Reviews

4 stars Oh the memories...
I bought this before I went to see the Broadway Musical, it was very good and brought back memories of my "younger" days listening to the Original Broadway Cast album. This is a great CD set but I like the Oringinal Brodway recording better but this is a good backup!

5 stars A Simply Superlative Recording
A shatteringly powerful audio recording, simply my favorite CD of all time. I listen to this at least once a year around Easter, and it never fails to move me. Ian Gillan, Murray Head and Yvonne Elliman are superb--telling the greatest story of all time with some of the most powerful music ever written and sung.

I'd give it 10 stars if I could.

5 stars Buying it again
This album is part of my first coherent memory - hearing it broadcast on long-gone San Francisco station KKHI. I have owned it on Ampex reel-to-reel, LP, cassette and now CD. I still think this is the best thing Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice ever did, but maybe my early exposure to it made me biased. Ian Gillan's Jesus and Murray Head's Judas play off one another in most excellent fashion, while the incomparable Yvonne Elliman owns every song she sings. Beats the movie all hollow by my reckoning.

5 stars Simply a great piece of music
I first heard this shortly after it was first released in 1970, back when I was 7 years old, and it made a major impact on my life. I am now a music teacher with a Ph.D. in musicology, and I'm happy to say that this music still packs the same emotional punch it did 40 years ago. The recording is, IMO, much more emotionally resonant than the film soundtrack, partiularly due to the raw sound of the great backing band. The direct and simple recording of the band and vocals leaves the music free of dated technological artifacts (how much worse it could have sounded if had been produced in the '80s!). The music is also amazingly free of all the timeworn cliches that haunt (and for me, ruin) Andrew Lloyd Weber's later efforts. The original LPs sounded richer and punchier than the CD transfer, of course, but that's a small complaint. For those of you enjoy emotionally charged and dramatic music, this is one you'll want to become familiar with.

5 stars The Music I Remember
This is the music I've remembered all these years and had to get this digital remaster. "Opinion" 101 reviews with 5-Stars; need more be said.

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