Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Overture
2. Heaven On Their Minds
3. What's The Buzz/Strange Thing Mystifying
4. Everything's Alright
5. This Jesus Must Die
6. Hosanna
7. Simon Zealots/Poor Jerusalem
8. Pilate's Dream
9. Temple
10. Everything's Alright
11. I Don't Know How To Love Him
12. Damned For All Time/Blood Money

Disc 2:

1. Last Supper
2. Gethsemane (I Only Want To Say)
3. Arrest
4. Peter's Denial
5. Pilate And Christ
6. King Herod's Song
7. Could We Start Again Please
8. Judas' Death
9. Trial Before Pilate
10. Superstar
11. Crucifixion
12. John 1941

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53221 in Music
• Released on: 1996-11-25
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Soundtrack

Customer Reviews

OK, but not the best.
This is a reasonably good recording of Superstar, but I find it less musically convincing than the 1973 movie soundtrack version. The main difference is that the orchestrations here are firmly based on musical theatre genre styles, while the 1973 recording seems to have more musical inventiveness and energy. The vocal performances are generally good but, with the exception of Steve Balsamo's Jesus, not exceptional.
Buy this second. Buy the movie soundtrack first.

Excellent
I had the luck to see Jesus Christ Superstar as a young man, a long, long time ago when it was playing in London in the 1970's. I then introduced my sons to the Musical when we saw a touring revival at our local theatre about 3 years ago. My younger son was 9 at the time. He has ADHD and yet he sat through the entire performance absolutely enthralled. My older (at the time 13 year old) son is into Heavy Metal, but he too was enchanted.
This recording is almost, but not quite as good as the live performance we saw. However, it remains very powerful and enjoyable and I return to it time and again.
I love listening to "Everything's Alright" and "I Don't Know How To Love Him" as well as "Gethsemane", but the haunting and beautiful "Could We Start Again Please" has to rank as one of the most powerful songs I have heard, particularly in this context. Whether one is Christian or not, just a little empathy on the side of the listener will ram home the truth that His Disciples and followers must have been absolutely terrified and confused when Jesus was arrested and condemned.
Lloyd-Webber and Rice created a masterpiece. I hope that it will come back to the stage in all its glory. In the meantime, make do with this good recording.

Misses the targets all around...
What really annoys about this recording is the failure to match up to the material. The work is great - the performance and production is poor to say the least.

So what went wrong? My biggest single criticism is the cast. In the original recordings it sounded as if the singers wanted to be rock stars - now they sound like they want to be in a musical. Mary is particualry poor in this version - she has lost the tenderness and naievety that made the 70s version so likeable. Alice Cooper at least gets the attitude right in his Herod, but I'm just not sure that Herod's Song suits him.

As for the remastered music - well it sounds clunky, and the mix has either faded down or lost some of the wonderful instrumental parts (what happened to the wandering guitar that thread its way through Jesus Must Die?).

I'm off to look for an earlier version. It may not be as digital, but hopefully it will have the soul of the piece.