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(More customer reviews)Before you consider purchasing this, consider that there have been quite a few recordings of this piece of work. Naturally, one wonders, which of these is the best all around recording? That for one depends on your personal music tastes.
If you like late 60's/early 70's rock operas/concept albums (such as Tommy, Hair etc.) then I strongly suggest The original 1970 concept album. The concept album features Ian Gillan of Deep Purple as Jesus, Murray Head (One Night in Bangkok) as Judas and Yvonne Elliman (Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack) as Mary Magdalene. The musicians are primarily composed of Joe Cocker's Grease Band and Juicy Lucy. This version is true rock - no Broadway "Showtune" atmosphere on it. This version also is by far the most successful, being a number one album on the Billboard charts (in early 1971), and selling over three million copies.
If you're a fan of Motown recording artist Ben Vereen, I highly recommend The Original 1971 Broadway Cast Highlights Album (Available upon import from footlight music). While it features a rather average Jesus, Ben Vereen adds true soul and original interpretation to the role of Judas, such that is unmatched to this day.
The movie soundtrack, which I rank third in JCS recordings, features tremendous voices (a texan drummer with incredible passion and range as Jesus) but sounds as if it was recorded in a tin can (this refers even to the remastered version). Also, Jesus and Judas are played by the Broadway understudies in this version.
In Fourth place, comes this particular recording. A 1996 British studio album with Steve Balsamo, Zubin Varla, and Alice Cooper, it falls short of the aforementioned recordings. Of course, it is still an excellent recording in and of itself. The performances are passionate, deeply felt portrayals... However, I do get the feeling I'm listening to musical theatre actors pretending to be rock singers (Alice Cooper even sounds more showtunesy then you would think). There's also the fact that these particular singers/actors have borrowed a great deal of interpretation from the JCS albums of the past. I do appreciate the fact that they didn't try to "modernize" the music too much, but the slap bass in the Overture seems a little tacky (again, trying too hard to say "See, we showtunes people can do rock music too!") Sonically, this doesn't hold together as well as the above three.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Jesus Christ Superstar (1996 London Cast)
2005 Digitally Remastered (At Abbey Road Studios) Deluxe Edition of the Critically Acclaimed London 1996 Cast.--This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.
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