Jesus Christ Superstar | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Studio album by various artists | ||||
Released | 16 October 1970
[1] (UK) 27 October 1970 (US) [2] [3] | |||
Recorded | 10 October 1969 ("Superstar" single) 1970 | |||
Studio | Olympic, London | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 86:56 | |||
Label | Decca/ MCA/ Decca Broadway | |||
Producer | Tim Rice, Andrew Lloyd Webber | |||
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice chronology | ||||
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Singles from Jesus Christ Superstar | ||||
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Alternative cover | ||||
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [4] |
Christgau's Record Guide | C− [5] |
Jesus Christ Superstar is a 1970 album musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, on which the 1971 rock opera of the same name was based. Initially unable to get backing for a stage production, the composers released it as an album, the success of which led to stage productions. The album musical is a musical dramatisation of the last week of the life of Jesus Christ, beginning with his entry into Jerusalem and ending with the Crucifixion. It was originally banned by the BBC on grounds of being "sacrilegious". [6] [7] By 1983, the album had sold over seven million copies worldwide. [8]
The album's story is based in large part on the Synoptic Gospels and Fulton J. Sheen's Life of Christ, which compares and calibrates all four Gospels. However, greater emphasis is placed on the interpersonal relationships of the major characters, in particular, Jesus, Judas and Mary Magdalene, relationships that are not described in depth in the Gospels.
Lyricist Rice said he took inspiration from the Bob Dylan song " With God on Our Side". [9]
"Herod's Song" is a lyrical rewrite of "Try It and See", previously written by Lloyd Webber and Rice as a proposed British entry into the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest to be sung by Lulu, then recorded and released as a single by Rita Pavone. The writers had also included it (as "Those Saladin Days") in an aborted show called Come Back Richard Your Country Needs You.
The melody of "I Don't Know How to Love Him" also predates Jesus Christ Superstar; it was rewritten from a 1968 Lloyd Webber/Rice collaboration titled "Kansas Morning". [10]
For the recording, Lloyd Webber and Rice drew personnel from both musical theatre ( Murray Head had just left the West End production of Hair) and the British rock scene ( Ian Gillan had only recently become the singer of Deep Purple). Many of the primary musicians—guitarists Neil Hubbard and Henry McCullough, bassist Alan Spenner, and drummer Bruce Rowland—came from Joe Cocker's backing group The Grease Band. Saxophonist Chris Mercer had also played with Hubbard in Juicy Lucy.
The first piece of Superstar released was the title song, as a single in November 1969 backed with the instrumental "John Nineteen Forty-One" (see John 19:41). The full album followed almost a year later.
The album topped the U.S. Billboard Top LP's chart in both February and May 1971 [11] and ranked number one in the year-end chart ahead of Carole King's massive hit Tapestry. [12] It also served as a launching pad for numerous stage productions on Broadway and in the West End. The original 1970 boxed-set issue of this two-record set was packaged in the U.S. with a special thin brown cardboard outer box ("The Brown Album") [13] which contained the two vinyl records and a 28-page libretto.
All compositions written by Tim Rice (lyrics and book) and Andrew Lloyd Webber (music).
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Overture" | 4:00 |
2. | "Heaven on Their Minds" | 4:23 |
3. | "What's the Buzz/Strange Thing Mystifying" | 4:13 |
4. | " Everything's Alright" | 4:36 |
5. | " This Jesus Must Die" | 5:11 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Hosanna" | 2:09 |
2. | "Simon Zealotes/Poor Jerusalem" | 4:49 |
3. | "Pilate's Dream" | 1:28 |
4. | "The Temple" | 4:43 |
5. | "Everything's Alright (reprise)" | 0:34 |
6. | " I Don't Know How to Love Him" | 3:41 |
7. | "Damned for All Time/Blood Money" | 4:36 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "The Last Supper" | 7:10 |
2. | "Gethsemane (I Only Want to Say)" | 5:33 |
3. | "The Arrest" | 3:24 |
4. | "Peter's Denial" | 1:27 |
5. | "Pilate and Christ" | 2:46 |
6. | "King Herod's Song" | 3:02 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Judas' Death" | 4:17 |
2. | "Trial Before Pilate (Including the 39 Lashes)" | 5:13 |
3. | " Superstar" | 4:16 |
4. | "The Crucifixion" | 4:04 |
5. | "John Nineteen Forty-One" | 2:10 |
Main players [14]
Supporting players
Other players
Musicians
Other musicians
Production
In 2012, the MCA reissue was remastered personally by Andrew Lloyd Webber, who released the result on his own Really Useful Music imprint under the Decca banner. In his liner notes, Webber states that he was hoping to find some unreleased recording within the original masters, but he found out that only three out of twenty tapes had survived the 2008 Universal Studios fire, and those tapes did not contain any unreleased material. However, it later turned out that he did possess a copy of the complete masters in his own archive, and he worked from that. [15]
Weekly charts
|
Year-end charts
|
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
Canada ( Music Canada) [28] | Gold | 350,000 [27] |
France | — | 60,000 [29] |
Israel | — | 2,500 [30] |
Italy | — | 100,000 [31] |
Netherlands ( NVPI) [32] | Gold | 250,000 [33] |
South Africa ( SARI) [34] | Gold | 12,500 [34] |
Sweden | — | 90,000 [35] |
United Kingdom (
BPI)
[37] 1970 release |
Gold | 180,000 [36] |
United States ( RIAA) [38] | Gold | 4,500,000 [36] |
Summaries | ||
North America 1970-1972 |
— | 3,500,000 [39] |
Worldwide | — | 7,000,000 [8] |
...the complete Superstar hit the American market on October 27, 1970.
The Broadway opening was set for October 27, to coincide with the initial release of the album in the United States on that date a year before.
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The hit love song from Superstar was a pop number Lloyd Webber and Rice had written earlier and sold to a publisher; its rights were bought back by David Land, then Lloyd Webber and Rice's manager, and it got a new set of lyrics. Thus the pedestrian 'Kansas Morning' became the soaring 'I Don't Know How to Love Him.'