JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (THE ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUND TRACK ALBUM)

I will try a perilous exercise in reviewing both the original rock opera album and the movie that was shot a few years (two or three) later in the same text, while trying to refrain my atheist verve. A relative unknown, Tim Rice came up with the idea and the main JCS musical theme (with an mesmerizing descending chord riff), and through a certain course of events, he was put up with the well-known Andrew Lloyd-Webber and the rest is history. JCS is among the most famous rock opera ever written and one of the few that got ts successful adaptation on film. In my book, it ranks up there, with The Who's Quadrophenia and Tommy operas, and the amazing Broadway musical Hair (written by Rado, Ragni and McDermott). Unlike the two Who pieces, JCS also had a long career as live on-stage musical, along with the afore-mentioned Hair.

As far as the music is concerned, the rock opera and the film soundtrack are fairly close to each other (well side 4 is rather different, since the original score was modified for not being cinematic enough), the main difference residing in the singers being totally, if you'll except that Yvonne Elliman (in Magdalene's role) played/sang on both versions. But you won't find prestigious names like Ian Gillan (JC), Murray Head (Judas) Mike d'Abo (Herod) or John Gustafsson (Quatermass) as Simon, Madeleuine Bell (Stones The Crow) and many other characters were staged by equally good singers on the scene. This hardly means that the movie's singers (but dancers as well) are any less worthy, though. On the purely instrumental/musical side, the average proghead will be happy to find Soft-Nucleus man Karl Jenkins, Chris Spedding, Jeff Clyne and John Marshall, a few of the UK jazz-rock horn-men stalwarts (such as Harry Beckett and Kenny Wheeler) and the rest of Quartermass' line up. Other names include Mercer (Mayall), Hubbard (almost everyone on the scene) and Tony Ashton (G&D) and many more.

Progheads will also be pleased that JCS' music is very much progressive rock (the full-blown kind) with plenty of time sigs, complex interplay and plenty of mood changes, and while the vocals must remain clearly intelligible for the public to follow the storyline, but it doesn't hinder the general "prog" qualities of this ambitious oeuvre. If not familiar with this "opera", one could've feared that the music would veer outside the rock sphere, but outside the ridiculous and goofy King Herod piece (for obvious "villain" reasons), it remains "rock", and extremely enjoyable. Even the evil priests parts and Roman authorities are treated with full respect, whether in the opera and in the movie; this, despite the priest's sinister very low-range vocals, and Pilate's relatively twee vocals. Special attention was carried out with and to Judas' parts; both in the story (it was written from his point of view) and Murray Head's vocals are at least as impressive as JCS' Gillan vocals. However, in the movie, the Judas part is carried by a great black actor/singer/dancer, which probably nowadays would raise a few objections (black = traitor?) from the equal opportunity inquisition tribunals. But nothing of that was intentional in such innocent times, as the blessed early 70's' Love & Peace era.

The movie was shot on a very low budget with no real decor but a desert and oasis close to old temple ruins. Only the fortress and city gates/entrances had some kind of scaffolding structure, the whole set being made-believe that all material needed was transported in a single school bus, but obviously the filming ware and crew was not taken into account. The choreography is overall very interesting, modern and slightly acrobatic. The setting is very much a Palestinian one, maybe even slightly anti-Zionist, as evidenced by the law forces being represented with the apparition of supposedly Israeli tanks to break festivities and repression. In that regard, the Pilate and King Herod pieces (better in the original opera than in the movie) maybe served as inspiration to Roger Waters' The Trial piece on his own conceptual Floydian tour de force The Wall.

All of the movie's images are of course based on the original score, but a lot of the talent of the director is that the movie's images simply magnify the power of the music. In that regard the two Who opera/movies don't manage this stunt nearly as successfully, though Milos Forman's movie adaptation of the Hair Musical manages it better than JCS, IMHO. Of course, Rice's main JCS theme, repeated sporadically throughout the course of the opera, plays a magical and spell-binding role, the descending riff helping in the hypnotic and enthralling mood.of the project. This repetition of the theme helps out a lot, while the Hair opera doesn't and must rely on pure new musical highs like the opening Aquarius and closing Sunshine/Flesh Failures. However, to JCS' merit, the actual music remained the same on the movie and album (or remained faithful) while the Hair movie saw a full funkier revamping of the music, while the vocals were more or less faithfully respected. In Hair's defence, there was more thazn a decade between, the creation of the musical and its movie adaptation.

Despite being an uncompromising proghead, I'd also tend to admit I prefer the version without the "prog" singer and prefer the movie, because the images carry the opera during its inevitable weaker moments, because there are a few, because of its all-too wordy storyline , something The Who avoided with some brilliant instrumental passages. Enough vain (and totally subjective) comparisons: despite my fairly-uncompromising atheism, I am forced to recognize that this JCS thingie is a very successful one, whether in its original vinyl form or its filmed version.