Why 'Jesus Christ Superstar' the album has always rocked
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Tuesday, November 5, 2024


Why 'Jesus Christ Superstar' the album has always rocked
The rock opera, with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice, opened on Broadway on Oct. 12, 1971, to protests, an irate composer — and sold-out shows.

by Darryn King



NEW YORK, NY.- I’m here to spread the good word of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” the album.

It’s a little odd that a record so rapturously received, at least in the United States in the early ’70s, is now mostly left off best album lists and didn’t secure a lasting place in the rock music canon.

Then again, perhaps it was inevitable that “Superstar” the album would end up eclipsed by “Superstar” the stage show, which followed a year later. It’s natural to think of the album as an artifact of the theatrical experience rather than as a singular artistic vision in its own right, because that’s the way it usually works. It can be tough for new listeners to hear the music for the theater.

Maybe it’s just that no serious rock connoisseur wants to admit to digging the guys who did “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

Excuse me, for a moment, if I come off as weirdly defensive about the work of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. The night my parents met, my mother, a former singer, was performing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” onstage. She has still never seen “Evita.”

Revisiting the 1970 album via the recent release of the 50th anniversary edition, I’m as excited by it as I was when I was 15 and listened to it for the first time. My high school classmates were wallowing in their teenage angst listening to Limp Bizkit and Korn — this was around the turn of the millennium — and here I was, immersed in the bizarre offspring of my deepest, dorkiest passions: theater and dad rock.

But for me, tuning into a Judas-centered retelling of the Passion of the Christ felt like a kind of rebellion, too. I was obsessed with the song “Gethsemane (I Only Want to Say),” which epitomized emo before that musical term existed, and the electric-shock scream of Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan, in the role of Jesus, railing at an unresponsive God. (“Show me just a little of your omnipresent brain!”) While “Superstar” isn’t overtly anti-religious, the impertinence of it gave a young, questioning Catholic a lot to think about.

Like a lot of music I loved, and still love from that era, it was kind of preposterous. The “Superstar” overture alone — surely one of the most unsettling rock record openers, let alone musical overtures — features harrowing electric guitar, synth, strings, boisterous brass and a choir dropped in from a horror movie. The whole thing is more Roger Waters than Rodgers and Hammerstein. Indeed, those musical ingredients can be heard in Pink Floyd’s “Atom Heart Mother,” released in the United Kingdom the same month as “Superstar.”

The musical tracks for “Superstar,” Rice explained during a podcast, were laid down in a haze of marijuana smoke — at the same London studios where the Rolling Stones recorded “Sympathy for the Devil” — with each day’s session beginning with a half-hour jam session. Most of the musicians had played Woodstock behind Joe Cocker. Gillan recorded his vocals in three hours and played a gig with Deep Purple that night.




It’s no wonder “Superstar” rocks.

From the get-go, there’s “Heaven on Their Minds,” whose guitar riff has an evocative directness right up there with Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” It also has Murray Head as Judas screaming “Jesuuuus!” and sounding kind of blasphemous doing it. How often do you want to blast a showtune — the term seems inadequate here — as loudly as possible? How many classic musicals kick off with a sound and atmosphere worthy of heavy metal? (Not counting “Les Misérables,” whose opening number features the chain-gang clink of actual heavy metal.)

On the other end of the spectrum is “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” a moment of tuneful introspection not miles away from Carole King’s “Tapestry,” which was the second-highest-selling album of 1971 behind “Superstar.”

If one thinks of “Superstar” as a concept album, it’s that rare one that tells a compelling, coherent story, more narrative driven than Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” or The Who’s “Tommy,” with none of the vaporous verbiage of a lot of rock music at the time. The whole thing is built, as Lloyd Webber is fond of saying, “like a cast iron boat” — a rock radio play, or a stage show for the proscenium of the imagination. In music industry parlance, it’s all killer, no filler.

Rice, the former aspiring pop star that he was, has always excelled in down-to-earth lyrics that make outsize characters thoroughly relatable. It’s partly why the lead vocal performances here hit you in the gut. When Yvonne Elliman’s Magdalene cries, “He scares me so,” you believe her. When Head’s Judas chokes out the same line, in his own anguished version of that song — Lloyd Webber, ever the skillful deployer of the poignant reprise — you believe him, too.

When it comes to Lloyd Webber’s musical audacity, it can sometimes feel as if it’s not just rock snobs that underrate “Superstar” but also self-professed musical theater lovers.

Again, it may seem strange to suggest that the composer of “The Phantom of the Opera,” sometimes considered to be one of the most successful pieces of entertainment, is underrated by musical fans. But it’s precisely because of that kind of commercial success that Lloyd Webber is taken for granted, dismissed as a populist composer of the kinds of hummable melodies that might, say, pacify a temperamental president.

This is unfair to the composer who, on “Superstar,” was having his way with the kinds of time signatures that were dazzling fans of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Just listen to “The Temple,” its feverish 7/4 time signature is a nod to Prokofiev’s equally tumultuous seventh piano sonata, with nary a beat to take a breath. Even more impressive is “Everything’s Alright,” probably the catchiest tune ever written in 5/4. And I include Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” in that.

That’s not to mention Lloyd Webber’s essential, monumental achievement here, of creating 90 minutes of music deftly combining orchestra, rock band and a small army of vocalists. Let’s just say that Stephen Sondheim, who happens to share a birthday with Lloyd Webber, doesn’t have a monopoly on musical complexity, psychological depth and conceptual ambition.

Lloyd Webber and Rice became musical theater royalty. But before that, they were a couple of shaggy-haired youths who captured the disparate music of the era like few other musicals until “Hamilton.” There was nothing like it in 1970, and there has not been a lot like it since.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

October 14, 2021

The Prado is presenting a survey of the artistic culture of Latin America which reached Spain in the Early Modern age

Israeli archaeologists uncover 'world's largest' Byzantine-era winery

Monumental Basquiat masterpiece to lead Christie's 21st Century Art Evening Sale

Julie Mehretu becomes third artist to join Whitney board

Danish artist hires lawyers to reclaim Hong Kong Tiananmen statue

Grada Kilomba's rituals of resistance

A pair of paintings by Sir Alfred James Munnings sell for a combined $662,500 at Andrew Jones Auctions

Exhibition of works by the American photographer Matt Black on view at The Magnum Gallery

Choreographer Deborah Hay's archive goes to the Harry Ransom Center

Researchers say fossil shows humans, dogs lived in C. America in 10,000 BC

Ruthie Tompson dies at 111; Breathed animated life into Disney films

Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer statue celebrates 90th birthday

Author vetoes Hebrew translation over Israeli 'apartheid'

At Bessie Awards, dancers gather to celebrate pandemic art

Why 'Jesus Christ Superstar' the album has always rocked

'Letters of Suresh' review: Returning to the fold

Paddy Moloney, Irish piper who led the Chieftains, dies at 83

Neil LaBute seeks 'The Answer to Everything' in Germany

A biography of W.G. Sebald, who transformed his borrowings into lasting art

Tiffany Oriental Poppy Lamp lights up Tiffany, Lalique & Art Glass auction

Institute and Museum of California Art announces appointment of Katlyn Heusner as Executive Director of Development

1870-CC Double Eagle, 1934 $10,000 Federal Reserve Note lead $15 million Long Beach Coins and Currency Auctions

Martin Sherwin, prize-winning biographer of Oppenheimer, dies at 84

A temporary concert hall hopes for a permanent audience

Share The Most Useful In Play Betting Tips From W88 Experts

How Many times Can You Raise in Poker? 188BET explained now

Features of the design of the bathroom under the stone

Questions to Think About Before Applying for a Loan




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful