Compaing the original 1970 LP with the 1973 film

Considering that the vocals are done by two complete different casts (with the exception of Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdelen and Barry Dennan as Pilate) it's really like comparing apples and oranges. In most cases when you hear the same song done by two different artists, most people tend to go with the version they heard first.

In my case I heard the album version first. It's difficult to compare any vocalist with Ian Gillian (of Deep Purple). While Ted Neely does a competent job in the film he has nowhere near vocal chops of a vocalist like Gillian.

This to me is the real issue when comparing the two versions. The original album is essentially Rock n Roll concept record where the movie soundtrack comes across more as the soundtrack to a musical. If there was ever a CD that would benefit from being remixed and remastered, its the soundtrack to this film. The vocals are mixed way to load in comparison to the music. Its this that makes the soundtrack so difficult to compare with the original LP. They're come across as being two different styles of music from the same genre.

Even though I'm more a fan of the original album than the movie soundtrack, I'm still a big fan of the film. Norman Jewison did an amazing job with the visual style and effects. So many amazing unique examples of marrying music to visual scenes almost a decade before there would be a thing called "Music Videos".

For as poorly as the movie soundtrack compares to the original concept album the visual style of the films still makes it worth repeated viewings.