The
Cars: Heartbeat City
(1984 Music Videos Set/Warner Music/Warner Archive DVD)/Dio:
Live In London, Hammersmith Apollo 1993
(Eagle SD Blu-ray)/The
King Family Classic Television Specials Collection, Volume 1
(1968 - 1969/MVD Visual DVD Set)/The
Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett Story
(2006/Eagle DVD Set Upgraded Reissue)/Toto
Live In Poland: 35th
Anniversary (2014/Eagle
Blu-ray)
Picture:
C/C+/C/C+/B- Sound: C+/C+/C/C+/B- Extras: C+/C/C/C+/C
Main Programs: C+/C+/C+/B/C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The
Cars: Heartbeat City
DVD is only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive
series and can be ordered from the link below.
Here's
an interesting new set of music releases...
The
Cars: Heartbeat City
(1984) is not merely the hit album but the set of Music Videos the
band and Warner Music's Elektra/Asylum division made to promote the
album. The videos and the album was a huge success, but the clips
are a mixed bag as follows:
Hello
Again has a video
directed by no less than Andy Warhol who appears in the video and
uses iconic images from his career recreated throughout the clip. It
is one of the best on this set.
Magic
is an annoying song that was a bigger hit than it should have been,
with this clip directed by the very successful Tim Pope (Soft Cell,
Psychedelic Furs, The Cure, Talk Talk, Hall & Oates) with one of
his weaker works.
Drive
is a song better than this mixed video directed by Tim Hutton (yes,
the actor) for this huge hit that is one of the band's better songs.
Panorama
was directed by the legendary Gerald V. Casale of DEVO and joins
Hello Again
as one of the best videos in this set. The better videos here are
the least-seen ones.
Heartbeat
City was directed by Luis
Aira in what is essentially a live performance of the title track,
but Aira would helm several solo video for Ocasek in the years to
follow.
Shake
it Up (1981) was another
hit song with a hit video, directed this time by Paul Justman, who
also helmed Since You're
Gone later for The Cars
and a few keys videos for Rick Springfield (Don't
Talk To Strangers) and
The J. Geils Band (Centerfold).
This is a broader work and not his best.
Why
Can't I Have You? was
directed by Peter Richardson and it is not bad. Oddly, the only
other video he ever helmed was for Kate Bush's The
Sensual World. Wonder
what happened to him?
You
Might Think rounds out
the set, a huge hit known for its innovative use of editing and state
of the art analog high definition imaging. Still amusing, it was
co-directed by Charlex and Jeff Stein, plus edited by David (X-Files)
Duchovny's brother! Stein's work include clips for The Who, Billy
Idol (Rebel Yell),
Hall & Oates (Out Of
Touch), Carly Simon (My
New Boyfriend), The
Jacksons (Torture)
and Debbie Harry (French
Kissin' In The USA) among
others. This clip is admittedly a minor classic of Music Video.
The
only extra is on the main program, showing the behind the scenes of
making Hello Again.
This set has been out of print since the old VHS and 12-inch analog
LaserDisc went out of print a long time ago, so having it back is a
plus. Music Video is the most neglected genre on home video and we
need to start seeing far more reissues like this one. Nice to have
it.
Dio:
Live In London, Hammersmith Apollo 1993
is the latest in the Eagle SD Blu-ray series where they take a
standard definition program or two, upscale them for HD playback and
take advantage of the higher fidelity sound Blu-ray has that DVD does
not. This runs 114 minutes with the backstage featurette extra and
is a nice upgrade fans will appreciate. I was not as big a fan of
the man or this 18-song set, but the upscaling retains the color
quality without major issues, though it still is not HD. See more
below.
The
King Family Classic Television Specials Collection, Volume 1
(1968 - 1969) followed the success of their 1965 ABC TV series and as
it sometimes happens with music acts (The Captain & Tennille),
the series ends, but specials follow because the act is still
popular. The shows here include
Easter, Mother's
Day, June
and September-themed
hours shot on NTSC color, analog videotape. Like The
Lawrence Welk Show, they
were singing hits and obscure songs in the same plain mode and though
most of the songs are here in so-so performances, the shows are time
capsules of what people liked at the time and remind us of who was
part of the Reagan-era backlash after the 1960s. Interesting.
Extras
include an 8-page booklet on the shows and several sets of home
movies and behind the scenes footage on film and video.
The
Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett Story
(2006) is a set we covered years ago, but like Dio,
Eagle has decided to upgrade it, though the improvement is to
anamorphically enhance the picture. You can read more about the set
at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6252/Pink+Floyd
Of
course, this looks better than the previous set, so if you want to
have the set, get the new version.
Finally
we have Toto Live In
Poland: 35th
Anniversary (2014), the
latest of several HD concerts the band has issued since HD formats
arrived and it is a decent show, but nothing spectacular. They play
23 songs including most of their classic hits, but the energy is
above average at best. Still, fans should be happy enough and extras
include an illustrated booklet with tech info, while the Blu-ray adds
a Behind The Scenes clip.
The
1080i 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Toto
also happens to be the best image playback performer here, though
detail issues persist from the interlacing. The upgraded semi-HD Dio
and
anamorphically enhanced Floyd
upgrade tie for second place for best playback, but the 1.33 X 1
image on Cars
and King
are softer and more problematic than I would have liked. Cars
needs a little cleaning up and new transfers, with the filmed videos
deserving HD transfers, while King
has even more videotape flaws, aliasing errors, staircasing and even
some dropouts from what was likely old reel-to-reel videotape.
Toto
is also the sound champ here with a decent DTS-HD MA (Master Audio)
5.1 lossless mix that is not always perfect, but is a superior
recording. The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Cars
(which ought to be upgraded to DTS-MA 5.1 for Blu-ray), DTS-HD MA
(Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on Dio
and lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Floyd
tie for second place, all showing sonic limits where you wish they
would not. That leaves the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on King
the last-place title sonically since the sound is compressed and
shows the limits of TV audio of the time, even for a music program.
We have heard music TV shows of the time sounding better, so the
issue is a combination of storage and how the recording was handled
at the time.
To
order The
Cars: Heartbeat City
DVD Warner Archive DVDs, go to this link for them and many more great
web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
