Joe Jackson – 20th
Century Masters Millennium Collection
DVD-Video Music Videos
Picture: C+
Sound: B Extras: D Music Videos: B-
Joe Jackson is one of the most underrated talents of his
time and we are still listening to the Deluxe Edition double CD set of his
masterwork Night & Day (reviewed elsewhere on this site). Now, after a concert in Japan and incomplete
Music Video hits set, Universal Music has issued an inexpensive, convenient 20th
Century Masters Millennium Collection volume of his work, with five Music
Videos from The Cranberries. The
five video featured are as follows:
1)
Is She Really Going Out With Him? (Live
In Utrecht, 1983)
2)
I’m The Man
3)
It’s Different For Girls
4)
Steppin’ Out
5)
Breaking Us In Two
The live version of Is She Really Going Out With Him?
was already used as a substitute for the original Music Video on the Steppin’
Out – The Videos: The Very Best Of Joe Jackson set, which featured 12
clips. The larger shock here is that Breaking
Us In Two actually makes its legitimate DVD debut here for the first time
ever and was not on that 2001 DVD release.
Its omission was more outrageous in many ways than that of Is She
Really Going Out With Him?, because it is one of his best-known songs. Then there is this new disc’s performance.
The 1.33 X 1 full frame image is in decent shape, though
the videotape on the first three clips look down a generation and the latter
two filmed clips have slight noise.
Either way, they still look pretty good. Needless to say the filmed clips deserve digital HD treatment and
should get it in the near future. This
is also the first time these videos were available with sound this good. The Steppin’ Out set is in Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo ONLY, which was muddled and limited for no good reason. The case and websites to this day claim it
has PCM Stereo, but that is simply not true.
This new disc has PCM 2.0 48kHz/24Bit sound that far outperforms the
previous Universal/A&M DVDs. It
also rivals the Deluxe Edition CD set of Night & Day.
The only extra is a frame-by-frame list of all the titles
to date, but no audio is included. This
20th Century Masters installment is one of the best to date,
however limited. Now if only Jackson
could make some huge commercial comeback!
- Nicholas Sheffo
