Freddie DeMann’s Music Video Revolution Collection
– Virtual Insanity (Guthy-Renker DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Videos: B-
The idea
of bringing music and image together is as old as the silent film era and when
sound came to film, everything from Musicals to short film Soundies
resulted. As Rock Music became more
popular, so did concert films, Rockumentaries and other experimental concepts
that eventually led to what we now know as a Music Video. While a plethora of such titles arrived on
VHS, Beta and 12” LaserDisc in the 1980s into the 1990s, the collections on DVD
have not been as numerous. A new series
called Freddie DeMann’s Music Video
Revolution is aiming to change that.
DeMann
himself became a major force behind the scenes in the industry working with
some of the top acts in the business, so he has decided to cull his connections
and work to bring official collections of some of the most popular and
influential Videos ever made together in a series of collections. It is an idea whose time is long overdue.
Virtual
Insanity is the first of what looks to be many installments in the series. Some videos are here because they are highly
popular, others because they are groundbreaking, innovative and influential. Either way, even this first DVD crosses a
good cross-section of genres and those clips include some with referential
links:
Artist/Song/(Director)
George
Michael – Faith (Andy Morahan)
Michael
was at his solo height when he did this song was #1 for a month, remaining his
biggest hit to date. With its black and
white images, the singer finally shed his Wham! days before several
controversies ended his winning streak.
Madonna –
Material Girl (Mary Lambert)
A video
that stuck with the singer longer than she wished, the images contradicted the
song’s ‘greedy gal’ lyrics all the way to her Marilyn Monroe tribute. A key Video for the megastar, it proved that Like A Virgin was no fluke and she is
still having hits to this day.
Duran
Duran – Rio (Russell Mulcahy)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7854/Classic+Albums+%E2%80%93+Duran
One of
several Videos shot on location that became classics and early staples of MTV;
this is for the title song of the band’s huge hit breakthrough album. They never made a better one and it is one of
the earliest Videos to be widescreen.
Billy Idol – White Wedding (David
Mallet)
The New
Wave singer’s angry song about nuptials in hell became a signature tune and
breakthrough (audiences were not as warm to Hot
In The City) and along with his snarl, Idol’s voice and clothes made him a
1980s icon. A big hit in its time.
Cyndi
Lauper – Girls Just Want To Have Fun
(Edd Griles)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6416/Cyndi+Lauper+%E2%80%93+She
The
all-time classic video that put Lauper on the map, taking a song with a
different meaning previous sung by a man, Lauper turned it into a Pop classic
that is still being references, played and remade. This filmed video is still great and
epitomizes how great the MTV era was for such work.
David
Bowie – Let’s Dance (David Mallet)
In his
commercial 1980s peak, Bowie fans were not happy with his work at this point,
but the records sold and this became one of the biggest hits he ever had, all
the way down to its wild Video with breaking radios, his involvement with
locals in another country and disturbing portrayals of class division and
poverty.
a-ha – Take On Me (Steve Barron)
The
all-time great Video that crossed live-action, animation and rotoscoping as a
couple is separated by dimensions of the real world and a black and white comic
strip come to life all the way to its Altered
States-inspired ending, it remains popular, a classic, was recently
referenced on Family Guy and no one
has dared to try imitate it.
M.C.
Hammer – U Can’t Touch This (Rupert
Wainwright)
The
obnoxious peak of the rise and fall of the flashy dancer/singer before his
calamitous fall, Hammer was unhappy with the cut of the Video he got and
re-edited the whole thing himself. It
worked, but his 15-minutes of fame would end much faster than anyone could have
imagined considering how overplayed this was.
Pat Benatar
– Love Is A Battlefield (Bob Giraldi)
The top
Pop/Rock singer of the era had already been making Videos when she made the
first clip ever to have dialogue and a narrative. She even dances (to which she later said that
made as much sense as Mr. Ed the horse dancing) but this was a breakthrough and
forever changed Videos for the better.
It holds up very well too.
Billy Joel – Uptown Girl (Jay
Dubin)
The great
singer/songwriter/pianists tribute to Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons was
one of the biggest of six hits from his An
Innocent Man album, pairing him with then-wife Christie Brinkley, including
Joel dancing (everyone was doing that by this point) taking place in a
garage. Not bad.
Jamiroquai
– Virtual Insanity (Johnathan Glazer)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2712/Work+Of+Jonathan+Glazer+(Director
One of
the few great classic Videos since the 1980s, we covered this in the excellent Work Of Johnathan Glazer DVD you can
find at the link above.
TLC - Waterfalls (F. Gary Gray)
Played
endlessly, it is now very sad to watch the clip by the now feature film
director after the tragic death of ‘Left Eye’ Lopez, this was one of the first
Videos to use digital effects so extensively and unlike later Videos, the
applications make sense. Not my favorite
clip or song from the band, it is a most appropriate way to end this set.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image includes new HD-produced introductions
by the always likable Martha Quinn, one of MTV’s first-ever VJs and she is as
energetic as ever and a real plus to this release. The videos are either shown widescreen where
applicable, or in most cases, the original 1.33 X 1 image is placed in the
middle of the 1.78 X 1 frame. This is
good for widescreen TVs, but this also means less definition and we also get
some aliasing errors.
That
gives us three ways we have seen Rio
(it is presented anamorphic when it shows up in the Classic Albums program we covered at the above link) and covers
most of the 1.33 X 1 frame on the Capitol Records sets (unreviewed) they issued
a few years ago. The Lauper and Benatar
Videos are on their respective DVD collections (Twelve Deadly Cyns.. and Choice
Cuts, also both unreviewed) looking a little better there, but not being as
HDTV friendly.
The Dolby
Digital 5.1 mixes vary a little in quality, but are more about pushing the
music in ambient ways into the channels than being multi-channel music. Still, that is not bad for the most part and
is better than just 2-channel sound, offered here as Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo.
Extras on
this volume include shuffle options, an interview by Quinn with DeMann, 1983
interview with Billy Idol and behind-the-scenes featurette on the making of
Benatar’s Love Is A Battlefield that
is not even on her Videos DVD!
The
upcoming sets we look forward to seeing include One Hit Wonders highlights include 867-5309/Jenny by Tommy Tutone, Mickey
by Toni Basil, 99 Red Balloons by
Nena, Pop Muzik by M and Too Shy by Kajagoogoo. Other volumes like Hungry Like The Wolf and Dancing
In The Streets are now available, with Black
Velvet and Free Your Mind in the
planning stages. We recommend starting
with this disc and hope you enjoy as much as we did.
For the
home page of the order site…
http://www.musicvideorevolution.com/
For more
discs…
http://www.musicvideorevolution.com/products.php?pactvid=6fc9b572d9c6ic5on0
- Nicholas Sheffo
