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Season 4 Episode 7 |
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coming shortly |
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on Buzzcocks @ DVDfever Youtube |
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Oct 15 2008
DVDfever co uk
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Liam Carey reviews
V o l u m e # 2 1 |
IS THIS STILL ALOUD?Some six months ago, the debut album from last year's winners of Pop Idol: The Rivals was released. Sound Of The Underground featured 15 songs, including a pair of those "UK Edition" exclusives which characterise CDs from the Universal Music Group these days. It did reasonably well, but clearly not well enough for the record label who are now seeking to maximise some of the unfulfilled potential. An all-new edition is out this week, replete with a different sleeve and a staggering five alterations to the CD's contents. Third hit Life Got Cold features in its Radio Mix, its B-side Girls On Film (yes, the early 80s Duran Duran classic) is also added, while the original album version of Some Kind Of Miracle is replaced by its single mix, the track's chances of being a hit having been dashed at the eleventh hour by the baffling decision to go with Life Got Cold instead. Their current movie tie-in Jump (For My Love), from the latest cynically contrived Richard Curtis concoction Love Actually, has given them some momentum again; a trashily enjoyable exhumation of the Pointer Sisters' 1984 nugget, and it's included on the repackaged album. Those aforementioned UK-only bonus songs are among the trio ditched, however, with You Freak Me Out - taken from the soundtrack of another movie, the remake of teen flick Freaky Friday - joining Jump and Girls On Film as the completely new additions. For good measure, there are CD-ROM videos for the first three singles in an enhanced section. The ethics of this practice remains dubious at best, exploitative at worst but as long as the Official Charts Company (formerly CIN) and the industry regulators allow it the record companies can't be blamed for trying to squeeze some valuable extra Christmas sales from a slightly under-performing album. |
RELEASE ROUND-UP:December is not traditionally noted for new high-profile studio albums, and to all intents and purposes this week is the last one of note for 2003. Compilations are typically out-gunning and out-numbering fresh material at the moment, with even the big pop names failing to prevail over some admittedly strong Best Of/Greatest Hits packages. Two female artists who emerged in 2001 have chosen December 1st to issue their difficult second albums; Nelly Furtado and Alicia Keys release Folklore and The Diary Of... respectively. Expect them to take off in the New Year, when the post-Christmas lull comes into play. Elsewhere it's yet more retrospectives; some less inspired than others. Tori Amos takes a, well, Tori-esque route to Greatest Hitsdom with her oddball collection Tales From A Librarian. Notable singles are overlooked (Pretty Good Year, Caught A Lite Sneeze, Raspberry Swirl), so this is a clearly a very personal overview of her catalogue rather than a trawl through her best-known songs. Many of those which make the cut are remixed or reworked, and a handful of new recordings make this anything but a sleepwalking money-for-old-rope exercise. The almost obligatory Bonus DVD edition is also costly for what it is, compared to the Red Hot Chili Peppers' similar Greatest Hits CD + DVD set. The RHCP have been chronicled before, way back in 1992 when former label EMI America cashed in on the slow-burning success of their Warner debut Blood Sugar Sex Magik with the cheekily-titled What Hits?. Then, only Under The Bridge could have been considered anything of the sort, but just over a decade on and the band are arguably one of the biggest on the planet. 1999's Californication finally built on the breakthrough made with Blood Sugar, followed by the majestic By The Way which did more than merely consolidate their reputation. Now is the perfect time, therefore, to round up this second phase of the Chili's career. Just a solitary 80s track appears on Greatest Hits, their cover of Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground, as the Warner years take deserved precedence. That said, 16 selections is a touch miserly in light of current trends; One Hot Minute (1995) has only one representative while even By The Way gets a mere two (Zephyr Song and Can’t Stop miss out). The doublepack version is more comprehensive since the DVD offers all the videos to their singles from Higher Ground onwards, so Aeroplane and Around The World also get a look in.
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FUTURE SOUNDSThe best music on the horizon:
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Email Liam Carey
The following is a list of Liam's Liner Notes online :
Volume 22: December 17th 2003 Volume 21: December 3rd 2003 Volume 20: November 5th 2003 Volume 19: October 22nd 2003 Volume 18: October 8th 2003 Volume 17: September 24th 2003 Volume 16: September 10th 2003 Volume 15: August 27th 2003 Volume 14: August 13th 2003 Volume 13: July 30th 2003 Volume 12: July 9th 2003 Volume 11: June 25th 2003 Volume 10: June 11th 2003 Volume 9: May 28th 2003 Volume 8: May 14th 2003 Volume 7: April 30th 2003 Volume 6: April 16th 2003 Volume 5: April 2nd 2003 Volume 4: March 19th 2003 Volume 3: March 5th 2003 Volume 2: February 19th 2003 Volume 1: February 5th 2003
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
