When Robbie Williams left Take That on July 18th, 1995, the day I started my current
top-secret 9-5 job, it signalled the beginning of the end for the famed
boy-band. Of the solo stars who would emerge the winner as they each went
their separate ways? As Robbie's singles began to sell less and less, it looked
like Gary Barlow would do the business, especially as he had the first
No.1 of the lot with Forever Love, while Robbie's Freedom stalled
at No.2.
However, as time progressed, a last throw of the dice from Robbie's record
company saw the ballad, Angels, released to an unsuspecting public and
it grew to be one of his fans biggest ever singles in terms of the coverage it
continues to get.
Having reached the top of the album charts with both Life Thru a Lens
and I've Been Expecting You, his solo singles chart history to the
end of 1999 is as follows :
Click on any of the above highlighted links to access my music chart
analysis for the week in which it was at that position.
The picture quality is spot-on perfect with zero artifacts. Most of the
footage is in 4:3, although the occasional promo is matted to a slight
widescreen ratio. Every bit of the DVD is split into individual chapters,
totalling 40, so I'm not about to work out the average bitrate by hand...
The sound is Linear PCM Stereo and sounds perfectly fine, booming out where
required for Lazy Days and South of the Border, while softening
down for the ballad Angels.
Extras. :
Chapters :
Although there are 40 separate chapters on the disc, there's 7 individual
music tracks. The track listing is as follows :
1. Angels
2. Lazy Days
3. South of the Border
4. Heaven From Here
5. Get the Joke
6. Grace
7. Man Machine
The first five are the main tracks you can initially select, but one of the
last two are played when you've successfully won the Find the Joker
game.
Languages/Lyrics :
Stereo sound and lyrics available in English.
And there's more :
Short but sweet, the Interviews snippets show Robbie discussing the
topics of Angels and Glastonbury, there are three Poems,
"Hello, Sir", "Thankyou For Letting Me Be Me" and "Naked At An
Awards Ceremony".
Finally, the Find the Joker game is a standard 3-card affair in which
revealing Robbie dressed as the joker, from his Let Me Entertain You
promo, will reveal a bonus music video as described above. For those with
DVD-ROM players though, once you know which of three chapters results in which
card being the joker, it takes the guessing game out of it...
...but by then you'll also know in which chapters the bonus tracks are so
can go straight to those anyway.
Menu :
The menu may be static but it occasionally features cheeky comments from
Robbie, including an introduction on the main menu. The backdrop is the
cover to his USA compilation album release, The Ego Has Landed,
which combines the best tracks from his first two albums.
Overall this is a nice little package at a cheap price and worth a look for
any of his fans, or anyone who wants to check out an intriguing little DVD.
Robbie's music isn't always my cup of tea, the best ones for me being
Lazy Days, South of the Border and No Regrets, but he's
certainly one of pop's busiest showmen.
The Brit Awards 2000 saw Robbie bring
his total of gongs to nine, this time winning Best Video and Single for
last year's Xmas hit, She's The One.
NB.: The certificate "12" is only in respect of the poems on this disc.
Yes, the f-word is used.
FILM : ***
PICTURE QUALITY : *****
SOUND QUALITY : *****
EXTRAS : **
-------------------------------
OVERALL : **** and a scrap with Liam Gallagher
Also, it's worthy of note that Abbey Road Interactive have been involved
with the following DVDs that I have already reviewed :
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
