Barenaked Ladies-Maroon (DVD-Audio) (2001) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Booklet Notes-The Band Credits
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	52:06
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Jim Scott
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	The Barenaked Ladies
Case	DVD-Audio Jewel
RPI	$32.95	Music	The Barenaked Ladies

    If you like eclectic, infectious pop featuring a mix of electric and acoustic instruments, then you will like the Barenaked Ladies (apparently the name of the band came from a Bob Dylan song). Maroon is the band's sixth studio album, originally released in 2000, and five times platinum.

    The Ladies consist of vocalists Steven Page and Ed Robertson (who also play guitars), accompanied by Jim Creegan on bass, Kevin Hearn on keyboards and Tyler Stewart on drums and percussion. The band uses a variety of electric and acoustic instruments, including clavinet, accordion, glockenspiel, violin, viola, flute, melodica and various percussion instruments.

    My favourite track has to be Track 6 "Conventioneers" with its pseudo bossa-nova feel. In addition, there seems to be a bonus track following Track 12 which is not mentioned in the packaging nor indexed in the table of contents.

Video

    Like most of the Warner DVD-Audio discs released to date, the video content on this disc is in full frame NTSC. We get one photo still per song that also includes the song title.

Audio

    There are only two audio tracks on this disc: MLP 5.1 96/24 on the DVD-Audio portion, and Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) on the DVD-Video portion. Don't be fooled by the back cover saying that you can listen to this in "Advanced Resolution Stereo" - my player complained that none of the tracks are down-mixable so you have been warned.

    This is a very LOUD mix. I had to turn the volume level of my amplifier down to -24dB and was still getting sound pressure levels in the 80s (doctors don't recommend prolonged listening to music at levels consistently above 80dB).

    All three front channel speakers are active, and the rear channels are not really used for ambience but for additional instruments (such as guitars, keyboards, percussion and backing vocals) so this is a highly immersive mix.

    Strangely enough, I did not find a lot of deep bass or extreme highs - the "sound" had emphasized midrange which I suspect is intentional on the part of the engineer. I suspect the album has been engineered to sound good on a cheap radio.

    There are quite a lot of "special effects" towards the end of some tracks, such as guitar feedback for Track 1 (Too Little Too Late) and Track 5 (Falling For The Very First Time). Track 2 (Never Do Anything) has various party noises and the ending of Track 7 (Sell Sell Sell) has enveloping wind noises.

    The subwoofer seemed to be used only lightly to support the music and as I've pointed out before there is not a lot of deep bass present in the mix.

    Vocals sound reasonable, though a bit glassy. The lyrics are reasonably easy to understand, for the most part.

    The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track is equally as loud, with dialog normalization set to +4dB. I did not notice much degradation in audio quality. I may be imagining this, but I felt the bass on the Dolby Digital track to be more pronounced.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    The extras are minimal and replicated on both DVD-Audio and DVD-Video portions of the disc.

Menu

    The menus are full frame and static.

Booklet

    This is a sixteen page booklet including a quotation from a poem entitled "Maroon" from Ken Nordine and Richard Stuart Campbell, lyrics, colour photos of various bits of the band members, musician/production credits, dedications and discography.

Notes-The Band

    This is a set of nine stills containing text for a mini-essay about the album, plus washed-out photos of band members in the background.

Credits

    This is a set of three stills listing musicians and production team.

    This disc appears to be identically featured across all regions.

    If eclectic, zany pop is your cup of tea then try Barenaked Ladies' sixth album Maroon.

    Both the MLP 5.1 96/24 and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio tracks are LOUD, so you may want to turn down the volume. There is no stereo track.

    Extras are minimal.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall