Glam Rock: The DVD (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Audio & Animation
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	63:44
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Stomp Visual	Starring	T Rex Roxy Music Suzi Quatro David Essex Sweet Bay City Rollers Medicine Head Lulu David Cassidy Smokie Steve Harley Tom Robinson Band Showaddywaddy
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	None Given

    As someone old enough to remember the Glam Rock era, this DVD brings back a lot of memories. Taken from Musik Laden, the German version of Countdown, the twenty tracks cover a variety of artists, not all of whom I would class as being Glam groups.

    The acts on display include T Rex, The Sweet, Suzi Quatro, Roxy Music (in their days with Brian Eno), Smokie and Alice Cooper. You can tell a lot about what happened to Marc Bolan from his two appearances on this disc. In Jeepster, he looks sober and relaxed, without make-up and pretence. During 20th Century Boy he is in full eye make-up, spaced-out Glam mode.

    Most of these acts are lip-syncing, and sometimes poorly, such as The Sweet and Steve Harley. Roxy Music seem to be performing live. Rod Stewart overacts embarrassingly badly.

    I'm not sure all of these groups should be put under the Glam umbrella. David Cassidy, Tom Robinson and Rod Stewart all seem out of place here. An annoying feature of the clips is the intro to each, which features a full screen image similar to the menu with the track details, shown over the first five to ten seconds of the clip, so some action is missed. This could have been handled better.

    The track listing is as follows:

Video

    I was pleasantly surprised by the video quality which, while not perfect, is pretty good considering the source and age of the clips shown here.

    All clips are presented in 1.33:1. Colour is good considering the video source material, and everything is quite well lit. The video on the disc looks much better than anything I can recall seeing on colour TV in the 1970s.

    There are a few examples of microphony, such as in the Suzi Quatro and Roxy Music clips.

    Unfortunately, no subtitles are provided on this single-layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are two audio tracks, the default Dolby Digital 5.1 track and a DTS 5.1 track.

    I listened to both tracks. There is little difference between the two tracks, with the DTS track having a slightly richer bass sound. Apart from that, the audio quality is very good. I suspect that at least some of the lip-synced tracks have had the audio replaced with masters of the original recordings, as the audio is much better than could be expected from a video source.

    In the Lulu clip, the bass seems a little over-emphasised, but not to extremes.

    I would have liked a two channel stereo track as well, given that this would have approximated the original versions of these clips, but the present audio transfer is quite good.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    No extras are provided. Information about the artists and the recording dates would have been nice.

    An identical DVD is available in Region 1, except that the video format is NTSC. Given that the source material is PAL format, the Region 4 would provide better video quality, so the Region 4 is the preferred option.

    This is a trip down memory lane, with some excellent performers, and some best forgotten, included on this well-presented DVD. Recommended if you like the music.

    The video quality is better than expected.

    The audio quality is very good.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall