Cream-Disraeli Gears (Classic Albums) (2006)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Additional Footage-World of Pain, Derailleur Gears, When Ahmet Met Eric...more Music Video-Cream - Tales of Brave Ulysses, We're Going Wrong Music Video-Acoustic performances by Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce & Ginger B
Rating
Year Of Production	2006
Running Time	49:08 (Case: 82)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Eagle Eye Media Rajon Vision	Starring	Eric Clapton Ginger Baker Jack Bruce
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$29.95	Music	Cream Pete Brown

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	German English Spanish French Italian Dutch Portuguese	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    One of the great bands to come out of the psychedelic era towards the end of the 1960s were Cream, a power trio featuring three seasoned musicians with impressive pedigrees. They are considered one of the earliest 'supergroups'. The members were Eric Clapton, who although still young had already wowed audiences in The Yardbirds and John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers on lead guitar and vocals, Jack Bruce on bass guitar and most lead vocals and Ginger Baker, a great drummer with a background in jazz and blues.

    After their first album was well received but not a huge success, especially in America, they chose to record their second album in the US at Atlantic Studios under the guidance of Ahmet Ertegun and with the combined production prowess of Felix Pappalardi & Tom Dowd. The result, widely considered a classic album of the period, was Disraeli Gears which features classic tracks like Tales of Brave Ulysses, Strange Brew & Sunshine of Your Love.

    This fifty minute documentary chronicles the making of the album and features recent interviews with all three members of the band, live footage of Cream both from their heyday and 2005 and acoustic versions of some tracks recorded recently by the band members. It is part of a long running series of documentaries about the making of various classic albums, called strangely enough Classic Albums. The series started back in the nineties and has covered many great rock albums. This one was produced in 2006 and is one of the newest. The show includes interview material from industry figures such as Ahmet Ertegun, John Mayall, Manfred Mann and Pete Brown, the band's lyricist. The show covers topics such as how the band formed, why they recorded in America, where Eric's riffs came from, the role of the producers and details of the tracks themselves including some explanation of what they were about.

    A fascinating show and definitely one that fans of the band would want to own. The extras (see below) are possibly even more interesting for fans of the band.

Video

    The video quality is good but variable, pretty much what you would expect from a show which combines new interviews with lots of archival and performance footage from the late 1960s.

    The feature is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio which is the original aspect ratio, and is 16x9 enhanced .

    The picture was quite variable in terms of sharpness. The new material was quite sharp without being overly impressive and the archival footage was invariably soft, although no worse than you would expect.

    The colour was quite good in the new material and generally dull and washed out in the archival stuff.

    The archival footage was full of film artefacts including grain, specks, hairs and lines. The new material was grainier than you would expect for stuff from 2006.

    There are subtitles in seven languages including English. They were clear and easy to read.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio quality is good. It is standard television quality sound rather than concert DVD quality. Some of the archival material I have come across in better sound quality on other DVDs.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack encoded at 224 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync.

    The music included generally sounds good without the clarity and definition you tend to get on recent music DVDs.

    The surround speakers were not used.

    The subwoofer added some bass to the music however this was a function of my amp's bass management.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

       The extras are all material complied or shot for the documentary which was either not used or only used in part, however, there are some real gems here for fans of the band.

Menu

    The menu included motion and music and is generally very well designed.

Sunshine of Your Love (2:22)

    Eric Clapton does an acoustic version of this classic song. Excellent stuff and a gem for fans of the man or the band. Recorded in 2006.

We're Going Wrong (6:36)

    Jack Bruce does an acoustic piano based version of this track from the album. Recorded in 2006.

Ginger Skins (5:34)

    Ginger Baker discusses drumming and shows off some of his awesome skills.

World of Pain (2:19)

    A documentary section about this song which was obviously cut from the show. Interesting.

Derailleur Gears (1:00)

    Documentary section involving an anecdote about how the title came about.

When Ahmet Met Eric (1:50)

    Ahmet Ertegun talking about how he first heard and met Eric Clapton.

Tales of Brave Ulysses (3:49)

    Vintage Cream performance of this song. Great extra.

Mother's Lament (2:41)

    Documentary section about the album's closing music hall style number.

Outside Woman Blues (2:20)

    Another excellent Eric Clapton acoustic performance.

We're Going Wrong (4:15)

    Complete vintage Cream performance of this track.

    This series is available in both Region 1 and 2 in the same format except for NTSC/PAL differences. Draw..

    The video quality is good.

    The audio quality is good.

    The extras are excellent.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall