Well i have to admit - I'm hugely underwhelmed by this. Got my copy yesterday and played it through last night, and the absolute lack of care of attention to the remastering and editing process is mind boggling.

As many fans have pointed out on fan forums, there are various errors - mainly in the attempt to create "edits", but some stuff is unforgiveable. On 'Music' for example there are clicks all through the duration of the song - how can professionals in the industry not notice this kind of thing if it takes amateurs less than a couple of listens to notice it.

Ive a feeling the whole remastering / edit job was done by someone who'd never heard half her stuff before.

The remastering itself is not noticeably different - only on songs like Into The Groove can you really notice much of a difference, and even then its not staggering.

There are several songs with shoddy editing:
Erotica - cut and paste job beyond amateur standard.
Express Yourself - an utter mess. Butchered by mind boggling edits.
Dress You Up - Of the four beats that starts the song, they've cut them to leave just one. It sounds retarded.
4 Minutes - now clocks in at 3"10, and it just sounds wrong...begins with a ticking rather than the fantastic horns intro.
Revolver - Her voice is buried waaaay down in the mix. Apparently Frank E has twittered to admit that this is a mistake, but warners wouldnt let him fix it !!!


All i can say is - i hope the DVD has been given better consideration. Warners and Madonna should be ashamed to promote this collection with the highly misleading "remastered from the original source tapes" as i highly doubt this is true.

The booklet by the way is nice. Mr Brainwash did a good job - although there are several printing errors in the credits.

The whole project is a hot mess so far. Congratulations Madonna!!

w!t!f!

seriously..... i was pretty much over the disappointing tracklisting and the shitty versions they decided on and was at least looking forward to having a casual listen to it when it comes out in the US, but...


seriously. wtf.

errant said:

oh hush! you know you're buying it.

CHIC0 said:

oh of course. but that doesn't mean i have to like that i'm buying it

god, the the disappointment in this project is never-ending.

CHIC0 said:

oh of course. but that doesn't mean i have to like that i'm buying it

god, the the disappointment in this project is never-ending.

Videos DVD digipack


I have a feeling that the digi-pack will be easier to find than the regular packaged DVD,which is the one I really want.

SoulAlive said:

It scares me sometimes what people can do with photoshop. Those eyes came form the Time magazine shoot from 1985 didnt they?

SoulAlive said:

I hate to be the voice of misery surrounding this project, but news of the dvd has been released. Apparently its in 4:3 and stereo sound - so any hopes we had of wonderful 16:9 , 5.1 surround have been dashed before the thing's even hit my dvd player!
This is very disappointing given that they claim to have gone back to the original master tapes. Id imagine the majority of her videos were originally shot in 16:9 and altered for the 4:3 format, so in theory going back to the original tapes should have meant they could restore the videos to 16:9.....apparently not. It also makes me wonder how they'll alter a lot of the later videos released in 16:9???.....

I’m loving all the artwork, probably the only thing I’m really liking about it. I wish she had of done this kind of thing, the career retrospective, just before the ‘American Life’ era. It would have really done well then, probably would have topped ‘The Immaculate Collection’. And I would love to have a complete DVD collection of every film clip she’s done from ‘Everybody’ to ‘Die Another Day’ when she was really at her most creative.

Arnotts said:

In the past ten years,Warners has tried to get her to do a box set.The first time was in 2001.When she declined,they threw together the (totally useless) 'GHV2' compilation

The second time was in 2004,after the RIT.Again,she wouldn't cooperate so they cancelled those plans

With an amazing catalog like hers,it's ridiculous that she is so against these things.

Arnotts said:

In the past ten years,Warners has tried to get her to do a box set.The first time was in 2001.When she declined,they threw together the (totally useless) 'GHV2' compilation

The second time was in 2004,after the RIT.Again,she wouldn't cooperate so they cancelled those plans

With an amazing catalog like hers,it's ridiculous that she is so against these things.

SoulAlive said:

same reason she doesn't have a star on the hollywood walk of fame... she doesn't feel her career is over and in need of such things.

ehuffnsd said:

Very true.Looking back on her other compilations,the only time that she has put alot of effort into these things was 'Something To Remember'.She was preparing to shoot 'Evita' so she was trying to "soften" her public image.She recruited producer David Foster (the king of adult contemporary ballads),filmed several videos from the project,and actually seemed really interested in that set.

In any case,I'm glad that the Warner years are over.'Celebration' makes it official.That label is a sinking ship these days and has been for awhile.We don't know how the next phase of Madonna's career will be,but it's always a good feeling when you make a fresh start.You have a clean slate.This may actually inspire her to dig deeper,become truly inspired,and do something really incredible.

SoulAlive said:

I agree. I personally feel that her career had a slight sense of monotony over the last few years. Record album, do mini promo show, do a couple of press junket interviews, record 2 videos of effort, go on tour. I'd like her to change things up a bit.The industry is changing, and music is becoming more instant. Maybe with Live Nation we'll see a shift in the way she put her music out there?

Id imagine the majority of her videos were originally shot in 16:9 and altered for the 4:3 format, so in theory going back to the original tapes should have meant they could restore the videos to 16:9.....apparently not. It also makes me wonder how they'll alter a lot of the later videos released in 16:9???.....

CrozzaUK said:

I seriously doubt most of her videos were shot with a 16:9 aspect ratio. They were shot specifically for television in the 80's and 90's. They probably shot several of them on film, but I doubt there was ever a "widescreen" version of any of them until this decade.

errant said:

To be honest i dont know what they used to film music video's on, but some must have been shot using film surely? Im thinking Express Yourself must have been shot using film? If that was the case, and they've gone back to the original reels for remastering purposes, surely they could alter for 16.9?

Thought yall said Dress You Up was going to be on it?

xlr8r said:

"Dress You Up" is on the CDs,but the video is not included on the DVD.It was just a live performance from the Virgin Tour,anyway.Not really essential.

xlr8r said:

"Dress You Up" is on the CDs,but the video is not included on the DVD.It was just a live performance from the Virgin Tour,anyway.Not really essential.

CHIC0 said:

Gonna pick this up,along with the CDs,on Tuesday morning on the way to work.Fortunately,there's a Best Buy and a Target right down the street from my job,lol.