Review of Anastacia: The Video Collection

Introduction

Anastacia. There`s just two things that I think of when I hear her name. One is that she can belt out a tune, and the other is that no matter where she is, she`s always showing off that fantastic mid-driff of hers. I`m not complaining. The Video Collection here covers music promos from both Anastacia albums, Not That Kind and Freak of Nature.

Since landing on the worldwide pop scene in 2000 with the catchy dance number, "I`m Outta Love", she`s gone on to sell more than 10 million albums and has become a global favourite.

The Video Collection features 9 tracks, with another getting a slightly different version of the video. Plus extras wise there are two remixed videos, 4 making of`s, a biography, a photo gallery and an interview which adds up to a 90 minute package.

Video

The DVD is presented with a fullframe transfer preserving the variety of aspect ratios here from 2.35:1 to fullframe and all are of the same high quality. I couldn`t spot any problems with video compression or other digital artefacts. Colours throughout are rich and vibrant making the videos look very slick. It`s well presented though it`s a shame all the videos aren`t shot with a wide frame to make for a better DVD presentation.

Audio

We have a choice of two soundtracks, the original PCM or a newly mixed Dolby Digital 5.1 track. While the PCM track offers a clear audiostream, the DD 5.1 does go that extra bit further in clarity and space. It works surprisingly well here with tight bass and the high end of Anastacia`s voice sounding loud and very clear. The quality is good throughout though there isn`t a lot of use of the surrounds.

Features

Fullscreen colour static menus with easy to navigate options leads us to quite a few surprising extras. Behold:

• Biography - 8 static pages of flufffy PR of how wonderful Ms. Anastacia is and all the awards and lovely things people have said about her. For a bio, there`s no mention of her upbringing, any professional training she might have, nothing about her family or her musical influences. We get stats that she`s sold more than 10m albums worldwide since bursting onto the pop scene in 2000. It`s an empty biography.


• Photo Gallery (23 pics) - Just a plain gallery of Anastacia looking nice. Unfortunately there`s no music playing in the background, and the pictures aren`t full screen. It`s good quality, but I`d like to see my screen filled with pictures.


• The Making Of "One Day In Your Life" (25:03)
• The Making Of "Boom" (3:01)
• The Making Of "Why`d You Lie To Me" (3:51)
• The Making Of "You`ll Never Be Alone" (9:27)

It`s good to see the inclusion of these Making Of`s for music videos, something not normally produced. The first and the last ones are quite interesting since we get to see a different side to the pop star, but the middle two are just too short to appreciate and may as well be packaged on CD singles as Quicktime extras.


• Who is Anastacia? (4:14) - Less than five minutes to find out who someone is and even then it leaves many unanswered ponderings.


• I`m Outta Love (remix - music video) (4:12)
• Not That Kind (remix - music video) (3:55)

These are the essentially the same videos but cut to a more dancey version of the song. The remixes are formulaic dance remixes and don`t sound interesting nor add anything to the videos, plus these only have PCM sound and not the remixed Dolby Digital 5.1 sound of the main programme.


I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the extras here as it`s not something I`d expect to have seen. The biography here is poor, as is the "Who is Anastacia?" segment. I expect a little history, not PR.

No subtitles on this DVD means I can`t duet. Packaged in a plastic Amaray case.

Conclusion

This is one of those music DVDs that isn`t bad, but isn`t that great either, which doesn`t make for easy reviewing and rating. The quality of the video and sound on this DVD is very high, but it`s the content that I`m getting bored with. Anastacia, looking as sharp and luscious as always, just doesn`t have many interesting music promos. For a large part, the songs are derivative and while this tends to be the norm in a lot of pop music, it leads to less than inspirational music videos.

There are 10 videos, actually 9, in the main programme since there`s two versions of "One Day In Your Life", one being the U.S., the other being the International version. Most of the videos here follow in the same vein and we surround her, like the audience, just jumping and watching her perform on a stage. All the videos, with just three exceptions, tend to look very similar making them rather unimaginative, dull and flat. Even the concert events have been redubbed with the original track so as to remove the audience cheers. Doesn`t look like a lot of effort has gone into the videos with the exception of "One Day In Your Life", "Why`d You Lie To Me" and "You`ll Never Be Alone" which are better and a little more interesting. Maybe it`s just me, but a little bit of narrative in a music video would go a long way to making it more memorable. Aren`t videos meant to promote songs? Then again, these are mostly dance numbers, so perhaps it doesn`t really matter.

Total running time for the main event is a minimal 37 minutes, and even my parties are longer than this. The extras here add up to a considerable amount more and are mildly interesting, though once you`ve seen it once, you`re not likely to hunt them down again. One last thing, I wish someone would implement a `play all` feature for the extra music videos and clips here. Is anyone out there listening?

I still like "I`m Outta Love", and Anastacia`s debut album, Not That Kind, is still very listenable. Call me old fashioned, but I think it would have been more interesting if there was actually some meaning in the videos that I could `get` to match the sentiment in the songs.

As much as I like some of Anastacia`s music, this DVD collection isn`t a strong enough package to recommend to all but the Anastacia cognoscenti.