Review of Pillows And Prayers

Introduction

Since I began reviewing discs for DVD Reviewer, two words have filled me with a dull dread, Cherry Red. Of all the discs that have been reviewed on this site, none have met such universal disdain as the output of Cherry Red. Out of six reviews, only one disc has scored well for content, and all of them have received disparaging reviews in terms of picture and sound quality. So when the regular delivery of review discs would materialise, I would utter a fervent prayer of "Please no Cherry Red, Please no Cherry Red", while opening the package. I guess it was only a matter of time…

Anyway, a week later when I could bring myself to approach the disc, I found that it was Pillows & Prayers: Cherry Red Records 1981-1984. That helped me perk up, as I quite like the eighties. In fact I love the eighties, especially when it comes to music. I`m not talking about the lurid fashions, it`s the pop music itself that I cherish. Today we have a multitude of genres, with each act neatly pigeonholed. The result can often seem like a bevy of identikit groups. In the eighties there was only really one genre, pop, with almost infinite variety in sound. It wasn`t a time for protest songs or nationalism (Britpop) and the greed ethic didn`t completely dictate what record companies released. While the acts were often short-lived and carefully marketed, the music was brilliantly crafted if ultimately of little meaning. The eighties in my mind was the decade of the perfectly packaged pop song and it`s without a sense of irony that acts like Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, Nik Kershaw, A-ha, Human League, and Level 42 still find a place in my CD player. 20 years on, I find that I even have an appreciation of groups that troubled the hind end of the charts, and find that I even look fondly on names like Pseudo Echo, Nu Shooz, The Rocksteady Crew, Paul Hardcastle, Angry Anderson, and Tight Fit and yes, even the Reynolds Girls. "I`d rather Jack, than Fleetwood Mac", may indeed qualify as the worst song lyric ever in the history of songs, but you can`t accuse the Reynolds Girls of being anything other than memorable.

So I was actually quite looking forward to hearing some of the early independent stuff that I had missed out on in my youth, especially an early performance by Everything But The Girl, who along with the Marine Girls, Jane, Kevin Hewick, Fantastic Something, Eyeless In Gaza and Monochrome Set contribute to the short film Pillows & Prayers as directed by Christopher Collins, which is the raison d`etre of this disc. There are also three bonus tracks from Medium Medium, Eyeless In Gaza and Monochrome Set as well as an interview with Cherry Red Founder Iain McNay and A&R man, Mike Alway to round off this disc.

Video

Before I started writing this section, I breathed what can only be termed as a heavy sigh. Just thinking about the picture quality on this disc is a little disheartening. It is simply a case of transferring the video over to the disc with no attempt to enhance or restore the picture. Artefacts of videotape are occasionally visible on the image like skew or a dirty tape. What`s more is that it`s obvious that the programme originated on film and transferring from the original source would have allowed for a half decent resolution. So we have all the problems associated with videotape, colour bleed, smearing, moiré and on top of that this Region 0 disc is apparently NTSC coded, which makes itself apparent in the rather jerky image associated with missing a frame every second.

Audio

PCM stereo throughout and it`s acceptable if unremarkable. There are moments of hiss though and a couple of pops and crackles. The music itself comes through clearly on the disc, but it feels a little under produced.

Features

This disc has a listed running time of 83 minutes. That includes the Pillows & Prayers film, the three bonus tracks and the interview. The only things extra to this are the gallery of sleeve artwork and some promos for other Cherry Red releases. Yet the same sleeve lists the interview as an extra, which is confusing and a little misleading.

The interview then is more of a lecture, a straight to camera piece from Iain McNay and Mike Alway divulging the history of Cherry Red Records and a little about the Pillows & Prayers film. This interview is dull, interminably and endlessly dull. A word of advice, if you are talking about the history of a record company and about the acts that have signed to your label, holding up a record sleeve is pretty useless, especially when you own the rights to the material and can insert a clip of some music or even some video footage to better illustrate your point. This interview is for Cherry Red aficionados only, and forgiving fans at that.

Other things wrong with the disc are…

No subtitles.

Unwieldy menu design where once an option is highlighted and you press the directional key to highlight the next one in the list, there is a 2 second pause while that option is highlighted. It`ll take you thirty seconds to scroll down to the last option. If you get to the bottom and change your mind, pressing down again won`t take you to the top, rather you`ll have to scroll your way laboriously back up. If you select a track to play, it will just play the whole film from that point, rather than just that particular track, and the same happens with the bonus tracks. I could go on for another paragraph regarding poor menu design, but my fingers are beginning to hurt.

Conclusion

Any disc that has 44 minutes of interview footage while only 38 minutes of music isn`t a music disc in my book. But I would be willing to forgive this, the poor menu, mediocre sound and dire picture quality if the music were any cop. But it`s not my bag at all, and I was the guy who was busy lauding the eighties a few paragraphs ago. While in my memory, the eighties were fun and chirpy, this is the morose side of the decade, with a lot of this music doing a rather poor job in depressing me. The early Everything But The Girl track is all right, but Eyeless in Gaza have their own line in indecipherable lyrics and Kevin Hewick desperately wants to be the lead singer of the Blow Monkeys. Medium Medium also have their aspirations, sounding uncannily like a bad Police tribute band, but I must admit that I did enjoy the Monochrome Set tracks, and I even own the Jane track "It`s a Fine Day" albeit remixed and re-released by Opus III. (#5 UK Charts Feb 1992)

The Pillows and Prayers film is pretty tacky now, with a woman, wearing fifties clothes but sporting eighties hair watching a television. As she channel hops, she watches some old black and white adverts as well as the seven music videos listed on this disc. The videos are cheap and cheerful even by 1984 standards and would never have set MTV alight. A day at the beach, Alice In Wonderland, Getting a Car Repaired and a WWII widow are all themes inexpensively explored to the music. Oh and fancy that, some eighties music that I don`t like. Nostalgia has a way of clearing the dross from the memory.

It`s such a shame, as from the little that I could tolerate of the interview, it`s obvious that Iain McNay and Mike Alway feel very passionately about Cherry Red records and obviously want to showcase their acts in the best possible light. With this DVD they have achieved the exact opposite. They need better quality source material, better sound and picture quality, and DVDs that are more professionally authored. Pillows & Prayers is a prime example of how not to make a DVD I`m afraid. Even if you are a fan of these acts, think twice before investing.