Review of Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael

Introduction

This compilation features George Michael`s videos spanning more than a decade, from his solo endeavours while with Wham! right up-to-date with `Outside`. 23 videos in all with the now famed Parkinson Interview. This goes to show what has made him a pop icon, a fantastic voice and an ability to write good songs. There isn`t a lot more that can be said here, except that if you`re a fan you`re bound to be interested in getting your mits on this. Seeing videos for Faith, I Want Your Sex, Too Funky, and Outside had me dancing for sure. Plus, in case you`re wondering, there`s no dubbing on `I Want Your Sex`. Bring back those 80`s.... :-) There`s also the video for the one single Toby Bourke came out with on George`s record label, `Waltz Away Dreaming`.

Video

On the whole the video quality of the compilation is good. It looks clean, where intended, and doesn`t seem to suffer from any known colour problems. Because the videos were shot with different aspect ratios it`s best to play it with your TV set to 4:3.

Audio

This features 2 channel PCM as well as a Dolby 5.1 audio track. The standard PCM seems to work well for plain stereo, while the 5.1 track sounds good. Not quite immersive with the surrounds since there seems to be more sound from the front three. Lots of bass.

Features

You get chapter selection for all 23 videos, optional lyrics, and the Michael Parkinson interview and as far as music compilations go, this is better than average. It might have been an interesting idea to have an up-to-date introduction from the man himself with perhaps some anecdotes to go with the videos presented here but then this might be too much work. Having said this, it would be something which would have made a difference from other compilation videos.

Conclusion

Music videos aren`t like other videos out there, it`s not something you usually just put on and watch from start to finish. I normally like to have videos playing in the background so this compilation is good in this respect. Loads of videos (23!) with onscreen lyrics (optional) and the Parkinson Interview give this DVD a running time of over 2.5 hours and make this a well rounded package. Faith, I Want Your Sex, Careless Whisper, Father Figure, Outside and loads more will almost certainly bring a smile to your face. If you`re a Wham!, George Michael fan or just love good pop songs, this is a disc which deserves a place in your collection.