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Dom Robinson reviews
Wienerworld Ltd
- Cert:
- Cat.no: WNRD2399
- Running time: 37 minutes
- Year: 1987
- Pressing: 2006
- Region(s): All, PAL
- Sound: Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English
- Fullscreen: 4:3
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £12.99
- Extras:Interview
This DVD: Greatest Hits CD:
One of the first singles I ever owned was from The Style Council.
It was Speak Like a Child and I got it for my birthday in April 1983. Making No.4, it was the firstsingle for someone else too – this new band from Paul Weller, in fact, having finished The Jam the previousDecember with a No.1 hit for one of their many classics, Beat Surrender. It seemed so daring tohave the lyrics “Bullshit is bullshit”, but he never pulled any punches in getting his message across.
Even today, it’s rare to have even mild language in a mainstream song except when it’s some dumbass rapperthinking they’re clever by putting profanities in a song for the sake of it, but when it came to 1985’sWalls Come Tumbling Down, that one began with “You don’t have to take this crap, you don’t haveto sit back and relax”, and while it didn’t make Maggie Thatcher rethink any of her policies regardingthe miners, at least Casualty used it in one of their early episodes over a matter on hospital policy – sadlynot one involving scrapping the terrible soap in which it was to later become.
Sadly, neither of those above two SC tracks feature here. They begin with With Everything To Lose,a song I’d never heard of before so I was mystified as to why they were using the exact same melody andphrasing of Have You Ever Had It Blue. Hmm… all I can say on that one is that while Paul Wellercan choose to sing things how he likes, this does seem a big no-no compared to what I’m more used to of thistune.
Walking The Night is another song I haven’t heard of before and doesn’t exactly set the stage alightso this isn’t going to be one I’ll be returning to, and Heavens Above follows this trend. Oh dear,we’re nearly halfway through now. Next up, Internationalists, titled onscreen as ‘International List'(ahem!) continues along in the same vein. I can see now why they released the singles they did if stuff likethis was their album filler…
The fifth piece of music, Everlasting Love, is not the Love Affair classic, but instead a song writtenby resident singer and, now, ex-wife of Mr Weller, Dee C. Lee. Could she ever see the day? Can she get acrossany charisma as she warbles this feeble effort out? No. So, try Mick Talbot putting his vocal chords forwardfor the first time I’ve ever heard on Homebreakers, trying his best to sound like Elvis Costello, allthe while making me spot on the track listing that the next, and last on this DVD, two tracks were both hitsingles so we can’t go wrong there, surely?
Yes, things are back to normal with a song I can relate to again. Money Go Round just missed out onthe Top 10 back in 1983 (it got to No.11) and then things move to a jauntier-than-normal Shout To The Topwhich makes for a different take on the track, but not a better one as it’s lost its edge over the singleversion.
By the end of this, the crowd applauded long and loudly. Perhaps it was because the camera had been turnedon them and the warm-up man had told them to do this. It can’t have been for the lacklustre set which I had justwitnessed.
The picture, presented in 4:3 fullscreen, looks like its been through one of those filters to make it looklike it was shot on film… several times, making it look pretty ropey. This is a very disappointing picture.
The sound is in both Dolby Surround and Dolby Digital 5.1. Clearly it certainly wasn’t originally recordedin the latter, and what it tends to do is copy most of the front output into the rear speakers so that itliterally echoes around the room. It’s probably more palatable to go for the former option which keepsthe music at the front and has some crowd noises behind you in the surround channel as that’d be morereflective of what it’s like to be at the gig.
The menu features a looped piece of an instrumental from what I thought at first was Have You Ever HadIt Blue which, came across as uneven as it repeats itself in various sections and sounds a bit odd,particularly since that track isn’t even on this DVD. Upon starting the disc, as pointed out above, it turnedout to be With Everything To Lose. Doesn’t make it any better though and gets very annoying aftera while if you leave the menu playing.
There’s one chapter per track, which is spot-on, with separate menus giving you the option of either thestraight-forward ‘Track Selection’ and a stylish ‘Individual Playlists’ menu that lets you choose thetracks you want to hear and their order. Just select and press ‘Play’.
Extras are few and far between on this DVD, alas. In fact, it’s just a 5-minute interview with Paul Wellerand Mick Talbot, hosted by Full House Rock Show’s curiously named Alan Bangs and with only Weller doingthe talking on behalf of the band. On the one hand, full marks must go for giving a whacking 8 chapters toit during that short piece, given the number of DVDs out there where you get, say, a whole hour-longdocumentary about a film which doesn’t have *any* chapter points to break it up.
On the other hand, Weller’s interview has stupidly been dubbed over in German for its target audience,even if English subtitles are an option. Surely they could’ve got a clean version of the audio for analternate version of the interview?
Overall, a definite one for die-hard fans only, since it’s way too short as a concert video – even if itis the entire set – and also the music selections largely aren’t that great on it.
The full list of tracks included are :
1. Intro – Alan Bangs
2. With Everything To Lose
3. Walking the Night
4. Heavens Above
5. Internationalists
6. Everlasting Love
7. Homebreakers
8. Money Go Round
9. Shout To The Top
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.