Skip to content
Dom Robinson reviews
BMG
- Cat.no: 74321 730829
- Cert: E
- Running time: 60 minutes
- Year: 2000
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 0, PAL
- Chapters: 18
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Stereo
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: None
- Fullscreen: 4:3
- 16:9-enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: No
- Disc Format: DVD 5
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Photo Gallery, Weblink, Behind the scenes of thephotoshoot, Trivia quiz, Lyrics
Featuring:
- Bryan, Mark, Nicky, Shane, Kian
The Westlife Storycould be seen as one that begins where Boyzone, the previousfive-strong bunch of pretty boys that sing, left off, particularly as theywere initially managed by that band’s lead singer, Ronan Keating,who has since gone on to have his own No.1 singles, album and kick-starta career as a TV presenter.
The documentary takes an in-depth look at their life, their hometown of Sligo,their influences, their manager and many other bits and pieces including three ofthe videos featured. Hence, the overall running time of the DVD will be longer than60 minutes as that doesn’t take into account the other three songs.
Westlife were the first boy-band to score No.1 hits with all five first singlereleases, including the Xmas chart-topper. However, does that mean much these days whenall the record companies are colluding with each other to ensure that no big releaseclashes with another and almost every other week there’s another new No.1? 1999 saw32 consecutive singles shoot straight to the top before being toppled for New Yearby good ol’ reliable Cliff Richard and his execrable Millennium Prayer,even if he was a year too early (even the oldest Christians should be able to count2000 years from year one onwards).
The following short table holds no surprises, but will at least tell you when they reachedthe top.
May 99No. 1Swear It AgainAug 99No. 1If I Let You GoOct 99No. 1Flying Without WingsDec 99No. 1Seasons in the Sun / I Have a DreamApr 00No. 1Fool Again
The picture quality is faultless. No artifacts, bold and strong colours coming acrosswithout a hitch and mostly presented in a 4:3 fullscreen ratio, save for some of thevideos which have a matted widescreen effect at different ratios.The average bitrate is 5.2Mb/s during the documentary, varying quiet wildly.
The sound is available in Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Stereo flavours. I have no complaintsas to the audio quality, but I won’t be letting my speakers suffer too much with highvolume.
Extras. : Chapters :There are 18 chapters during the documentary, which takes in 10 about the band’s life andinfluences, three of the songs and one apiece for each band member. Languages and Lyrics :All the songs are sung in their original English language, but there are no lyricsonscreen, even though lyrics for each track are listed in the extras section. And there’s more… :A 12-strong Photo Gallery, a Weblink that can be accessed if you run thisDVD in a DVD-ROM player while online (although it doesn’t take a genius to work out thattheir website isWestlife.co.uk), a Behind the scenesof the photoshoot featurette that runs for 18 minutes and a Westlife Trivia quiz,which, if you complete, provides access to a hidden track. Needless to say, I failedmiserably at this. Menu :
A decent bit of work has gone into the menus, making each one subtly animated and containingmusic snippets and/or comments from the boys.
Let’s get one thing straight – Westlife are a band created for teenage girls tospend their pocket money on and follow to the ends of the earth, plus the obligatoryfollowing from the gay community. However, being neither gay, nor a teenage girl andbeing one to tune into MTV2 more often (for the likes of Beck, Air and TheDandy Warhols) than MTV Select, you’ll realise that this band’s music is not forme.
However, it doesn’t stop me from recommending it to fans of Westlife. BMG could havejust stuck the six songs on a DVD, charged full-whack and kids would still have bought it,but they’ve put together a package actually worthy of giving a spin, in terms of the picturequality and extras.
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.