Synthpop DVD very cool

[~Ninthwaver]

anyone else pick up the cohaagen Synthpop DVD? Granted I have some vested interest in it since 2 ninthwave bands are on it (NASA and The Peoples) but I have to chime in with a min review here.

First of all the whole package is very well designed and looks great, the menus are easy to work and the whole thing has a nice professional look. Very impressive.

The videos range from very slick to pretty much home made, with most being sort of Film School levels projects. But (!) I have to say that is not a hit on the quality. I was struck by how most of these videos were far more interesting than 99% of the choreographed crap that passes for videos today on MTV.

The Blow Up video starts things off (I think, can;t recallfor sure) a wild video that mixes Colt model garage fantasy with Smack My ¤¤¤¤¤ Up style video. Very odd but kind of cool.

Nice to see the wonderful Cosmicity video on a bigger screen than my iMac.

Love the Soviet video, it just looks so them, exactly how you think a soviet video should look.

The fr/action video is a lot of fun, well done and different. Many of the videos here seem to rest on the montage/ 8 mm idea so this was refreshing.

I liked what Freezepop were trying to do, but the animation is so limited it doesn't cut well to the music. I had similar problems with B!Machine and Gary Flanagan. Synthpop is a beat hevay genre and mostly static videos or videos not cut to the music can be distracting.

The THEM video actually made a somewhat boring song interesting. btw, most of these videos are harmelss but there is enough suggestive stuff ina couple that you shouldn't whip this out at your cousin's 4th birthday party...

If you consider yourself a fan of modern synthpop then you MUST pick this up. If you don't have a DVD player (your computer should play this too) then BUY ONE!

-Dave

[~arronc]

Yeah : I got his one !

SOviet is so cool its not funny. A kind of electro chic that beats Ladytron hands down.

I loved freezepop : I think this king of animation suits their music perfectly, and love the hyper-cute image to bits.

THEM I thought was awsome, but along with blow-up, a bit semi prono for no real reason !

Comicity was pretty cool, but Moulin Noir actually put me off the track, as musically its one of the best tracks on there, but you cant show it to anyone, it so embarrasing. Swing that spotlight !

I liked seeing b!machines synth collection on a outing to an old airfeild. (I was concerned that he seemed to be controlling weapons of mass destruction with his sidstation though ;)

I liked Gary Flanagins clock, and the highlight of the video is when he puts a note saying presumably ("Antique clock repairs required") into an old urine sample bottle and chucks it in the sea.

Due to north atlantic drift it should end up in the Isle of Man next week, so I might go and have a look for it.

I laughed at the extra crowd scenes that had been pasted into Brave New WOrld's video : they come as a clip art segment in the DVD authoring package, and we were thinking of adding them into our Microconcert film to make the audiance look bigger, but decided we wouldnt get away with.

Nasa was a very slick and cool production : I enjoy the single edit of Square one much better than the album version !

All in all a fantastic collection, and Im only doing my usual Beavis and Butthead commentary because im jealousy we have never made a video !,... all the videos are pretty good, and I really enjoyed it.

I would reccomend it to anyone !

[~Ninthwaver]

Yes, I forgot Moulin Noir. I love the guy's music to death but he is perhaps not as video ready (looks AND concept) as others. Still "B" for effort.
lol about BNW, but am not surprise. It did not seem that the crowd shots matched the other footage well and they seem to have some delusions. Made some decent album though!

Funny thing about blow Up (good song) and THEM is that they seem to want to appear dangerous, yet to me Freezepop was the most disturbing thing on there, I mean the girl is singing about stalking someone after all!

[~Ganymede1]

Not to be picky, but I have to make the point that the crowd shots in the Brave New World video are totally real. Anyone who was at the Salt Lake City Alphaville shows in 1999 can verify that the crowd for both the headliners and everyone else was huge!

[~arronc]

Youll be telling me Cosmicity dosn't really live inside a strange pulsating computer world next !

How gullable do you thing I am ? ;)



BTW Ganymede : Youre right and I wasnt there, so I will conceed the point. Respect to you guys for putting together such an enjoyable package.

It works great on UK/PAL hardware too, even on my trusty playstation !

[~NullDevice]

I love the Nasa video. I can't explain why, since there's not much to it. But the song is catchy and they look like they're having fun. I've had Square One in my head now for days.

The soviet video is probably the best-produced. I'm not a huge fan of the song but the video fits it well.

There certainly are a lot of "guy walking places" videos - Soviet, Axoe, Fr/action - it's a good thing they used our other video or we'd've been yet another one. :)

I do like the Axoe video though.

I also liked the Nukleon video enough to want to buy the CD. That's sales for you.

Neuropa's video made me go and dig out their CDs again.

Moulin Noir cracks me up. But then, I've always found anyone who dresses all uebergothy and is over the age of 18 to be terribly hilarious. And the black lipstick and white pancake is not highlighting his complexion well.

My only complaint about the DVD is that there's no bumpers mentioning which video is up, and that using the "Artist" menu just starts playing at the artist point (and then keeps going) instead of playing just the artist video. But that's a minor quibble.

[Synthpopalooza]

I think the only one missing from this collection was the Plastic Orgasm People video "The Meaning (of love)" which is on their CD single release. It would have fit in well, altho the shot of a guy in bed with a female mannequin is a bit strange, to say the least. :)

[~Mike Gjennestad]

i was at the concert both nights for alphaville and loved BNW's performance, the crowd was really into all the acts.


gjennmike

[~Todd Durrant]

Did I get a bad one, or does the menu to select a specific video only show the first few without a way to go to a "next page" and select from the later videos?

I also think the collection is a lot of fun, with a touch of serious, silly, slick production, and home-made stuff.

One criticism. It's TOO LOUD! I have to turn the volume down to about half of where it's set during any other DVD I'm watching. Still cool though :-)

-Todd

[~arronc]

Todd : That had me puzzled for a couple of moments : you need to select the triangle which means next > in the bottom right corner and press enter.

I didnt have any level problems though.

Was it AC/DC who said "If its too loud, you're to old" ? ;) LOL

[~NullDevice]

Hmm. I don't have the volume problem. It's a bit louder than some of my DVDs, but it's nothing compared to a few of my action movies.

[~Cohaagen]

Hi Everyone --

Just wanted to answer a few of the questions about the DVD that have come up, since I was the one who put it together. I'm glad everyone is enjoying it. When I started the project, I wasn't sure exactly what I would end up with, but the result is, I think, really enjoyable and lots of fun for everyone.

--First, Todd brought up the volume level. This was an interesting question to deal with. The volume was mostly tuned to be powerful but not overwhelming. On my home theater system, it's quieter than most CDs but definitely louder than TV or most DVDs, just because it's music. The new DVD-Audio format (which this DVD is not, but which is really cool) uses CD-level audio, so I believe the volume trend with music on DVD is up.

Because most of the tracks were taken from CD, they were already compressed and really loud. If you know anything about digital audio, turning it down reduces the number of bits used and can degrade the signal. So we turned it down 4 or 5 dB from the optimal level you'd find on most CDs.

--One the video menus, there are definitely arrows in the lower-right hand corner that will allow you to navigate through. They are in the "video safe" area, so if they're not appearing on your TV there could be a cropping issue with your TV.

--I went back and forth on whether to include intertitling for each video, and in the end I decided to just let them flow as they were intended. Some of the videos already have titling and others don't, so I didn't want to break them up with unneccessary pauses. I think all 20 videos function together as a unit.

Thanks and I hope you all enjoy the DVD,
Patrick
http://www.cohaagen.com

[~NullDevice]

Here's a solution to the intertitling issue - print a tracklist in the liner/cover/whatever. Nuthin like a good ol' hardcopy... :)

[~Todd Durrant]

Thanks for the notes Patrick. You're right, I put in my "Pop and Wave" video DVD and it's also quite a bit hotter (louder) than my other movie DVD's.

It's a cool collection. Fun to watch!
-Todd

[NoirTech]

Ugh! I need to order this sometime soon and put it to the test in my home theater. I'll have to post pics. :-)

[Avil]

I´m very lazy when it comes to purchasing newer albums and dvd´s...Acctually I haven´t bought anything new for the last few months except a couple of bad albums from a couple of commerical bands. I think I need a full MUST HAVE-thread again....

[~jetjaguar15]

I just finished hooking up my home theater system last night and this was one of the first dvd's I played in it. It sounded wicked!!!!

The first vid I played was Fr/action's, and it was great, especially in bass-enhanced mode. I'm like a kid in a Candy store now.. I gotta go put in Faith Assembly's "Windmills" and see how it sounds...