More about this DVD  •  DVD Info  •  Movie Main Page  •  Message Board

Before there was an MTV, there was still a world in need of "promotional films," or badly shot sorta-videos full of ridiculous choreography, silly posturing, and doe-eyed ingenues staring blankly at the camera. ABBA (made up of married-then-divorced couples Agnetha and Bjorn and Benny and Anna-Frid) were pioneers of this bizarre marketing strategy: Refusing to conquer the world the usual way via nonstop touring, they nevertheless stormed up the worldwide charts primarily on the strength of these relentlessly poppy vignettes. With the help of videomaker Lasse Hallstrom (yes, that Lasse Hallstrom) they beamed their Swedish pastry faces into billions of homes, selling over 250,000,000 million albums despite the fact that 99% of their fans never even saw them play live.

Not so The Carpenters (that's Karen and Richard), who put themselves through such a grueling album-tour-TV special schedule for over a decade that they burnt out not so much from audience disinterest but sheer exhaustion. Of course, Karen ultimately died of anorexia nervosa, which only adds almost unbearable poignancy to their now-classic melancholy sound. Making far less videos than ABBA (who often churned out up to four clips in a day), you can't fault the tireless bubblegum duo for putting personal appearances and live shows ahead of the video razzmatazz; but you also can't say they ever created as uniquely identifiable and glam an image as the Swedes.

Swiping a page from the brilliantly orchestrated ABBA revival machine (a renaissance that seems to have gone on far longer than the group was actively together), A&M Records has repackaged The Carpenters greatest hits yet again in this new DVD set, simply called (drum roll, please) Gold. Yes, it's identical to the mega-selling ABBA collections (Gold, More ABBA Gold, Forever Gold, ad nauseum), even down to the same cover. Hardly original, but why mess with a good thing? For twenty bucks, you can get all the classic videos from two classic bands; short, sharp 3-minute lessons in perfect video pop that are so awful it is impossible to take your eyes off them.

So how are the videos? Before even the meager simple story vids of early MTV were pioneered, the main conceit of the 70's promo film was filming a group staring at the camera from various angles, preferably in some sort of half-exotic locale. It's ridiculous, of course, but endlessly fascinating. Whether lip-syncing in front of waterfalls, sunsets or giant snowmen, every video is hypnotic. I keep staring and staring, expecting Bjorn or Benny to suddenly reach out of the TV and strangle me, like some sort of eurotrash remake of The Ring. Terrifying to be sure, but it's got a great beat, and in the case of ABBA, you can even dance to it!

Incredibly dated as they may be, there are some great tunes here and even an inspired clip or two, at least for an era in which no one seemed to realize that you could actually make an edit more than once a minute. From the Brady Bunch boxes of "Take a Chance on Me" to the Carpenters-in-space odyssey of "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft" to the ABBA girls giving their best lesbo shtick in "Does Your Mother Know," this is 70's pop fizz at its finest. And like every overlong 70s video collection (the ABBA set clocks in at over 30 clips!) there is even an unabashedly great one here or there that could actually pass for a real music video.

Shot at the end of their glory days, ABBA's "The Day Before You Came" is just such a piece of classic early-80's techno-longing, an operatic mini- masterpiece that for once features more than just a fat Agnetha staring at the camera wistfully. Too bad it came at the end of their career as an active group, a painful reminder of what may have lay ahead. As inevitable as Karen Carpenter's untimely demise, perhaps the best pop groups have to disband just when they're getting interesting? As both groups experimented, out the window went the innocence and pure pop magic of their early years. The later tunes may have been (at last!) wise and mature, but audiences tuned out and radio dropped them from their playlists. Sigh. But at least now, through the miracle of DVD, we can enjoy their glory days forever…and ever…and ever…and ever…

Video: How Does The Disc Look?

ABBA may have made more videos, but quantity doesn't equal quality. The enclosed booklet breathlessly proclaims that the vaults of the world were scoured for precious ABBA video masters, but it doesn't seem too many rare artifacts were discovered. While all of the videos on both of these sets look dated with considerable age- related defects, The Carpenters clips are by and large a bit more vibrant and detailed, giving the American duo the edge in the transfer battle.

While many of the ABBA clips were shot on film, the majority look like they were dubbed from video masters; in addition to frequent print anomalies such as dirt, specks and scratches (and that long vertical dropout during "The Day Before You Came" is particularly annoying), colors are dull, blacks faded and contrast weak. Detail is predictably poor, and all are rather fuzzy. At least there are doesn't seem to be any sort of edge processing applied, and hardly any artifact problems. Not terrible, but I expected better than what looks about the same as the old laserdiscs.

Lucky Richard and Karen fare better, with overall better video masters. Colors are fairly robust, blacks generally solid (although there is still some fading) and contrast pretty good. Overall detail is a step up from the ABBA clips, although some of the tracks suffer from more print defects, such as the rather awful-looking "Hurting Each Other." But edge enhancement is again minimal (aside from the already many goofy video "stylizations" of the time) and there are no real artifacts to speak of. Not bad.

Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

Not too much of note here. Both collections are presented in Dolby 2.0 stereo, and sound exactly the same as the recent CD remasters. (Oddly, no PCM tracks are included). I suppose a 5.1 remix would be nice, but do you really want to hear Agnetha or Karen flying around your head? Scary.

No alternate audio, subtitles or Closed Captions are included. A lyric subtitle track would have been fun, especially on all those early inane ABBA tracks.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

This one's easy. The ABBA collection is clearly the better presented of the two. From the menus to the navigation, it is obvious some real thought went into this one. All the videos are arranged in chronological order (The Carpenters set is all mixed up) and we even get five bonus videos: Spanish versions of "I Have a Dream," ""Happy New Year" and "When All Is Said and Done," plus the album fave "When I Kissed the Teacher," and a special appearance by the group at The Royal Swedish Opera performing "Dancing Queen." (The sight of the foursome in full Victorian getups is not as enticing as it sounds.) There is also a fun "Random Play" function for parties or when you're really drunk, plus a neat 20-minute animated still gallery featuring a very extensive collection of rare publicity, studio and live photos, all set to various ABBA tracks which randomly shuffle. Abba- licious!

Alas, The Carpenters disc is as bare bones as it gets. After an opening one-minute intro that threatens to break into something good, the first video simply starts, and that's it. The menus are plain, there are no stills, not even a random play option. ABBA even wins the battle of the booklets, with a detailed 20-page insert with a history of their "groundbreaking" videos, versus a mere four-page Carpenters foldout with some of the smallest text I've ever seen. Also hurting The Carpenters disc is a lack of any bonus videos; the duo made plenty of TV appearances and specials, so the lack of such videos/clips for such hits as "Goodbye to Love" and "Sing" is disappointing. Throw us a bone, please! (Or in the case of Karen, a twinkie.)

DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC?

No ROM extras have been included.

Parting Thoughts