Customer Reviews

Impact! Songs That Changed The World: Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas? / Bob Geldof, Midge Ure, Smokey Robinson, John Oates

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This is NOT the original 'making of' documentary that also contained the video single. Instead, it's a 'new' documentary about Band Aid and is made up of clips from the original documentary and some new interviews. It's short, only 23 minutes, so do not expect any kind of in-depth information. Basically, it's a 'hack' program with no original analysis or scholarship. Those expecting the original documentary and song/video will be sorely disappointed. The DVD jacket does NOT make it clear that it is a new program either. AVOID if you are looking for the original 1984 song and making of documentary (which, BTW, has NOT been released on DVD yet - only VHS, Beta in the USA and LaserDisc in Japan - hopefully, we'll get an HD-DVD of the original program.)

If you are hoping to see the original video then you are in for a major disappointment.
The documentary was weak at best....other than some interviews with Bob Geldoff and Midge Ure, you only got to catch glimpses of SOME of the other performers. The video documented very briefly about Live Aid, USA For Africa, and Canada's effort with "Tears Are Not Enough"....but once again, you didn't get to see the videos....only little glimpses here and there of the stars.
This was truly a complete waste of money and my time to view it.

Somebody wanted my money and they got it. The song may have been longer than this documental clip. I didn't read the review before purchasing, what a bummer. I should have learned from the first time when I tried to buy a dvd from a company called CAIMAN. You may have heard about them. Beware of the mini storage based wanna be a company. HEY CAIMAN if you are out there listen to this...
Next time you want to FÜ¿ÆæK someone KISS THEM FIRST
Oh Yeh about this dvd, save your money there is no music and you will learn nothing except that we are getting older.

When I ordered this there few reviews and SO sorry I did so. I have the wonderful original video (VHS) of the Making of Band-Aid and my family watches it every Christmas season. I only watch VHS around Christmas as I have every other genre on DVD. Any-who, this is a rip-off, not informative, and totally lacks the joy of the original.

This is one of a series of 12 reasonably priced ($9.99 list) DVDs released in the US by SRO (Part of Kultur International) under the umbrella "Impact: Songs That Changed The World". Each runs about 24 minutes as it was co-produced by Canadian TV and broadcast on the cable CMT network in the US in 2002 and 2003.

I could tell from the quality of the editing - even before I saw the end credits - that this was produced by Gregory Hall. Hall - who also makes music documentaries under his own Hallmark Productions banner - has been cranking these out for about 20 years now. I first saw his Country Music bios. They've always been well edited and usually contain great interview "sound bites". The four volumes in this series that I've watched so far are no exception. Some of the interviews were recent at the time of the show's production while some go back to the 80s and 90s and have appeared in other Hall productions. (You can tell by the locations where they were taped.)

Most of the Impact series DVDs cover more than the single records that are the topics. They also cover the impact that artist - at that point in time - had on our culture from style of dress to style of music.

In the case of the Band Aid volume the focus expands to successor group tributes such as "we Are The World" in the US and the Canadian tribute (after all this series was made for Canadian TV). There's lots of Bob Geldolf here. Personally, this is the weakest of the series I've viewed so far. Check out the others in the series first. I gave them all higher ratings.

These DVDS will leave a legacy to the next generation and can be very useful in, not only music history classes but in the study of late 20th century "pop culture".

Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"

I was very happy when I saw this, I thought I would be getting a DVD of the song, one of my favorites. I checked the "chapters" and it seemed to imply not only that "Do they know it's Christmas" but also "Tears are not enough" and "We are the world" would be on the DVD. None of them were, there was basically 36 minutes of outtakes from interviews. No new info, no music. What a waste of money!!!!!!