Customer Reviews

Olivia Newton-John - Video Gold 2

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LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 26, 2005--
All of the Superstar's Video Classics from "I Honestly Love You" to "Magic," "Hopelessly Devoted To You" to "Physical"





Pop icon Olivia Newton-John was one of the first and most endearing artists of the video generation. Her clips for hits such as "Deeper Than The Night," "Twist Of Fate," "Physical," "Soul Kiss," "Magic" and others became instant MTV staples. Today, many of these highly treasured videos have found a second life on VH-1.

Now, on the heels of a new tour and the June release of her first two-CD retrospective -- Olivia Newton-John - Gold (Geffen/UMe) -- the DVDs Olivia Newton-John - Video Gold I and Video Gold II (Geffen/UMe), released August 16, 2005, bring together for the first time all of the video highlights and biggest hits of this groundbreaking music video artist. Combined, the two volumes include all of her conceptual videos from the Physical, Twist Of Fate and Soul Kiss video collections plus a handful of live videos of earlier hits as well as rarities.

Featured among the 19 selections on Video Gold I are live 1982 performances (shot on her Physical tour) of the early '70s classics "Let Me Be There" (gold, #6, Grammy winner), "If You Love Me (Let Me Know)" (gold, #5) and "Please Mr. Please" (gold, #3). In 1978, she starred in Grease, the most successful movie musical in history, and this video compilation contains the video clip version of "Hopelessly Devoted To You" (#3, gold). That same year, she issued Totally Hot, which spun off the pre-MTV videos for the title track, two versions of the gold #3 "A Little More Love" and "Deeper Than The Night." Her 1980 film Xanadu yielded a blockbuster album and the #1 gold "Magic."

Video Gold I also boasts not only the videos for the best-known songs from 1981's Physical -- "Physical" (platinum, #1 for 10 weeks) and "Make A Move On Me" (#5) -- but also those for the album's eight other tracks: "Landslide," "Carried Away," "Recovery," "The Promise (The Dolphin Song)," "Love Make Me Strong," "Stranger's Touch," "Falling" and "Silvery Rain."

Video Gold II presents 20 selections, reaching back to Xanadu with live versions of "Suddenly" and the Top 10 "Xanadu" (featuring ELO), Grease's "You're The One That I Want" (#1, platinum) and '70s fan favorite "Sam" all taped live in 1982. "Heart Attack" (#3) and "Tied Up" appeared on 1982's Greatest Hits. "Livin' In Desperate Times," the John Travolta duet "Twist Of Fate" (#5), "Take A Chance" and "Shaking You" debuted on 1983's Two Of A Kind soundtrack. The 1985 album Soul Kiss contributes its title track, "Culture Shock," "Emotional Tangle," "Toughen Up" and "The Right Moment."

Also seen and heard are: from 1988's The Rumour, "Can't We Talk It Over In Bed," "Reach Out For Me" and the title track; from 1992's Back To Basics, "I Need Love;" and the 1998 #1 Adult Contemporary remake with Babyface of Olivia's double Grammy winning "I Honestly Love You" (gold, #1).

as a long time fan of Olivia Newton-John, I have been anticipating a full-on DVD collection of her videos, and we've been blessed with TWO of them.

Video Gold I will likely sell more copies as it focuses on the hits that casual fans love, Video Gold II is by no means less worthy because it isn't loaded with as many hits. I love the bulk of these also.

The set picks up with the Twist Of Fate video collection, featuring 4 Two Of A Kind videos and goes back to the two videos she did for 1982's Greatest Hits Volume 2. Heart Attack and Twist Of Fate are the only mega-hits here and they get knocked out pretty fastly. One of my favorite underdog Olivia songs is "Tied Up" and that's on here.

Next we travel to 1985 for the Soul Kiss video collection. Soul Kiss was the album that caused Livvy's exit from the pop charts. While I wouldn't rank the album among the previous highs she had beforehand, I still love a number of tracks. The highlights from this batch are "Soul Kiss", a very sexy song and video that deserved much higher than #20, and "Toughen Up".

Next we see two videos from Olivia's criminally underrated 1988 effort "The Rumour". My main disapointment with this DVD is that Olivia filmed a video album from this song as well, which aired as an HBO special in 1988, and we only see two of the videos on here. "The Rumour" was a sexy video that had everything going for it, catchy song brought to us via Elton John and Bernie Taupin, a sexy new look for Olivia, a stylish perm and jacket, and the video was very chic. However, neither the single nor album went above #62 on the charts, both deserved better.

The videos get sparse from here on out but don't take that as meaning that same goes for her recording career, that is NOT the case. From "Warm And Tender" comes Reach Out For Me, from "Back To Basics" comes I Need Love and from "Back With A Heart" comes I Honestly Love You '98. She has done various videos in this period that are missing but beggers can't be choosers. Olivia's spent the better half of the decade recording outside of America, albums such as Gaia, (2) and Indigo never got a US release.

If you like Olivia, but think of her as Sandy and consider Physical your favorite song, get Video Gold I, but if you realize there's more than meets the eye, get Video Gold I and Video Gold II. No Olivia fan should be without these two.

This collection is going to be a prized possession for the rest of my life. The musis is one thing, but the pleasure of watching Olivia Newton-John sing her songs is like being right there with her. My favorite on GOLD 2 is "The Rumor" because it is a fun video to watch and the music written by Elton John rocks. It's too bad he didn't have a cameo in the video. Now if Olivia & Elton would just do an actual duet together, that would be killer!

What a treat to be able to stroll down memory lane with some of ONJ's semi-older stuff since the late 70's through about the late 80's. Many of which I had never even seen before! The video quality and sound are both excellent quality. If you're an ONJ fan, then this DVD set is a MUST-HAVE!

This dvd is fantastic and I love it so much, I am a fan of
Olivia and I have everything about her and now I have this
special gold dvd ! so great !
Olivia is a sweet and lovely person.
She takes care of so many things in her live.
her live is so devolted to humanity and to our beautiful planet.
Olivia is an icon and an exemple for all of us.
Thank you Olivia, everytime I think of you, I feel better.
"Happiness Always",
Stéphane

I just got this DVD yesterday afternoon and couldn't wait to get back home to watch it and see the insert. I started with volume I and it played all the tracks from volume II! I figured I had 2 of the same discs but realized the problem had to do with the pressing. Although each discs are labelled, coded and packaged as volume I and II, disc 1 contains the other disc's material and vice-versa. This problem should only affect the Canadian editions and will hopefully be fixed, as people buying only one out of the two volumes might not be particularly happy with their purchase!

This comes in a clear Amaray-type case and the booklet has 8 pages, including 4 full pictures. The cover is designed to represent one half of a full picture and, as the result, the artwork for volume I is reversed. The DVD menus are very simple and feature the ONJ heart logo but no Olivia pictures, except for animated previews on the tracks selection pages. The cool thing is that on top of being able to play separate songs and the whole DVD, there's also a playlist feature, giving the option to view them in a different order.

If you think all Olivia Newton-John related reviews should be 100% positive, please stop reading here.

The digital transfer for this single-layer release is very average, at best, and overly compressed. In most cases, it's better than the "20th Century Masters" DVD but very grainy for the live songs and with a strong pink-ish hue for the most of the videos, compared to the "Olivia Live In Concert" bootleg DVD from Korea. On the plus side, the audio sounds better than the tapes and the Korean bootleg.

While the audio presents noticeable limitations due to the fact that it's only available in Dolby Digital 2.0, the worse part is the remastering. Instead of using the original audio tracks, they edited the actual album tracks. The result is even more annoying than the hackjob done with "Livin' In Desperate Times" on the "Two Of A Kind" CD. The videos affected by this editing issue on volume II are "Twist Of Fate" and "Livin' In Desperate Times". "The Right Moment" is now available without the closing credits but fades out before the end and "Reach Out For Me" doesn't have its original spoken intro.

Overall, it's great to finally have a lot (though not all) of Olivia Newton-John's videos on DVD but I feel they could've put more effort into it, quality-wise. Also, the live songs should've been released separately as the original "Olivia In Concert", since they're not actual videos and don't quite belong on this collection. While the retail price for this DVD is midline, I would rather have paid more for a better product.

I think it's great that they released DVD compilations of Olivia's many videos. They are a nice lasting tribute to this great singer. However, I'm a little disappointed at the effort invested in the project. The visual and audio quality of the videos are no better than VHS quality. And then there are the live tracks. They are out of place in this compilation of music videos. But more importantly, the quality is terrible. They are very grainy. This is surprising given the fact that there is a high quality DVD of this entire concert available for purchase.

But I would still recommend this compilation for loyal Olivia Newton-John fans. Even though the quality is sub par, I think it is the best we are going to get. Every Olivia fan should have these videos.

Vol. II

"Suddenly" (live)
"Xanadu" (live)
"You're The One That I Want" (live)
"Sam" (live)
"Heart Attack"
"Tied Up"
"Livin' In Desperate Times"
"Twist Of Fate"
"Take A Chance"
"Shaking You"
"Soul Kiss
"Culture Shock"
"Emotional Tangle"
"Toughen Up"
"The Right Moment"
"The Rumour"
"Can't We Talk It Over In Bed"
"Reach Out For Me"
"I Need Love"
"I Honestly Love You '98"

I remember seeing Miss Olivia on her first HBO special....remember the red dress and red boots? Anyway, I listen to a small field of music...orchestral, violin/cello pieces, the Royal Philharmonic, the works of Jerry Goldsmith, and then pieces by the five women in this world whom I believe are truly blessed with the most incredible, rich, emotion-evoking voices this poor soul has ever heard....and, of course, one of them is Miss Olivia. I'm not a critic, don't want to be either. I simply know what is pleasing to my ear when I close my eyes to absorb the beautiful sound. She sings beautifully, regardless if the song is well-known or not. It's the voice that counts, for me. In summation, when it concerns Miss Olivia's voice and talent, I recommend it highly.

Okay, let's get it out of the way: "Livin' in Desperate Times" is a laughably bad video and, in fact, made it onto VH1's worst videos of all time program for good reason. That said, here are all the reasons Volume 2 is worth having:

"Twist of Fate" and "Take a Chance" are both just great and actually have something to do with Two of a Kind, the movie they come from!

"Shaking You" is not a great song, but the footage of Italy is gorgeous, and yours truly wants to know where she got that great red dress.

"Soul Kiss" is interesting because, while vampishness really doesn't fit her image, it's proof positive that she's not afraid to try different things, fail or not.

"Toughen Up" is really cute, and I thoroughly enjoy the upbeat girl power message in it.

"Can't We Talk it Over in Bed" features ex-hubby Matt Lattanzi again, and I can't help wondering if there is more going on in this video than acting?

"Reach Out for Me" is a lovely song, and the video of her and the children at play out in the field is simply enchanting in all its innocence.

"I Need Love:" Is this the sequel to "Can't We Talk it Over?" In any case, here she looks the best she's looked in years, and the video is handled with a solidly sleek, mature edge missing from some of the others.

I don't like the remake of "I Honestly Love You," but the four live tracks at the end are nice. What few not-so-great tracks are on this compilation may have been enough to warrant one star off, but there is obviously enough here to make the purchase a pleasing one, so "take a chance."