A Masters on Music
This series as broadcast on Sundance Channel is an outstanding Master class on music itself. The broad range of the discussions, histories and looks at the real personalities of the artists being interviewed are truly amazing and highly entertaining as well as informative. We've watched every episode and throughly enjoyed them. What "In the Actor's Studio" does for that craft, this series does for music. Along with the promise of additional footage that was cut to make the show fit into the broadcast timeframe, we are looking forward to receiving this into our collection.
One star deduction for the lack of some key extras
I love this series. I love the simplicity of the concept. One of my musical heroes interviewing many other music giants with the sole purpose of providing the audience a deeper insight than one would normally get from spot interviewers.
I won't go into the details of the show, that has been reviewed before. I just wanted to clarify something regarding the extras. When I read there were bonus interviews included, I was extremely excited. Last year when Elvis discussed the making of the show and some of the unfortunate edits that went into the process of cutting a show down to an hour long, he specifically referenced having to snip FOUR OR FIVE MINUTES from Smokey Robinson's response to the writing process for "Just My Soul Responding". I thought for sure this release would take advantage of not having this time restraint and add that footage (as well as for other artists) back in. And when I read there were bonus interviews, I figured that was what was going on...
A must have for the pop music fan without a blu-ray player
Ordered both the DVD and blu-ray versions of this after downloading a couple episodes from i-tunes. If you are interested in popular music, songwriting, and musicians--this is a good choice. If you just want videotaped performances, look elsewhere. Elvis Costello, who I never really listened to in his prime, is very knowledgeable and a pretty good interviewer. Episodes usually start out with Elvis and some musicians doing one of the artists songs. There may be a song or two mixed in with the interview and it usually wraps with Elvis doing a song or two with the guest (though not always one of the guests songs). Some of the performances end up being rather interesting--Elvis and The Police doing Purple Haze. The blu-ray was supposed to arrive first and the DVD was to be a gift, but the DVD came first so it became a gently-used gift. Both versions have 5.1 sound, but the DTS version on the blu-ray sounds slightly better--more depth in the mid-ranges. I do wish that they had...
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