Review of Very Best Of Elton John, The

Introduction

Elton John has been on the scene for rather a long time. Unlike the talentless morons we see on Top of the Pops nowadays who will not be around next year, Elton`s staying power and appeal is a tribute to his ability. He holds the record for the most singles ever sold, Candle in the Wind 1997 - selling 33 millions copies and was the first single to top the charts in nearly every country - this single had advance orders of some 8.7 million in the US alone and the initial pressing of the CD was 20 million units. According to the Guinness Book of Hit Singles, he is the 8th most sucessful singles artist of all time, and he is second only to Elvis Presley when it comes to albums. Elton was also the biggest selling pop act of the 1970s and the first act to enter the US album chart at Number 1. He`s also had a chart hit every year in the UK and USA since 1971.

Now how`s that for an career so far and he`s still going strong!

Video

The first thing to note is that the video footage for each song has been taken from the appropriate year - so for example "Your Song" comes from a 1971 edition of Top of the Pops. The quality of these early performances is actually very good indeed - in fact better than a couple of the later videos. This is perhaps because the BBC have excellent film storage facilities so the masters haven`t degraded to any extent. Overall the video quality is pretty good.

This approach leads to two things - firstly we are treated to a look at Elton throughout his career (well up until 1990 when this DVD goes up to anyway) - this lets us cringe at the quite spectacularly horrendous jackets and glasses he used to wear, along with some other alarming fashion statements. It`s also a good look at how the music video has evolved over then years. The second thing that the chronological approach leads to is the sound...

Audio

The use of original BBC recordings for three of the songs has one major disadvantage - mono sound. However, the quality is still good and in the grand scheme of things the authenticity of the DVD would be thrown into doubt by using newer videos for the songs in question. Sound quality on the other 18 songs is good and is presented in Dolby Digital Stereo. There`s some classic songs on here and I`ll guarantee you`ll be turning to volume up when you listen to this DVD.

Features

As seems to be the norm with music titles, other than song selection there`s nothing on offer.

Conclusion

This is a very good DVD. The quality of the music is undeniable and it represents a good history of Elton`s career up to 1990. Picture quality is good, particularly on the early recordings. The footage comes from a variety of sources, some old TV appearances, some live performances and some videos. Sound is also good, despite three songs being in mono.

There`s no extras, but 21 songs running for approx 90 minutes on the DVD for £19.99 is good value when alongside the "Very Best Of" audio CD thats costs only a few pounds less.