18 November, 2009

The Bonus Discs - Paul McCartney

Many albums now come with bonus DVDs. But how special are the special editions? This sidebar looks at whether the bonus discs are worth paying extra for.

Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005)
The main program here is Between Chaos and Creation, a 30 minute doco about the making of the album which shows Macca and producer Nigel Godrich speaking frankly about some of the creative tensions that went into making the record and their determination to make a great album.
Extra bits are the video for Fine Line with 5.1 sound, a nice little clip for How Kind of You which will be fascinating to music nerds and perhaps a little boring to everyone else, and three rather pointless instrumental versions accompanied by animations of the line art from the album's booklet.

Audio: LPCM Stereo throughout, Dolby 5.1 and DTS on Fine Line
Worth paying extra for? Yes

Memory Almost Full (2007)
A perfunctory selection from the "secret" show at the Electric Ballroom last June focusing on the new songs plus the opening number, Drive My car.
The presentation is excellent with mercifully few cuts to the audience.
Also includes the videos for Dance Tonight and Ever Present Past but curiously not Nod Your Head.

Audio: LPCM Stereo
Worth paying extra for? Yes, but not worth buying the album twice.

2 comments:

  1. None of these CDs were sold with DVDs around here. Not that I noticed at least. Are you talking about an additional disc with the CD or extra material within the CD?

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  2. They're both bonus DVDs. I'm always a sucker for a special edition, especially when it's someone I'm a completist for.

    Chaos and Creation had a bonus DVD with initial copies.
    Memory Almost Full came out in two editions at first - the single CD and a special edition that had an extra CD containing three extra tracks and a commentary from Paul on the making of the album. Then in November, they released another special(er) edition that had the three bonus tracks added to the CD and a DVD containing the videos reviewed.

    Now that he's signed to Starbucks, I figured these were the Tall, Grande and Vinte versions.

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