Rating: 
Summary: Better than perfect entertainment
Review: The Cranberries have been around so long now that this DVD was necessary to put their work in context for people like me, who were starting to lose track of how things were going. I thought they started out great, with the songs "Dreams" and "Linger" on their first album that I bought. I liked the songs, even if they seemed somewhat limited to a popular format. Then Dolores O'Riordan (who called those songs young and innocent) grew up a little more, and the next album, "No Need to Argue" had the song "Ode To My Family," which was sentimental in a very insecure way, which made it sound like that really matters more than anything. Musically, I was not as turned on by the song "Zombie," but I liked the way it was tilted, and "Zombie" was amazingly popular for such a political outcry. As the third video, following some drab (mostly grey-and-white video versions) soft songs on this DVD, it has striking red and gold colors, after the kids, soldier, band, and stark wooden cross introduction.I also own the next Cranberries album, "To the Faithful Departed," which shows the limits of what they could do after they realized how successfully they could release crowd emotions in concerts. It features a picture of the band in a little yellow room common to some of their videos on the CD cover, and the fact that the room they are in is just a prop, which could even be set out on a lake, or in the middle of woods, is distinctive. After seeing some of the early reviews, I bought the album because I was afraid that if I didn't buy it, no one else would. The documentary on the DVD makes it clear that becoming extraordinarily successful at expressing themselves musically had worn them down to an emotional level that fixated on death as much as anything. The first song on "To the Faithful Departed" is called "Hollywood" and takes a dim view of the entertainment industry. Even worse, I thought it was about people who pretend to be in the entertainment business but really aren't. Hearing a woman sing "This is not Hollywood like I understood" like she has a perfectly clear picture of what she is saying and really means it is surprisingly realistic. The only trace of "Hollywood" on this DVD is in the documentary, when the group is talking about the hell they had just been through on tour and their rush to record a whole album in five weeks. It was actually a great way to do it, because they captured something that most people would try to miss. If anyone had wanted to make videos that showed the worst of what things happening in the news might mean on an emotional level, using actual footage of events, some songs by The Cranberries would have been a good place to start. I was hoping to see more of that when I bought this DVD, but there probably isn't much of a market for such things beyond me, myself, and I. I'm extremely fond of the song, "War Child," and I even like "Forever Yellow Skies" and "Bosnia" on the "To The Faithful Departed" CD, but it is not surprising that those songs were not selected for videos for promotional purposes of for this DVD. The songs that were picked for a video, "Salvation," "When You're Gone," and "Free To Decide," are pretty heavy for pop music in the 20th century, though the end of the century was a heavy ending, even for those who were relieved that Y2K wasn't a big catastrophe. I'll bet I'm not the only person who has seen more than 1,000 videos, and when I say "The Cranberries," the people that I know want me to tell them a catchy line they might have heard, to see if they can remember at least one glimpse of something The Cranberries have done. I'd like to find the best line to categorize them politically. The documentary has concert footage of the song, "Zombie," in which the crowd gets to fill in words in the lines, "With their tanks and their bombs And their bombs and their guns In your head." There might also be a political line in the song "Time is Ticking Out," trying to rhyme the ozone layer with "I wonder if the politicians care." People who remember that video, with a yellow brick road running by a bright red flower patch with flower petals that are radiation symbols, might think that The Cranberries were some psychedelic anti-nuclear fans of OZ. The documentary makes clear that these people are having so much fun that they can do whatever they want. Millions might even agree that the choice of colors was very bright. On the DVD, a bunch of songs follow "Just My Imagination," and you can't be sure this is a serious effort to communicate. The album "Bury the Hatchet" was supposed to be the end of serious struggle for those who listen to their music. I started to lose track of what they were doing about the time they took six months off. The documentary shows a performance of "Promises" for a Nobel Prize Awards audience in Oslo, Norway, in November, 1998, the year before "Bury the Hatchet" came out and The Cranberries had to wonder if anybody really cared all over again. I'm glad the Nobel Prize arrangers had the opportunity to have this DVD restore some of their credibility. If they ever heard of The Cranberries, they show a lot more awareness of what people think than so many people who are trying not to care. "Analyse" is the song which is most repeated on this DVD. There is not much difference between Main Feature track 14 and Alternate Takes (original version). The other Alternate Takes had other directors do something else (was a bright red dress too far out for "Ridiculous Thoughts" in 1995?) with 3 of the big hits, but the biggest difference I noticed in "Analyse" was the number of airplanes and a chalk outline. Many of the scenes in both versions picture a dark figure from a pedestrian sign, but in the version that was released, the chalk on the pavement is a drawing of a daisy: a stem, two tiny leaves, five petals, and the middle of the flower. In the "Live at Vicar Street - Concert" footage, Dolores called the song "Don't Analyse," and that is what she sings, with "Don't go that way," in the chorus. Any way of relating that to airplanes is only suggested for people who watch the alternate takes original version of the video on this DVD. I liked the Live Favorites, including a concert at Vicar Street, Dublin, Ireland, on November 11, 2000. Including a cover of the song, "In the Ghetto," (maybe the only song on this DVD that The Crnaberries didn't write themselves), singing about another baby being born in Chicago, as Dolores O'Riordan Burton was pregnant with her second offspring, helped to put the politics of music in a nice perspective.
Rating:
Summary: Delightful
Review: These videos are amazing. Ode to my family and let it linger are some of the most touching videos I've ever seen. Watching this dvd reminds me of how videos and music is today! Ahh, bring the cranberries back!
Rating:
Summary: Complete Compilation
Review: What a wondeful DVD! This is maybe one of the best compilations I've ever seen on a video collection. The first song I watched was WHEN YOU'RE GONE..., one of the most beautiful ballads of a rock group (and music in general)... I like also the latest releases like JUST MY IMAGINATION (a very nice song, complemented with a fresh video) and PROMISES (a powerful song, one of my favourites Dolores' performances!).
Talking about this band is... making us feel proud of being part of that 90's generation, which brought us songs like ZOMBIE, WHEN YOU'RE GONE, DREAMS and LINGERIE, so: Do we need more than The Cranberries to have good music?
In conclusion: This is that kinda DVDs that MUST be part of your collection.
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