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KMFDM: Beat By Beat By Beat

KMFDM: Beat By Beat By Beat

List Price: $24.98
Your Price: $22.48
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Mmm Mmm Good...
Review: Actually this is worth the money...About 3 hours of Sascha...If you start off by selecting play all you'll get more interviews rather than skipping around on the disc. Its in an absolute different order plus you'll miss out on some of the funnies caught on tape. So make sure you have the time if you want to get the most out of it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Mmm Mmm Good...
Review: Actually this is worth the money...About 3 hours of Sascha...If you start off by selecting play all you'll get more interviews rather than skipping around on the disc. Its in an absolute different order plus you'll miss out on some of the funnies caught on tape. So make sure you have the time if you want to get the most out of it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Everything on the VHS and much, much, more
Review: All of their videos up to "Megalomaniac" (except for those ones that are so rare that no one's seen them) are here. Most of the videos are sub-par, but "Megalomaniac" is a funny, high-quality video. "A Drug Against War" and "Son of a Gun" are cool Brute videos and "Money" is an excellent plot-driven video that goes with the song lyrics, even if they used annoying 80's-style effects throughout it.

The 3 bootlegs are my favorite part. There are 2 bootlegs from the Money tour and 1 from their days opening for Ministry. Palo Alto (the first Money bootleg) is short, but sweet, going through six pretty rare live songs- Liebeslied, Virus, Split, Don't Blow Your Top, UAIOE, and the metal version of Money. The other Money bootleg has more songs, all of pretty decent (for a bootleg) sound quality, including Godlike, Vogue, Sucks, and Excessive Force's Blitzkrieg.

The bootleg from the Ministry tour is pretty low quality, but you get to see the band in the early days when Rudolph Naomi played drums and En Esch had hair. Highlights from that one include Murder, More & Faster, En Esch, and an early version of Godlike, which sounds kind of like the Chicago Trax version, but none of the lyrics are the same except the word "Godlike" and the German part, which En Esch screams over the noise and feedback at the end.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Everything on the VHS and much, much, more
Review: All of their videos up to "Megalomaniac" (except for those ones that are so rare that no one's seen them) are here. Most of the videos are sub-par, but "Megalomaniac" is a funny, high-quality video. "A Drug Against War" and "Son of a Gun" are cool Brute videos and "Money" is an excellent plot-driven video that goes with the song lyrics, even if they used annoying 80's-style effects throughout it.

The 3 bootlegs are my favorite part. There are 2 bootlegs from the Money tour and 1 from their days opening for Ministry. Palo Alto (the first Money bootleg) is short, but sweet, going through six pretty rare live songs- Liebeslied, Virus, Split, Don't Blow Your Top, UAIOE, and the metal version of Money. The other Money bootleg has more songs, all of pretty decent (for a bootleg) sound quality, including Godlike, Vogue, Sucks, and Excessive Force's Blitzkrieg.

The bootleg from the Ministry tour is pretty low quality, but you get to see the band in the early days when Rudolph Naomi played drums and En Esch had hair. Highlights from that one include Murder, More & Faster, En Esch, and an early version of Godlike, which sounds kind of like the Chicago Trax version, but none of the lyrics are the same except the word "Godlike" and the German part, which En Esch screams over the noise and feedback at the end.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Kein Mitleid fur die Merheit (no pity for the majority)
Review: And THAT is what KMFDM stands for, their name taken from a phrase by German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche (the bad boy of Philosophy). This DVD suits their name, aimed not at the mainstream but instead at the die hard fan. Sadly, I fall between the two categories, therefor, I found this DVD to be quite average, though I do appreciate its length and reasonable price.

First off, the videos. KMFDM does not produce quality videos. Although Megalomaniac is a bit of an exception (this video is quite slick and fun, two qualities I find in their music as well), the others are mediocre to plain [bad]. Son of a Gun and Drug Against War are cool in that they borrow from album covers by Brute, but they soon run the well dry by repeating the same, rather static animation sequences. The other videos are among the worst I have ever seen, bordering on plain annoying.

As for the live stuff, it is mostly bootlegs from various tours. As such, the sound quality is fair to good at best. The performance is usually filmed in one continuous shot, often out of focus, shaky, or poorly lit.

As for the performances, Palo Alto is hampered by constant streams of stage divers who, seemingly, are doing their utmost to throw off the band. I missed the lead vocalists signature German growl, as he half heartedly spoke the lyrics. On the other hand, En Esch (half naked mind you) performed his heart out. As such, he stood out like a sore thumb from the rest of the lack luster band.

Chicago is poorly lit, allowing only ghostly glimpses of the band members. The sound is of low quality as well, though there are many tracks. Again, saved by length over content.

Dallas is perhaps the best segment of the video, featuring Raymond Watts (The only original British KMFDM member, and frontliner for Pig), whose crooning style is very cool. The performance is strong (if not just a little pretensious). It includes some behind the scenes stuff. The sound is good as well (though perhaps dubbed, but nevertheless enjoyable).

In conclusion, this DVD is best suited for hardline fans and not your average industrial/metal follower. To be fair, however, if I had never seen Rammstein's Live Aus Berlin DVD (A band KMFDM toured with), I would not have judged so harshly.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: KMFDM: Doin' it again!
Review: For those of you that were wondering, "Beat By Beat By Beat" is the first full-length DVD by industrial rock pioneers KMFDM. That being said, this DVD contains 3 1/2 hours of footage, including:

Beat By Beat documentary:
This documentary originally came out on VHS back in 1997. Basically, you follow Sascha and the guys as they tour around the country. There are some amusing moments as well as live clips and video clips.

The $$(Money) Tour:
This is none other than a official bootleg video of concerts performed in Palo Alto, CA and Chicago. The quality of the video and audio could be better if you know what I mean. You can only watch the band from one vantage point. Then again, this is a bootleg recording after all...

Live in Dallas:
Again, another bootleg video. Again, the quality of video and audio could be much better. As with the $$ Tour, someone managed to sneak in a hidden video camera and tape the whole thing. Oh, by the way, "Live in Dallas" also features interviews with all the band members. Still worth watching though.

The Videos:
Ahhh yes, the music videos. Eight of them to be exact: "More & Faster", "Son Of A Gun", "Juke-Joint Jezebel", "A Drug Against War", "Money", "Vogue" (not the Madonna song), "Megalomaniac", and of course, the extremely interesting "Naive". Two of the clips are completely animated while another one features Japanese animation. All eight (especially "Naive") are worth watching.

Additional features include your choice of 5.1 Surround Sound (did I get that right?) or Stereo. The entire DVD is digitally remastered and PS2 compatible. For those of you that live outside North America, this DVD is NTSC-compatible only (unless your DVD player can play NTSC DVD's as well).

I'm glad that KMFDM finally put out a DVD with all the video footage they've put out (so far). And believe it or not, there's another KMFDM album coming out in early March! And this is after they "officially" broke up two years ago! Anyways, now that you've read all this, go buy the DVD now! You won't regret it!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: KMFDM: Doin' it again!
Review: For those of you that were wondering, "Beat By Beat By Beat" is the first full-length DVD by industrial rock pioneers KMFDM. That being said, this DVD contains 3 1/2 hours of footage, including:

Beat By Beat documentary:
This documentary originally came out on VHS back in 1997. Basically, you follow Sascha and the guys as they tour around the country. There are some amusing moments as well as live clips and video clips.

The $$(Money) Tour:
This is none other than a official bootleg video of concerts performed in Palo Alto, CA and Chicago. The quality of the video and audio could be better if you know what I mean. You can only watch the band from one vantage point. Then again, this is a bootleg recording after all...

Live in Dallas:
Again, another bootleg video. Again, the quality of video and audio could be much better. As with the $$ Tour, someone managed to sneak in a hidden video camera and tape the whole thing. Oh, by the way, "Live in Dallas" also features interviews with all the band members. Still worth watching though.

The Videos:
Ahhh yes, the music videos. Eight of them to be exact: "More & Faster", "Son Of A Gun", "Juke-Joint Jezebel", "A Drug Against War", "Money", "Vogue" (not the Madonna song), "Megalomaniac", and of course, the extremely interesting "Naive". Two of the clips are completely animated while another one features Japanese animation. All eight (especially "Naive") are worth watching.

Additional features include your choice of 5.1 Surround Sound (did I get that right?) or Stereo. The entire DVD is digitally remastered and PS2 compatible. For those of you that live outside North America, this DVD is NTSC-compatible only (unless your DVD player can play NTSC DVD's as well).

I'm glad that KMFDM finally put out a DVD with all the video footage they've put out (so far). And believe it or not, there's another KMFDM album coming out in early March! And this is after they "officially" broke up two years ago! Anyways, now that you've read all this, go buy the DVD now! You won't regret it!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: For Fans. I would give this 3.5 but that's not an option.
Review: I didn't even know about this DVD until I was browsing through music DVD's today and I saw it. I had never seen it before, and snatched it up. At first I thought it was old, but then I realized it was new and it was TVT trying to cash in on the new Nine Inch Nails DVD.

Anyways about THIS disc:

The concert footage is good although it does look like they just confiscated some bootlegs at shows and made them into a dvd, but it's still amazing.

The videos were the real selling point for this release because really what are the chances you will see these on TV anytime soon.

I recommend buying this DVD only if you know what it is you are going to buy, because I admit I am not the world's biggest KMFDM fan, but I did like this DVD.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: For Fans. I would give this 3.5 but that's not an option.
Review: I didn't even know about this DVD until I was browsing through music DVD's today and I saw it. I had never seen it before, and snatched it up. At first I thought it was old, but then I realized it was new and it was TVT trying to cash in on the new Nine Inch Nails DVD.

Anyways about THIS disc:

The concert footage is good although it does look like they just confiscated some bootlegs at shows and made them into a dvd, but it's still amazing.

The videos were the real selling point for this release because really what are the chances you will see these on TV anytime soon.

I recommend buying this DVD only if you know what it is you are going to buy, because I admit I am not the world's biggest KMFDM fan, but I did like this DVD.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: One half of the KMFDM picture
Review: In my initial review of this product, I criticized the poor audio and video quality in the concert sequences. While I still feel this assessment holds water (they are bootlegs,) I have come to the realization that this DIY ethic is part of KMFDM's appeal. If you can stomach some poor camera work, and the bootleg video and audio quality, the concert section of this DVD is an interesting documentary of the band's artistic peak.

Also of interest on this DVD are the bands music videos. Like the concert footage, they do not sport the best production values or AV quality. Nonetheless, they are, for the most part, creative counterparts to the music.

Finally, the DVD contains the original Beat by Beat documentary. This is the best produced section of the DVD offering backstage glimpses of the band, concert footage and that sort of stuff.

Fans of KMFDM would be well suited to seek out their newest DVD, Sturm & Drang Tour 2002. That DVD compliments the more archival Beat by Beat by Beat and allows one to have a pretty full picture of the band.


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