Review of Chapel Of Love

Introduction

Mention the name Jeff Barry and I’ll look blankly back at you. Mention “River Deep, Mountain High”, “Da Doo Ron Ron” or “Tell Laura I love her” and I’ll know exactly what you’re talking about, classic songs each one. Well Jeff Barry wrote them you see, along with many other classics, so that makes him kind of clever in a “songwriter” kind of way doesn’t it :).

This DVD is a concert filmed for TV featuring some of his most well known songs sung by some of his favourite performers.

Video

Considering that this was a made for TV effort the picture quality is surprisingly good. It’s no state of the art, letterboxed anamorphic transfer that’s for sure but as this is a TV to DVD translation the full frame picture retains surprising clarity. The colours are a little vibrant but I’m unsure whether that’s the DVD’s fault or the loudness of the set designer and wardrobe people.

Audio

This is a concert DVD so music is the key factor. A decent Dolby Digital 5.1 track was probably too much to ask for so we have a Dolby Stereo 2.0 track instead. Left to it’s own devices my amplifier did a great job of producing a surround stage with the sound quality noticeably weaker when turned to stereo output only. I’m searching for a word to sum up how it sounds and I suppose that word is "alright”. It’s music that doesn’t sound any more special that a standard audio CD.

Features

Nothing, not a bean.

Conclusion

I’ll be totally honest here and say that I had no idea who on earth Jeff Barry was before this but on hearing the tracks here I realised just how profound his impact on the music world has been over the past few decades. Every song on this disc is a classic and whilst, like me, you might not have the faintest idea who the original artists were you will definitely recognise the songs. Perhaps testament to the popularity of these songs and the skills of Jeff Barry himself would be the sheer number of cover versions that spring to mind when you here the music.

I’ll be perfectly honest this is the kind of disc that you might listen to whilst doing something else. It’s not exactly my preferred choice of music but these are the sort of songs that you know all the words to even though you have no idea why so you’ll probably find yourself singing along . . . well humming at least.

As a DVD though there’s not much of interest to look at. The stage production is your basic “stand up and sing” setup so nothing special there. In between certain songs there are tiny little snippets of information about Jeff Barry and the various performers but if you blink you’d miss them. Also at just under an hour it’s too short to warrant a DVD size price tag, although I have a feeling this might be a little cheaper than a movie on DVD.

So overall no problems with quality really and some truly classic songs but you have to ask yourself why bother with the DVD when an audio CD would be far more practical?