Review of Groupies

Introduction

Groupie: A fan, especially a young woman, who follows a rock group around on tours. 2. An enthusiastic supporter or follower: a ballet groupie; a fashion groupie.

This DVD is a documentary following fanatics of the sixties British rock scene and is billed as an exposé of `back stage shenanigans`.

Video

Presented with a 4:3 fullframe transfer, this DVD is mostly raw film footage from the 60`s so the quality is quite poor. It`s dirty, grimy, soft and a complete turn off. Footage comprises mainly of the groupies themselves talking on camera about what they like about rock bands, plus footage of bands themselves. It looks dark and messy too.

Audio

Audio is poor. Presented here with DD2.0, it sounds muffled and cracks and pops as the speakers strain to deliver something coherent. I have to confess to getting a headache about 15 mins into watching this and had to stop. There are no subtitles to help make out what anyone is saying. Not that there was anything interesting to listen to anyway.

Features

The menus are terrible. There`s a bug if you select Track Selection then come back up pressing the menu button on your remote. The menu is then out of sync with the onscreen selections and is a mess. Poor design and poor QA. Bonus material consists of a catalogue of Cherry Red CDs (25 pages), trailers for other Cherry Red DVDs and a link to the company website. The front cover too is just plain rubbish. There`s nothing at all of interest here.

Conclusion

Groupies. Are these hangers on? Wannabes? Do they serve any real purpose other than to overinflate the egos of those they supposedly love? Dull, boring and completely uninteresting is what I thought of this and felt as though I`ve just wasted some of my life with this disc. The DVD consists of band performances and men and women who just seem to hang around their idols and have nothing better to do then talk about taking drugs, having sex, drinking, partying and just babbling nonsensically. What kind of audience wants to view this material?

These groupies are completely without ambition and waste their time and lives in the endless pursuit of a good time at someone elses expense. Just watching a documentary of this stuff is boring and this has nothing redeeming whatsoever. Groupies has no structure to it and has no probing questions either of the music scene or its followers to make it more interesting. There have been far better programmes on TV.

The content, the packaging and the menus are amongst the worse that I`ve so far encountered. Who on earth would want to buy this disc? Who`s the target audience? What`s the point of this DVD? I have no idea to these questions, but I do know that this DVD is awful. Steer well clear.