Smash - The Singles 1985 - 2020

[Nicholas]

No email confirmation here either. Are they just skimming the replacements out to literally anyone who applies? I bought my copy in a physical actual shop (imagine!) so the web store will have no record of it, but I could just as easily be a complete chancer after a free DVD.

[Disco.]

Smash Down to #79 in the sales chart.

[Gabby]

No email confirmation here either. Are they just skimming the replacements out to literally anyone who applies? I bought my copy in a physical actual shop (imagine!) so the web store will have no record of it, but I could just as easily be a complete chancer after a free DVD.

Yeah wasn't sure myself. That's a huge expense to go to whatever way. If they email a return label to send back the BDs only then send out new ones that's probably the cheapest option for them.

[Oznerol]

I think the issue is the producers of SMASH have only been given access to standard definition video copies and told to "make them HD" quickly and cheaply. Obviously the dream is for all of these videos to be remastered properly from the original films (look at "Always on my mind" remastered by the BFI!), but in the real world, with small budgets and presumably a lack of access to original film elements, I do think what has been done could have been done much, much more carefully.

There is a huge misundertanding among people who believe that all the music videos of the 80's ever existed in some kind of HD masters. Even IF some of them were ever recorded on film (a thing that was not very common. because it was more expensive) 99% of them were EDITED on SD video, so that means that final HD masters of the videos never existed, and never will...unless somebody make the big job of finding the original rough film rolls, scan all the negatives in HD, and then re-edit/re-create the video from scratch (including a LOT of video transitions, slow motions, fades and analogue image effects from that years, so it´s a LOT of work, not just cut and paste one shot after the other)..something that, other than INXS's "Live Baby Live" I never knew it was done because of the great cost of money and work that this implies.

"Always on my mind" was the only exception because ALMOST all the shots of tha music video are included on the remastered film recently transfered to HD, and the edit was extremely simple, so it´s just a day of work making it again (because what we have in SMASH is not the original video, but a new re-creation made using stuff from the new HD film: there are a couple of shots included on the original video that are not available on the final film, so that moments were replaced by other similar shots, but not exactly the same, So the "original" video of "Always on my mind" is still unavailable in HD...and is not the version we have on Smash ).

[Oznerol]

By the way "Go West (extended version)" doesn't follow the same rule as Domino Dancing" and "So hard". It is not a different editing of the video with new shots or longer shots to the soundtrack of the then current main 12" version, as you would expect. It's a simple assembly of two previously available videos: "Go west" the original video + "Go west (part 2)" from the "Various" music videos compilation. The end result is debatable. Its soundtrack is "Go west (album/single version) + (Mings gone west: second movement)". Quite a weird combination, a rushed job that doesn't make much sense according to me. And I dare anyone to watch the second part of that video in its entirety. Not suited for people with epilepsy for sure.

But that´s not a new "Smash" thing..that "Go West (extended version)", identical to what we have here, was already included on the PopArt DVD.

[Oznerol]

....

[Oznerol]

Drunk is also the censored version that should not be there

The version of Drunk from PopArt was also the "daytime" version, and it´s the most popular version. The only commercial release including the "nightime"version, as far as I know, is on the VideoCD of the Hong Kong release of Nightlife.
On that VideoCD you also have the (almost unseen) "daytime/censored" versions of "I don't know what you want" and "New York City boy"...because there are two versions of each of them!

[Oznerol]

Drunk is also the censored version that should not be there

Hopefully the new version of the Blu-ray will also fix the audio glitch at the start of Opportunities.

Didn't know there was a censored version of Drunk. What was cut out?

The "censored" aka "daytime" version of Drunk is the most popular and what everybody knows, the same version always on Youtube and on PopArt. On the almost unseen "nightime" version we can see (for a second) a naked couple lying embraced on the floor and a guy with blood dripping from his fangs.
On the "daytime" version of I don't know what you want but I can't give it any more the shots of the needle going in and out the arm were replaced by other things, and for "New York city boy" we got many shot of some dancers in the Club replaced by others...

[jasonjohn]

Interesting, thanks Oznerol

[kingdom]

Sorry if this has been mentioned earlier, but did anyone order (& receive) the lenticular poster? I received my Smash vinyl & CDs but got an email saying the lenticular was on backorder. Wondering if I'll ever get it.

[james23_uk]

Sorry if this has been mentioned earlier, but did anyone order (& receive) the lenticular poster? I received my Smash vinyl & CDs but got an email saying the lenticular was on backorder. Wondering if I'll ever get it.

I'm in the UK and got my lenticular with my original order. It's quite good. Looks to me that originally they wanted to have it as the cover on the limited white vinyl set. It would have worked well, I wonder why it didn't happen?

[Flaffer]

[quote=kingdom post_id=622664 time=<a href="tel:1690726131">1690726131</a> user_id=5365]
Sorry if this has been mentioned earlier, but did anyone order (& receive) the lenticular poster? I received my Smash vinyl & CDs but got an email saying the lenticular was on backorder. Wondering if I'll ever get it.

I'm in the UK and got my lenticular with my original order. It's quite good. Looks to me that originally they wanted to have it as the cover on the limited white vinyl set. It would have worked well, I wonder why it didn't happen?
[/quote]

‘Cause they realised they could fleece the fans more by selling it separately

[Harry]

There is a huge misundertanding among people who believe that all the music videos of the 80's ever existed in some kind of HD masters. Even IF some of them were ever recorded on film (a thing that was not very common. because it was more expensive) 99% of them were EDITED on SD video, so that means that final HD masters of the videos never existed, and never will

My point isn't really about the existence/lack of HD masters though.

I'm sure you're right about music videos being edited on SD video, but my issue with the SMASH Blu-ray is how badly these SD videos are presented, and how clumsy it is to pass SD content through an upscaling process in the way that they have. I don't expect "So hard" and "Domino dancing" to look like "Always on my mind". But, it is very possible, with a limited budget, to do much better.

An example is the Doctor Who Collection Blu-rays, which have been coming out at a rate of three seasons a year since 2018, presenting archive seasons of the show where each episode is a mix of studio shot on video and location shot on film, as was usually the case with British TV until the 1990s. The quality of the remastering, done by a guy called Peter Crocker, is superlative. In many cases the film elements are long gone and all that exist are SD broadcast masters, telerecordings, and various other badly archived sources. They present the episodes in the best possible quality using the full potential of the Blu-ray format, and do not try to falsely "upscale" them to something they have never been. They look as good as if you were watching a brand new broadcast master.

I do think the issue with SMASH is a Parlophone problem. Look at what they have done to "upscale" David Bowie's appearance on the Old Grey Whistle Test, which was shot on video in a TV studio (like Doctor Who) and used to look perfectly good, now it looks like badly rendered CGI: https://youtu.be/IBgU0tiLy2s

It is interesting that Discovery was presented in SD on DVD. Perhaps Parlophone had a go at upscaling it and the results were awful. Somebody looked at the picture quality so I am surprised that they have released SMASH as it is. It's a real shame.

If anyone is still not sure what those of use banging on about bad upscaling mean, have a look at the bridge and the buildings in "So hard" at 00:29: https://youtu.be/6iv8LXZeNTE

[ype]

I agree, the older video's on the Smash blu ray look awful. I can't watch them.
I wonder what it would cost to go back to the source material for a video and do a proper remaster like the one for Always on my mind. (Of course some would be difficult if a lot of effects were involved.)
If I were N&C, I might invest a part of my personal fortune in this. Not to make a profit obviously, but to preserve my legacy.

[Oznerol]

I agree, the older video's on the Smash blu ray look awful. I can't watch them.
I wonder what it would cost to go back to the source material for a video and do a proper remaster like the one for Always on my mind. (Of course some would be difficult if a lot of effects were involved.)
If I were N&C, I might invest a part of my personal fortune in this. Not to make a profit obviously, but to preserve my legacy.

Again..the only reason why Always On my minds looks so good is just because it was re-edited from the recent final film footage tranfered to HD, but it´s for sure that there are not any original "film footage" for any other videos... or if, by any chance, there is for any of them, it must be rolls of raw footage stored somewhere, with not any information anymore of what shots were used for the final video...or where to find them. An impossible job...