Cheap Motown: The Early Years (DVD) Price

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Customer Reviews of Motown: The Early Years

Rent first, to avoid the heartache!!!
I first saw this when it came on constantly on my local public broadcasting station and I really enjoyed it, but I wanted to be able to watch it without having to listen to someone try to beg me to donate money, especially since they would cut off several performances. So when it finally was available to buy in stores I was excited. <
>Boy was this a let down. First of all its only 40 minutes long, second a large chunk of the performances include archival footage of some of the original concerts were completely cutout. I was livid. Luckily I had rented this instead of buying it out right. So I'll just send the movie back, but this has definitely taught me a lesson, sometimes it is better to rent first even if you "saw" the program before that way you won't get ripped off.

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Classic and Lovely
This DVD release of early Motown music features up beat Soul music performed by survivors of several groups. For a baby boomer this is my kind of music. For me, I'm glad this is not a release from the archives; they might be too poor in quality for my taste. Once again kudos to TJ Lubinsky and Shout Factory. The Disk does not have the DTS option however the 2.0 stereo choice gives me better sound than the 5.1 selection. My stereo setup has 7 speakers for a 7.1 setup. However because there are almost no disks released in 7.1 I'm using the 2 back surround speakers as parallel front speakers. This reproduces the front sound in the back. And then there are the 2 side surround speakers and the center, plus the subwoofer. Thus choosing 2 channel stereo on tne DVD player and then ProLogic 2 music on the Sony amplifier is just as good as DTS in this case. I love it. The one short coming of the DVD is that it's only 38.5 minutes long (not even 50 mins).

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Okay, not great
For those complaining that calling this "The Early Years" is misleading, reading the packaging or product descriptions should have clued you in that these are performances from the current acts. You should have been clued in when the bands have names like "Joe Billingslea's Contours" and "The Temptations Review featuring Dennis Edwards." <
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>The performances are decent for what they are...I was kind of confused by the audio on Martha Reeves' performances, which sounded very much like pre-recorded tracks as opposed to the other performers, who sound live. The Temptations Review actually sounds better than the current Temptations, and The Four Tops, even with a younger lead singer, still sound great. <
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>If you can get this for less than $10, definitely pick it up. If not, only buy if you're a HUGE fan of all the songs.