Video Album Reviews

[michelej1]

Washington Post, August 5, 1984

By: Richard Harrington

When Slick and Paul Kantner divorced their writing from the inspired and (admittedly) undisciplined players in the Airplane, their songs began to assume the increasingly vacuous air of middle-of-the-rock-radio fodder. There have been exceptions -- the anthemic "Ride the Tiger" and "Stranger" -- but most of what's featured in this concert tape is along the flaccid lines of "Find Your Way Back" and "Girl With the Hungry Eyes." Old Airplane staples like "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" are given perfunctory readings, yet "Miracles" -- the Starship's biggest hit -- is noticeably absent.

Still, "Starship" is positively vibrant compared to "Christine McVie -- The Video Album" (Vestron 1013, 60 minutes, $29.95). All right, so it's hard to get too excited when you're tied to a piano, as McVie has been since her glory days with Fleetwood Mac. But McVie doesn't simply hunker down in this performance, she sits there like a balloon slowly leaking air. What for one or two songs may be sweetly melodic rock 'n' roll soon turns into an overly polite, plodding same song! With the same medium tempo and solid structure!

Aaaaaaaah!

These flaccid pin a colada rhythms wear thin after a very short while, and the bloodless concert footage does nothing to help. Included with the 10 live cuts (eight new songs and two Mac-hits) are the cute conceptual video-clip for "Love Will Show Us How," starring "Eating Raoul's" Paul Bartel as an oblivious director with a black cloud hanging over his set, and the rather less inspired black and white video for "Got a Hold on Me." A perfect tape for insomniacs.

You'd expect to do better with Tina Turner, and you do. "Tina Turner -- Queen of Rock 'n' Roll" (VCL 9008, 60 minutes, $29.95) is a 2-year-old show recorded at the Apollo that proves what aficionados have known since the mid-'50s -- Turner is as vibrant and raunchy a performer as there is in rock 'n' roll. Strangely, this works against her at times, because she lives up to her credo of never doing anything nice and easy, only nice and rough. There are exceptions here -- a strangely moving pairing of the mawkish "You Don't Bring Me Flowers Anymore" and the equally mawkish "Sometimes When We Touch" -- but most everything is done at breakneck speed and with full-throttle passion.