This is a special edition of "I Want My DVDs," covering three recent releases that are targeted in part towards obsessive, class-A, lunatic music nerds. But first, a quick word on music geekdom.
Music nerds are about exclusivity. They don't care about how good something sounds, they care about how hard the name of the bass player is to pronounce. This is because they were beaten up a lot in grade school, junior high school, and high school. They never got to rule anything. But they found solace in compulsively building piles of records and arcane knowledge about musicians. Then they got to college, and—holy fuck!—being a nerd was cool. Girls were impressed by their record collections. Girls even had record collections. Nerds had something to rule!
Then they blew it by becoming big snobs—faddish as any run-of-the-mill mallrat, but obscuring the trendiness behind weirdness. Look at the intermittent "rediscoveries" of old music to see an illustration of this (girl groups, psych, folk, avant-folk, bluegrass, electro, postpunk, no wave, BAARRFFF).
We cannot let nerds take away our enjoyment of music. Normal people (or Neuro-typicals as the Aspies would say—see page 59) are allowed to be as completist as we want and not be labeled nerds. Let's just not talk about it that much, okay?
Can
DVD
Mute
If anyone deserves the obsessive DVD treatment, it is Can, the ultimate German far-out fucking real deals. This three-disc overdose includes an entire show from 1972, an 81-minute intimate documentary, a SECOND documentary, a short film about Can by Brian Eno, a still photo gallery, and separate bios of each band member. Are you drooling yet? There is also an audio CD, containing live and rare tracks from all across Can's career. I have to go jerk off now.
Duran Duran
Greatest: The DVD
Abbey Road Interactive
Every Duran Duran video from "Planet Earth" to "Ordinary World." They even have the uncensored version of "Girls on Film" that was as much of a fetish item in the mid-80s as the Madonna Playboy. There are all these little Easter eggs like interviews and hidden alternate versions, but those take a backseat to coming to the realization that Duran Duran are not just 80s kitsch. They are fucking amazing.
Pink Floyd
The Dark Side of the Moon
Isis Productions
Here is the guiltiest of pleasures, guiltier than a laser light show on weak mushrooms while wearing a Baja. This slick documentary about the classic concept album features footage of the Floyd doing "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" live in '72, David Gilmour playing "Breathe" acoustically in the studio, and in-depth explanations of the production techniques and early synth trickery that made three generations of teenagers go, "Ho-lllleeee shiiiitttt," in slow motion when they heard it stoned for the first time.
JAN PEOPLES
