I wasnt an REM fan untill recently, and Im glad I bought this DVD because its a really good introduction if youre new to the band.
The first thing that I noticed about the videos was how innovative they are. For example the video for "Imitation Of Life" would be a regular performance video had parts of the video been played backwards. "Whats The Frequency Kenneth" features weird camera positions, you cant see all of Michael's head in the same shot for the majority of the video. If you watch the very arty "Losing My Religion" video and then watch Metallica's mid 90's videos, especially "Untill It Sleeps", you can see straight away where Metallica stole their ideas from.
Personal favourites are "Everybody Hurts", the very upbeat "Stand" and the extremely well made "Bad Day". However, my favourite one of all is "Man On The Moon". The bonus videos are not as good and innovative as the main videos but they are still worth a view.
The videos do enhance rather than distract from the greatness of Stipe's lyrics. One of the best lines Ive ever heard is "Sure all men are created equal, heres the church, heres the steeple, please take two we kept a sequel, ashes ashes we all fall down" from "Bad Day".
Another thing that hits you straight away is that REM have never really had an image. With the Manic Street Preachers, for example, you can associate a certain image with a particular album. With REM this isnt the case and the fact that they wear different clothes in every video makes the videos a bit more hard to remember if youve only just got into the band, but it doesnt detract from the overall product.
One of my favourite bands, Nirvana, was once described by ex Big Black frontman and well known producer Steve Albini as "REM with a fuzzbox". And I suppose hes right in a way in that both bands have written some of the greatest songs of all time.
Keep it up guys.