GREATEST HIT (...AND 5 OTHER PRETTY COOL VIDEOS)

This piece has not been released yet but i feel free to rate it because this is a compilation album and I know all the songs and the clips. The choice hasn't been big for the band, since they made very few videos throughout their career and rather not to their best songs. I'll barely call any of them a classic and a must-hear (or must-see). Even Pull me Under which was their biggest hit is not really such a good song as most people call it. It's a pretty straightforward metal song, moreover butchered from above 8 to under 5 minutes for the MTV-friendly clip. The other songs are good pop-metal songs but there is nothing overly progressive in them, as the band selected the more radio-friendly material for singles and videos. Generally, rather forgettable compilation, unless you're a true big fan of the band and MUST have all their release and you don't have their videos yet. But others can skip it.

I see no point in buying this DVD - at least for me, since I've seen all the videos on YouTube. Some of them were hilarious, some were dull, but there's nothing to write home about mostly. When you have all songs cut and shortened to video format, all you feel is anger, he-he. And where are'Constant Motion' and 'Through her Eyes'? Anyway, a worthy one if you a die-hard DT fan, but for others I suggest to check these videos on YouTube first. My fave is 'Lie' with 'Another Day' close second (just love this song), but again, DT is not the band to be raved about for videos alone...if you're a newbie, better check their live DVDs first

I've never really figured out why a band like Dream Theater would need videos, or why any prog band would want or need them for that matter, but hey they're here anyway for you to see.

Pull Me Under being cut down to 4:49 is just annoying to say the least. Why cut a prog song's length down just for a video? Either don't cut it down, or just don't make the video is what I think is fair.

Exactly the same for Take The Time, which has so many good parts of the song cut out, it just frustrates me. Considering the song was from a 1992 release, yet the video just drips of 80s didn't help the video to age well at all. The 80sness about it just made me giggle a little every time I watched it.

Another Day is pretty cheesy, but we get the whole song, which is a one bonus point for this video compilation.

Lie is also annoyingly cut shorter, but at least the video actually looks like 1994 and not the 80s. The Silent Man is pretty much all there and again an okay video. Hollow Years is a great song, but as expected tarnished by being cut down in length for the video.

Greatest Hit (...A 5 Other Pretty Cool Videos) is obviously not something everyone needs, but I can certainly see the appeal it will have towards die hard Dream Theater fans and collectors. Some of the videos, in fact perhaps all of them, have a degree of comical value (most likely unintentional, but who cares?) in them, so overall it's not a completely terrible package.

I will not talk much about it. This DVD doesn't have anything to do with Dream Theater. It is purely and obviously an over-commercial attack by the record company. A DVD can hold a lot more than 27 minutes, isn't it easy to see? Where is Constant Motion, where are the in-studio shots of Dark Eternal Night and Ministry Of Lost Souls footage which are all available in YouTube? And where is the rare clip of The Silent Man from the Once In A LIVEtime DVD? If you have lots of money to throw away, then this DVD is just for you. Coz all the media is already released in previous live DVDs, if they had the chance to find their way into this release.

Unimportant

Dream Theater's DVD Greatest Hit (...and 5 Other Pretty Cool Videos), released together with the band's first best of album ever Greatest Hit (...and 21 Other Pretty Cool Songs), is a compilation of all Dream Theater's video clips, until Systematic Chaos's new video clips, recorded and released in the early-mid 90's. Most of those videos are pretty amazing, with only two exceptions, which are Pull me Under, which was made in such a rush that the final result was far from satisfying, and Hollow Years, that is just plainly boring.

This release would usually be pretty interesting, but the thing is it is just not important for two reasons: firstly, all of those videos were already released by the band twice (in their VHS release 5 Years in a Livetime and double DVD re-release Live in Tokyo/5 Years in a Livetime) and secondly, they are all available on the internet (you can them on youtube without any kind of problem). So this release is almost useless for anyone I know and for myself (specially here in Brazil, where this DVD is an import and costs more than Live in Tokyo/5 Years in a Livetime due to the huge taxation on imports). Therefore, I will give it a rating according to that: this is a released aimed for die-hard fans, collectors and everyone new to the band (as an introduction to Dream Theater, because I bet Greatest Hit (...and 5 Other Pretty Cool Videos) have a rather reasonable price outside Brazil). Two stars then.