REVIEW

Music Review: The Platters & The Coasters - Rock 'n Roll Legends: The Platters & The Coasters

Written by Bob MacKenzie
Published May 09, 2007
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The section for "Artist Profiles" includes a reasonably complete history of The Coasters over the past half century and a less complete history of The Platters that's primarily a listing of the group's regularly shifting personnel over the years. This makes interesting if not exciting reading.

The "Quantum Leap Propaganda" section is an eccentric mix of archival footage, rough edits and promotional material, including three quirky, clip-packed video presentations plus a brief commercial for the Quantum Leap website. Rather than finished productions, these short videos seem more like samplers pieced together from diverse sources. The viewer never knows what will come next. The purpose of "Quantum Leap Propaganda" appears to be to sell other Quantum Leap releases. At the left side of each title bar in these segments is what appears to be a release number indicating the release on which that clip may be found. Here again, the visual quality is often less than desirable and the editing is rough and amateurish, but the viewing experience is interesting and sometimes even educational.

A seven minute feature that appears on a number of Quantum Leap releases, the "W.P.M.A." video plugs the World Peace Music Awards, a large televised concert event that features hundreds of well-known musicians and is broadcast worldwide. This production appears to have been pieced together from two earlier pieces advertising the concerts in San Francisco, California (2002) and Nagasaki, Japan (2005) plus other, not always related, materials. Although now out of date, this short video is still interesting to watch.

"Pure Pop" also seems to be standard fare on many of the releases in this series. Almost seventeen minutes long, "Pure Pop" is a pastiche of interesting clips assembled in a chaotic attempt at a documentary film featuring a half-dozen or more popular stars in interviews, commentary and performance. The clips include part of a documentary on New York songwriters featuring Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield; a musical performance from The Frank Sinatra Timex Show featuring Sinatra, Joey Bishop, Sammy Davis Jr. and others; a segment on Dusty Springfield featuring commentary from Petula Clark and others and a performance by Springfield of her signature song, "I Only Want To Be With You;" John Sebastian joking with his audience and then singing "What a Day for a Daydream;" very cool blues sung by Bonnie Koloc, a blues instrumental featuring the trumpet of Arturo Sandoval, and a long lost music video of "The Longest Time" by Billy Joel; and a dramatic segment from the movie "The Fabulous Dorseys." Again, the purpose appears to be to sell other Quantum Leap releases. At the left side of each title bar is what appears to be a release number. Although the visual quality is inconsistent and often leaves a lot to be desired, this piece is interesting and perhaps educational to watch.

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For four decades, Bob has written commentary and reviewed music, painting, film, theatre, and other arts for local, regional, and national Canadian media. Since 1996, he’s written Sound Bytes music reviews online. A working artist in a variety of forms and media, Bob’s latest album with Poem de Terre is War & Love (July 1, 2006). With broad knowledge of the arts, Bob often takes an off-centre, quirky view, offering new insights to an artist's work.
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Music Review: The Platters & The Coasters - Rock 'n Roll Legends: The Platters & The Coasters
Published: May 09, 2007
Type: Review
Section: Music
Filed Under: Music: Classic Rock and Oldies, Music: Live Concerts, Music: Pop, Music: Popular and Standards, Music: R&B, Video: Music
Writer: Bob MacKenzie
Bob MacKenzie's BC Writer page
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