Springsteen Joins the Rush to Releases on DVD

It’s a Bruce Springsteen fan’s dream come true.

“Bruce Springsteen: Video Anthology 1978-2000,” which hit stores Tuesday, collects all 18 of the Boss’ music videos and 15 previously unreleased performances--including a version of “If I Should Fall Behind” recorded at Madison Square Garden last year--on one DVD. And “Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: Blood Brothers” brings to DVD the 1996 documentary chronicling the reunion of Springsteen with the E Street Band.

Springsteen fans who prepared for the releases by asking Santa for DVD players weren’t alone, as the Jersey rocker’s discs are the latest in a steady stream of DVD music releases from high-powered artists with high-end audiences. Industry experts say the releases are fitting to launch a year that will turn the DVD music video from a nice extra to another necessity--a new artistic and sales outlet for artists to reach their fans.

“The artists are watching it and getting very interested,” said Jordan Katz, senior vice president of sales at Arista Records, which launched a line of DVD singles last year with its high-profile artists such as Whitney Houston and Toni Braxton as well as up-and-comers such as Outkast and Dido. The double-platinum success of Santana’s “Supernatural” DVD and the rapid platinum rise of the “Whitney Houston’s Greatest Hits” DVD made artists look at the format differently.

Those DVDs “have made it easier to convince artists to do anything to think a little outside the box,” Katz said. “They know we are always looking for those extras, either for the singles now or for the future. That makes them more open to having the camera running during the process, even if it’s just setting up the stage. That could be interesting to someone. It is encouraging them to do even more.”

After all, DVD sales are exploding.

According to the DVD Entertainment Group, consumers bought more than 9.8 million DVD players in 2000, including 3.5 million in December alone, with sales of DVD movies and music videos jumping 90% last year to 182 million.

“The studios and music companies are embracing DVD and all that the format has to offer,” said Steve Nickerson, president of the Los Angeles-based trade organization. “The consumer is mesmerized by the excitement that DVD brings to the home theater, and the studios and music companies are fueling their appetites by providing more DVD titles to meet the ever-growing demand.”

1,500 New Releases Expected in 2001

DVD Entertainment Group officials expect more than 1,500 new DVD releases in 2001, bringing the total number of titles available to around 10,000.

Though music-related titles are currently only a small fraction of the market, industry experts expect that to change in coming years as Sony begins to fill the enormous demand for its PlayStation2, which is a DVD player as well as a video gaming system.

“PlayStation2 changes the rules for everything,” said Arista’s Katz. “It widens the demographic of DVD owners. Now you have all these kids with the DVD hardware in their possession. You want to give them something to use as software.”

Arista plans to expand its line of DVD singles, which carry a retail price of $9.99, to help tap that market, especially with new DVDs from teen sensations Dream and Usher.

Kids, however, even more than their parents, will want something extra from their DVD music videos. Simply reformatting previously released videos to DVD, a common practice for many movies, will not be enough, especially if they are videos that fans have already seen a thousand times on MTV and VH1.

They will expect new releases to make the most of DVD’s technological advances, similar to the groundbreaking techniques used by the Beastie Boys in their “Video Anthology.” The two-DVD set, which collects all of the rappers’ videos, is packed with options, allowing viewers to choose remixes and camera angles for each video.

For example, there are 63 different ways to watch the video for “Alive.” Want to see more of the Beasties on motorbikes? No problem. Like the Moby remix better? Use it. Think there should be more footage of Brooklyn in the video? A few clicks and it’s in. And thanks to meticulous editing, the soundtrack is always synched to the video track, meaning the Beasties’ mouths match their vocals regardless of what remix is chosen.

“It was a long process, actually getting it all to work,” said the Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch in a recent AOL online chat about the DVD. “It’s always interesting to see what kind of artistic expression comes out of new technology and it will be interesting to see what people decide to make with what’s available with DVDs.”

The DVD experience has kind of soured Yauch on plain video because of the lack of interactivity.

“We could run the videos in sequence with just the stereo audio, but we wouldn’t be able to include any of the stills, remixes or outtakes footage,” Yauch said. “We may do that, but it definitely won’t be the same as the DVD.”