Wynonna is known for her country singing, which started out as a duo with her Mom called ‘The Judds’. Now, who else has the surname ‘Judd’? That’s right, Ashley Judd, the actress, who has appeared in films such as Kiss the Girls, High Crimes and Double Jeopardy, and she's Wynonna’s sister.
This instalment of the Music in High Places series is a tour around Venice in Italy, and features some stunning footage of the beautiful city. Like Shawn Colvin’s trip to Bora Bora, this disc is more of a spiritual and personal journey for Wynonna, as her ancestors were originally from Northern Italy. But still, the scenery is exquisite and the music is... well let's leave that for fans to decide.
the track listing is as follows:
- New Day Dawning
- Change the World
- Somebody to Love You
- Va Pensiero
- No One Else on Earth
- My Angel is Here
- Only Love
- How Great Thou Art
- When I Reach the Place I’m Goin’
- Testify to Love
Excluding the opening titles of the show, the video is presented in a widescreen aspect of 1.85:1 that is not 16x9 enhanced.
Colours are rich and bold, showing off the colourful architecture that Venice and its surrounds is made up of. In one or two scenes the colours are a tad over-saturated, but generally they're very nice to look at. Skintones are pink and lifelike (as they should be), blacks are decent, yet not terribly solid, and shadow detail can get a little murky at times.
Being shot on digital video, there are no film-related artefacts at all. The transfer is also free from compression-related artefacts. The detail in the image is reasonably high, yet isn’t always as clear as it could be. At times the image appears slightly soft, but this isn’t necessarily a bad point, just a slight flaw in the odd one or two scenes.
In comparison to other Music in High Places discs, the video is quite poor and lacks the finer detail of what makes a good transfer.
As with all the Music in High Places discs, we are offered two audio tracks – one is Dolby Digital 5.1 and the other is 2.0.
The 2.0 track is the most ideal track to listen to, as it offers the clearest and most pure rendition of the recording. Bass levels are spot on, and dialogue is crisp and clear throughout.
The 5.1 track is based on the 2.0 track, but enhances the surrounds. The centre channel is silent, with the left and right carrying the dialogue and vocals. The subwoofer rarely gets the chance to go off. The 5.1 track sounds very murky and muffled in comparison to the 2.0 track and really lacks the definition of the stereo track.
The usual Music in High Places extra features have been included, as well as 16x9 enhanced menus.
The Behind the Scenes featurette runs for eight minutes, and features interviews with Wynonna and her band. The Getting There featurette runs for four minutes and shows footage of travelling and, well, getting there (would you have guessed?). The Location Footage featurette runs for 14 minutes and features what it advertises.
An interesting and worthwhile addition is an interview with Wynonna that runs for just over half an hour. This interview is an extended version of the 'Behind the Scenes' one which features the personal reasons behind a lot of the sentimentality of her being in Italy.
The Promo Spots run for nearly a minute and act as advertising spots for the cable television networks to advertise the show. All of the songs featured in the episode can be selected from the extra features menu in their own title with remastered audio. The audio sounds worse than the 5.1 track, but there's not much we can do about it. A six page set of Biography notes exists to give you some background on what Wynonna's been up to before this.
This is definitely one for fans. The video leaves quite a bit to be desired, and the audio could have been much nicer, and the extras are predictably Music in High Places. At least its nice to have extras included on a music release...
