Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Unlike Classic Albums, the Under Review DVD series relies on experts rather than the artists themselves to dissect historic recordings. The low-rent approach pays unexpectedly hilarious dividends on this analysis of AC/DC’s riff-crazed classic. From the tribute band guitarist, an Angus Young look-alike complete with schoolboy cap, to the portly Aussie rock critic who, unblinkingly, calls the band’s rampant sexism “affable bloke-ishness,” it’s a metal-head’s dream, like something straight out of Spinal Tap.

He’s sung everything from reggae to Gershwin, but here Nelson sticks to mostly country-blues—with a just a hint of gospel. Working with prolific young rocker Ryan Adams, who produced this fine collection, the pigtailed septuagenarian tackles Adams’ moody “Blue Hotel,” Gram Parsons’ heartbreaking “$1000 Wedding” and Leonard Cohen’s classic “Hallelujah.” But the country legend also revisits a few classics of his own, like “Back to Earth” and “Sad Songs & Waltzes”—something he doesn’t do often enough.

After yet another legal fallout with songwriter Jim Steinman, Meat Loaf was forced to turn to Mötley Crüe’s Nikki Sixx, producer Desmond Child and others for most of the material on the latest Bat installment. Consequently, there’s a surplus of histrionic heavy-metal numbers and an absence of Steinman’s usual arena-opera epics. Apart from the anthemic rocker “Bad for Good” and the power ballad “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now,” this sequel—a turkey of truly monstrous proportions—simply sucks the big one.