UK Mall 1 - Enya - The Enya Collection

Ignore all the sales pitches about this being comprehensive - it's not. Missing are the videos for Enya's debut single 'I Want Tomorrow', 'Marble Halls' and 'Book of Days'; the latter song is here, but in the form of her appearance on the BBC's Top of the Pops series - this in itself isn't as bad as it may appear, though, for the BoD video is marred by the inclusion of scenes from the rather embarrassing Cruise/Kidman film 'Far and Away': thus, instead of having Tom Cruise pop up at inopportune moments, we're treated to what became Enya's signature set for TotP - the lady herself sat at a piano, lip-synching, roses strewn across it and the stage, instrumentalists (in this case a couple of cellists, dressed in white) off to the side, and various spotlights flashing back and forth. The only bad thing to not having the 'BoD' promo video, aside from a collectors point-of-view, is that the same animation techniques used in 'Carribean Blue' are also used in 'BoD', and from that perspective it's annoying to not be able to appreciate the two together.

Of the other surprises on the video, the most immediately jaw-dropping is that of the inclusion of 'How Can I Keep From Singing' - and it could also explain the absence of 'Marble Halls', given that, from what I've read, the videos for the 2 songs are identical. Unfortunately, the video is visually unappealing, bordering on the trite, containing as it does scenes of Enya walking around a ruined church/abbey, miming to the song, intercut with footage of the Gulf War ending, various World Leaders doing Good Things, etc. Appropriate to the song though it may be, it sits incongruously between the unreal 'Carribean Blue', and the showy 'BoD' set.

Of the remainder of the videos, 'The Celts' is nice enough, though it shares an unwelcome similarity to 'Storms in Africa', inasmuch as a winsome child gives a very pleading look to Enya at one point, giving the impression that Enya is akin to some Goddess who is here to save us all (though at least in 'The Celts' is fits the 'story' better); 'Only Time' is here shown in it's original cut from November 2000, not the 'Sweet November' version; and here, at last, is the video for 'Wild Child' - both this and 'Only Time' were directed by Graham Fink, and the rapport that was created on the set of 'Only Time' has been cemented here: Enya looks happy (surely a prerequisite to creating a video to match the song's bounciness), moving through a series of elaborate sets, beautifully edited together, with such glorious colours (indeed, all the colours of the rainbow, surely). Before each of the videos, a promotional picture of Enya is displayed, with the song's title super-imposed on top, and the inside of the case (a glossy cardboard affair) lists the directors and producers below their respective videos.

Picture quality is very good, bearing in mind it's VHS - there's a certain amount of graininess to be seen, especially on dark colours, but nothing too off-putting. Also, the videos are shown in their original aspect ratios - meaning 'Orinoco Flow', the oldest here, is full screen 4:3, whilst the newer videos ('Only Time' 'Wild Child') are in what appears to be panoramic widescreen, 2.35:1.

The extras are of differing value. The 'Making of...Carribean Blue', as befits probably the most technically advanced of her videos from the 80s/90s, is a genuinely interesting piece of work, incorporating interviews with the art director, animators and casting director in its short running time to give a picture of how and why it was done as it was. The 'Only Time' making of, disappointingly, is rather more formulaic - not really going beyond a simple promotional exercise; it is, though, the one that features the most shots of Enya talking to the camera, which is it's big selling point. On that theme, 'A life in Music', the 15 minute or-so documentary, is hard to fathom - though it features Enya, Roma and Nicky, all talking about the career of the Enya Trinity, it really doesn't offer anything new (the split with Clannad, for example, is glossed over), nor is there anything shockingly new; in short, it gives the idea that this is simply yet another promotional exercise, and though that is undoubtedly what it is, it would be nice for it to not be quite so overt about it. Having said all that, it would take a heartless person indeed to not smile as Enya recounts a story of a postman who, passing by a photo-shoot which she was attending to, remarked that he had heard, and liked, a song that he heard the previous night - called 'Orinoco Flow'.