With 47 of Madonna’s videos on this two disc package, Celebration: The Video Collection should be another shining moment in Madonna’s already stellar career, but watching through the videos it is quite clear to see that the same care that was put into the complimenting CD was not put into this release. From the terrifying artwork by Mr. Brainwash to the poor picture quality of the videos, the entire package screams budget release, and as Madonna’s last release through Warner, it is very disappointing.

Warner have tooted their trumpets long and hard claiming that the set has been remastered from the original tapes, but the fact remains that some of these videos look atrocious. Obviously, one might expect the 80s and some of the 90s material to really show their age, but to see Madonna’s recent material in lower quality on a retail DVD than you could find on YouTube at the moment is ridiculous. Even when we look at the video for Celebration, a video which is all of two months old, we see a clip that is so full of digital artefacts and blocking, making anyone watching the video on a screen any bigger than 32” really struggle.

On top of this, you will find that all widescreen videos are also encoded incorrectly. For those of us that have widescreen televisions, you’ll be greeted with lovely black bars framing the entire image because someone at Warner decided not to anamorphically enhance any of the videos. In 2009, with DVD now technically an old video format, there is no excuse for studios to be this lax with their video encodes.

But the true low point of this collection is watching the video for I Want You with Massive Attack from Something to Remember. The video is so subtle and understated, but you’ll struggle to notice as the transfer is probably the worst I have ever seen on any retail DVD. To add insult to injury, Warner claims that Justify My Love is a new edit of the video with unseen footage. Funnily enough, this “unseen footage” seems to be a lovely black rectangle that covers the naked breasts of a woman. This censorship seems to be a complete juxtaposition of what the video for Justify My Love stands for. This same cursed black box makes another guest appearance in the Erotica video, even though Warner claimed that the video was uncensored.

As harsh as I’ve been, there are some good moments on the set. Although the transfer can be woeful at times, some of the videos that are included on the set remind us of how great Madonna’s work really can be. Videos like Frozen, Hung Up, Vogue, Hollywood and Express Yourself are all some of the best videos that have been put to film, so it is great to see them all available in a retail collection. It is just a shame that American Life, the best video that Madonna filmed this decade isn’t included.

As a career encompassing collection, Celebration: The Video Collection is seriously subpar. The omission of some videos, especially American Life in any shape or form, poor 5.1 sound mixing, censoring the videos for Justify My Love and Erotica, atrocious picture quality making some videos nearly unwatchable and the lack of a HD release all point to Celebration: The Video Collection being a major disappointment. There are some videos that do look better than most, but the fact remains that the negatives far outweigh the positives. I’d suggest that rather than purchasing this set, you stick with streaming the videos over YouTube; the quality is more than likely going to be better.

Celebration: The Video Collection is in stores now.

Watch American Life here:

Watch Hung Up here: