The Very Best of Enya

Great CD

This vinyl is absolutely stunning. No pops are skips. The sound is impeccable.

It’s a nice CD. I love Enya.

I've waited for this DVD release seemingly forever. I had captured each video via YouTube, but you know what that's like. The combination CD and DVD is the best bargain in town. The sound quality is excellent. I wish the DVD also included the video "I Want Tomorrow," but, oh well. After listening to Enya's CDs and watching her perform in postage-stamp-sized images, I could not help but fall in love with this epitome of femininity. Enya's ethereal voice, the creativity of her music, physical beauty and graceful gestures/movements were not like anything I had ever encountered. The combination zapped what Carl Jung referred to as a man's anima. Watching the full-screen DVD brought back many of these early infatuations. I fully realize that my imagination was spurred on by the exposure to pure beauty. This is what lures many men into extramarital affairs or simply misguided relationships. The beauty of a woman will trump any man's reasoning every time. This desire of men to embrace beauty is poorly understood by both men and women. Non-cerebral males will hardly even reflect on their motivations. If anything, they may regard it as plain lust. Women view the male's wandering eye with a kind of disgust. Should the male somehow consummate his quest for beauty (however temporary), his concubine/mate will simply comprehend his actions as deliberate betrayal. Her anger will be brought to full bloom, and woe to anyone on the receiving end of this emotion. Luckily for me my "betrayal" was limited to a computer-generated voice and image of a beguiling but unknown performer. I would like to know more about Enya. I'd like to have coffee with her and explore her personality. In reality I know none of this will occur. I will never jump her bones or discover any intimate details about her existence. It's a pity because I'd have lots of questions to ask, including why she chose never to marry. Maybe someday someone will write a biography about this marvelous woman, and I'll be happy with that. I will only know Enya as a product -- a bewitching lady with a superb marketing agency. And that's okay too. I can live with my own enthrallment and simply bless the entertainer for infiltrating my heart with yearnings and joy.

I'm not sure that Enya can be defined by "Greatest Hits", though she's had a few hit singles. Certainly, the hits are here on the CD, along with some more obscure tracks. Her music is best experienced via the original albums. As for the DVD, disregard what one other reviewer said about the "Enya:A Life in Music" documentary not being included. It IS included. On the main DVD menu, go to "Extras", then click on "documentary". Having never seen an Enya interview, I was pleased, because she comes across as a very charming, down to earth, genuine person. The DVD stops 2 or 3 songs short of being a complete collection of Enya videos, which is regrettable. However, my main criticism is that there was some sloppiness during mastering which results in a half second of audio being lopped off at the end of 4 of the 13 videos, as if someone had prematurely pushed the "stop" button. I wonder if foreign releases of the DVD also have this defect. After the many years that fans on this side of the world have waited for an Enya DVD, for the mastering of this DVD to have any flaws is inexcusable. The audio is presented with a choice of stereo, Dolby surround or DTS surround. Whether this is a genuine surround mix or merely an upmix from the original stereo mixes, it is spacious sounding, and enhances the enjoyment of the videos.

In 2001, Warner Music released an Enya music videos collection on DVD everywhere but the USA. This DVD, titled Enya: The Video Collection, went out of print in Europe fast. At the time, fans of Enya in the States had minimal information on when the DVD would get a release in this country. One reason floated for why the plans for a release in the USA were scrubbed was that Nicky Ryan wanted the Enya DVD to have more than a LPCM audio track, he wanted Dolby 5.1. This new DVD has audio in LPCM, Dolby 5.1 and DTS, but this DVD took eight years to get here in altered form. What this DVD doesn't have are the videos Exile and Book of Days from the 2001 DVD, nor the documentary Enya-A Life in Music. The missing Exile is no loss, it has too many close-ups of a moody Steve Martin from the movie L.A. Story, sometimes pontificating on the meaning of life. The Enya documentary is something else, a class production that should be in the DVD, even if it is a little dated. This Very Best of DVD is mostly a quality mastering job, but there are signs of corner cutting. There are no English subtitles available, unlike the 2001 DVD. Further, on Orinoco Flow, it seems that some technician did a cheap job transcoding a PAL video master to NTSC. Playing the new DVD on my computer monitor, I see a slightly jagged border at the bottom of the frame. Playing the Orinoco Flow video I copied from my Enya laserdisc Moonshadows onto DVD, the bottom of the frame is even. That 1991 laser also came with closed captioning. This combination CD/DVD is a real bargain, having extra song tracks compared to the CD only release and having mostly crystal clear videos. The two discs come in a mini-book instead of an Amaray case or jewel box. The overhead photo of Enya on the outside box and on the minibook cover, with Enya centered in a gigantic red puffy dress, looks sort of strange, but that is no big deal. I wish the record producers had done more than color the CD a chalky bright red and the DVD an off white color with the enya logo barely visible on the CD. There is no accounting for taste. The packaging of these discs is too minimalist for me. Petty criticism aside, it is great to have these Enya videos finally available alongside a fine collection of Enya songs.

This item came quickly and was packaged well.

It has two cd's.