I've been a Texas fan since their debut album 'Southside' came out in 1989 and have collected virtually everything they ever released since then.
Although there is only one official Texas laserdisc available, it is a good one.
It was a Japanese video compilation of all of the music videos from 'Southside' along with 2 extra live tracks recorded at Wembley:
Texas: Southside (1989) [VALP-3231]
The disc itself is in CAV format. Here is the actual track listing:
4 of the tracks (Thrill Has Gone, Everyday Now, Future Is Promises and Fool For Love) remain unreleased on all later formats to this day.
Southside sold really well and 'I Don't Want a Lover' became their trademark single.
Not surprisingly there are a number of promo music laserdiscs from this era that feature this classic track such as these 2 PAL LDs:
Diamond Time: Praxis 10.89.1 [10.89.1]Diamond Time: 05.92.01 [05.92.01]
The next Texas album 'Mothers Heaven' came out in 1991. For me it was a long wait but well worth it. This is actually my favourite Texas album yet sadly it never got the commercial recognition it deserved. In my opinion it contains one of the band's strongest singles they ever released - 'Why Believe In You' with its soaring vocals, beautiful guitar work and organ/piano sections. Even the percussion was amazing. It was the perfect single yet it didn't actually chart!
Thankfully there is a little 8" laserjuke LD which captures this epic track in all its glory:
Laser Juke: Music Compilation Series [12.23.11]
The picture quality of this track is amazing on LD compared with the quality I've seen circulating online.
As with some of the other less successful Texas tracks 'Why Believe In You' has never been re-issued on DVD to date. I hope someday all of their back catalogue will get the Deluxe CD/DVD treatment to address this anomaly. I'd love to hear from anyone else who has any of the other Texas videos from the Mothers Heaven album on laserdisc - specifically the title track 'Mothers Heaven', 'In My Heart', or 'Alone With You' - I'm sure they do exist. In fact I could swear about 3-4 years ago I was bidding on some French PAL LDs featuring Texas from this period but got outbid. Someone else must have been a Texas fan as they went for big money!!
The three other singles from Mothers Heaven met a similar fate in terms of commercial success which probably explains why they are so hard to track down these days on any format. I did however manage to locate the remix of 'Alone With You' video on a Fontana promo VHS tape:
Their third album 'Ricks Road' came out in 1993 and was targeted at the US market. It was a bit more successful than Mothers Heaven in that most of the singles charted but it didn't achieve the success of their debut album. A promotional only VHS tape was however released in the US featuring all 5 videos from the album:
This VHS is again fairly tough to find these days, especially in the condition shown above as it was never available for sale to the public and only circulated for promotional purposes. Three of the videos (Fade Away, You Owe It All To Me and So Called Friend) have never been released on DVD to date. I guess if this album had been a bit more successful there might have been a laserdisc released which would probably have looked something like this.......
Pity this doesn't exist. That is just the LP vinyl edition of the album placed alongside a laserdisc!
Well I guess I can dream on but things really improved for Texas over the next few years as their hard work started to pay off.
Their 'White on Blonde' album came out in 1997 and was a massive success spawning 4 hit singles. It was actually one of the best selling albums of that year in the UK.
'The Hush' album followed in quick succession in 1999 and was also very successful.
Although this was quite late in relation to laserdisc production, there are lots of promo music LDs from this era featuring tracks from both of these albums:
ET/VideoLink Wet Seal April 1998: Reel #51 [---]Pioneer Promotional Music Videos - The Box: Disc 170 [16-412]Diamond Time: 12.39.05 [12.39.05]Laser Juke: Music Compilation Series [11.39.09]Laser Juke: Music Compilation Series [11.43.05]Laser Juke: Music Compilation Series [12.72.02]Pioneer Promotional Music Videos: Jukebox Network: Disc 9 (1997) [09-375]
Worthy of particular note is The Box UK Disc #138 which includes a live version of 'Say what you want' by Texas featuring Method Man.
I've still to enter this one in LDDB.com as it seems to be missing. Virtually all of the videos from both these albums are available on laserdisc in some form or other.
Now you are probably thinking that this is the end of story as far as Texas laserdiscs are concerned. Well you'd be wrong!
Other folks on this forum have already mentioned that laserjuke 8" laserdiscs were some of the last LDs ever released and they were right.
I've several 8" laserjukes which feature 'Inner Smile' from their Greatest Hits album released in 2000 and also the remix of 'Don't Want a Lover' that was released in summer 2001:
Laser Juke: Music Compilation Series [12.72.02]Laser Juke: Music Compilation Series [13.49.08]
In 2001 Texas released a live in Paris concert DVD which also included the videos for their 12 greatest hits. Since then they have released 3 more albums and in the mid 2000's when DVD singles were all the rage most of the later videos can be easily picked up such as 'Carnival Girl', 'Getaway', 'Can't Resist' and 'Sleep' etc:
So if you want to fill the gaps in your Texas video collection you can with a combination of laserdiscs, VHS and the later DVD singles!
Time to put 'Why Believe In You' back in the laserdisc player for another spin. I never tire of Sharleen Spiteri!
Thanks list
