In years to come, when pop historians look for evidence of the state of pop music in the late 1980s and early 1990s, they could do worse than slot this slightly awe-inspiring two disc set in the DVD player. It's all there: the ridiculous hairstyles, garish design, antiseptic backdrops, clunky keyboards, self-conscious camerawork and headache-inducing editing.

Unlike many of their contemporaries, experimenting with a video technology that was still in its relative infancy, Erasure possessed a clear sense of irony, and a self-consciousness of just how literal the early videos could be. So, where Chains Of Love has lots of people suspended by, you've guessed it, chains, A Little Respect makes fun of this tendency by showing someone putting sugar into a cup of tea to the line, "I need some sweetness," and Vince Clarke taking a rather large hammer to a large porcelain heart for the line, "You break my heart."

This post-modern self-consciousness would spread like a rash through pop videos in the '90s but here it simply comes across as charming. Its musical equivalent was the duo's Abba-esque EP, all four tracks of which are represented here, including the wonderful Take A Chance On Me, which gives the boys a chance to strut their stuff dressed up as Agnetha and Frida.

With every pop video included, plus a bonus disc of live footage and promo films, this really is the ultimate Christmas present for every Erasure fan, and the ideal complement to the recently-issued Hits compilation. And while the music may have dated, and the later videos for Make Me Smile and Solsbury Hill are as insipid as the cover versions they accompanied, this really does set new standards for DVD releases of archival material.

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