Tina Turner: Private Dancer Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		2.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		4.0

Tina Turner: Private Dancer Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 16, 2025

Warner Music Group and its associated imprints have been offering hi res audio fans a veritable field day recently, so much so that I actually made Audio Blu-ray my Number 1 pick on my Top Ten list last year, and cited WMG, Rhino and other related labels like Parlophone (as well as a number of other niche companies like 2L) as a prime reason why. In that regard, there's both good news and bad news about Private Dancer. While this set does offer a Blu-ray disc, always a reason to celebrate, unfortunately there is not an audio Blu-ray offering his res audio of the actual album. Instead, the Blu-ray offers a concert performance culled from Turner's tour to promote the album, as well as a handful of music videos. That said, this is a rather extravagantly packaged release that also has a bevy of CD content, as detailed below.

The Blu-ray disc offers the following content:

PRIVATE DANCER TOUR - LIVE FROM NEC, BIRMINGHAM 1984

• 1. Show Some Respect
• 2. I Might Have Been Queen
• 3. What's Love Got To Do With It
• 4. I Can't Stand The Rain
• 5. Better Be Good To Me
• 6. Private Dancer
• 7. Let's Stay Together
• 8. Help
• 9. It's Only Love (Feat. Bryan Adams)
• 10. Tonight (Feat. David Bowie)
• 11. Let's Dance (Feat. David Bowie)

PROMO VIDEOS

• 1. Let's Stay Together (restored from original 16mm film)
• 2. Help
• 3. What's Love Got to Do With It (Color version)
• 4. What's Love Got to Do With It (B/W version)
• 5. Better Be Good to Me
• 6. Private Dancer (Full length version) (restored from original 35mm film)
• 7. Private Dancer (restored from original 35mm film)
• 8. Show Some Respect

Tina Turner: Private Dancer Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: Screenshots 1 through 9 are from the live concert. Screenshots 10 through 19 are from the promo videos.

Tina Turner: Private Dancer offers a Blu-ray disc featuring both a live concert video and additional music videos, all offered with AVC encoded 1080i transfers in 1.32:1. These are obvious upscales and dealing first with the live performance side of things the quality is probably at least marginally better than, say, some of the seemingly endless Rolling Stones upscales that Eagle Rock Entertainment offered through the years. The palette is decently suffused, and in the few relatively stationary moments when close-ups are featured, detail levels are at least acceptable. A lot of the more frenetic stage activity can be littered with combing artifacts and detail levels are frankly kind of fuzzy in some of the wider framings. Quality is a bit more variant with regard to the music videos, perhaps due in part to different source elements as outlined above. There is still an undeniable "video" look to a lot of the offerings, with smeary detail levels at times.

Tina Turner: Private Dancer Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Blu-ray disc features LPCM 2.0 audio which provides a solid listening experience for both the live material and probably especially the music videos, where I'm assuming the soundtracks were ported over from the original recordings (with the exception of some live videos). The live concert performance offers generally appealing mix levels, though I occasionally thought vocals (including backups) were slightly overwhelmed by the instrumental forces. The live recording of course also has at least some audience noise competing with the actual performances at times. The music videos all sport nicely vibrant tracks.

Tina Turner: Private Dancer Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

With an understanding that I'm assuming most readers of this site are going to consider the Blu-ray the "main event", I'm listing the contents of the other discs as supplements, and then will continue below with more information about the packaging and non disc swag. The disc contents are as follows:

CD1 – PRIVATE DANCER (2015 REMASTER)

• 1. I Might Have Been Queen
• 2. What's Love Got To Do With It
• 3. Show Some Respect
• 4. I Can't Stand The Rain
• 5. Private Dancer
• 6. Let's Stay Together
• 7. Better Be Good To Me
• 8. Steel Claw
• 9. Help
• 10. 1984

CD2 – B-SIDES, SINGLE EDITS AND EXTENDED VERSIONS

B-Sides:

• 1. I Write A Letter
• 2. Rock 'n' Roll Widow
• 3. Don't Rush the Good Things
• 4. When I Was Young
• 5. Keep Your Hands Off My Baby

Single Edits:

• 6. Let's Stay Together
• 7. Help
• 8. Better Be Good To Me
• 9. Private Dancer

Extended Versions:

• 10. What's Love Got to Do With It
• 11. Better Be Good To Me
• 12. I Can't Stand the Rain
• 13. Show Some Respect

CD3 – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED & RARE TRACKS PLUS OTHER SINGLES

Previously Unreleased & Rare Tracks:

• 1. Hot For You Baby*
• 2. Let's Stay Together (Alternative Radio Mix, 1983)
• 3. Let's Stay Together (TV Instrumental)*
• 4. What's Love Got to Do With It (Dub Mix)*
• 5. Private Dancer (Sterling Version)
• 6. Total Control

Non-Album Singles:

• 7. Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today) (with BEF) - Remix
• 8. We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome) (Single Edit)
• 9. One of the Living (Single Remix)
• 10. We Don't Need Another Hero (Extended Mix)
• 11. One of the Living (Special Club Mix)
• 12. We Don't Need Another Hero (Dub Version)
• 13. One of the Living (Dub version)

CD4 – WORLD TOUR '84 - LIVE AT PARK WEST, CHICAGO - AUGUST 2ND 1984*

• 1. Let's Pretend We're Married
• 2. Show Some Respect
• 3. I Might Have Been Queen
• 4. River Deep, Mountain High
• 5. Nutbush City Limits
• 6. What's Love Got to Do With It
• 7. I Can't Stand the Rain
• 8. Better Be Good to Me
• 9. Private Dancer
• 10. Let's Stay Together
• 11. Help
• 12. Proud Mary
• 13. Legs

CD5 – PRIVATE DANCER TOUR - LIVE FROM NEC, BIRMINGHAM 1984

• 1. Show Some Respect
• 2. I Might Have Been Queen
• 3. What's Love Got To Do With It
• 4. I Can't Stand The Rain
• 5. Better Be Good To Me
• 6. Private Dancer
• 7. Let's Stay Together
• 8. Help
• 9. It's Only Love (Feat. Bryan Adams)
• 10. Tonight (Feat. David Bowie)
• 11. Let's Dance (Feat. David Bowie)

*Previously Unreleased

Parlophone has packaged this release quite handsomely. A slipbox measuring approximately 5 1/2" square by approximately 1" deep holds all of the CD and Blu-rays, all in mini cardboard sleeves (the first two CDs are in the equivalent of a gatefold, as are the CD and Blu-ray offering the live performances). An artcard featuring a nice close-up of Tina in color on the front and several black and white proofs on the back is also enclosed. Finally, a really nice insert booklet has some great writing, nice stills and credits for all the tracks on all the discs.

Tina Turner: Private Dancer Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Parlophone would have hit this thing out of the veritable ballpark if they had included a hi res audio Blu-ray of the album, which still remains one of Tina Turner's most singular achievements. The Blu-ray offered here has obviously upscaled video and no surround audio option, but both the live concert and the music videos offer a nice time capsule of an amazing time in Turner's long and venerable career. That said, it may in fact be those "other" discs in this package which warrant the most attention, and the CDs are a treasure trove of rarities and lesser heard material. Taken as a whole and with caveats noted, Highly recommended.