PARENTS BEWARE: HANSON'S AFTER THE WALLET AGAIN
the music isn't new, and there's no flow to the spliced live footage by Ben Wener, Orange County Register

Two live Hanson videos in less than a year? What are those brats thinking? Money, money, money. Your money. Your kids' allowances(which is really more of your money). And as many pounds,francs and shillings as they can convert. There really is little difference between the first Hanson video-"Tulsa,Tokyo, and the Middle of Nowhere" released last year- and the new "Road to Albertane" (Polygram), released in conjunction with the trio's first live album. The only noticible difference are the crowd are lager (and noisier) and Ike has more zits. That, and he's become more annoyingly, um,dorky, to use the right vernacular. SAME OLD SAME OLD: The rest of this hour-plus commercial is a retread. It's the same songs, from the hits (the irrepressible "MMMBop" and "Where's the Love") to the fan favorites ( "Man From Milwaukee," several more equally dreary tunes) and a bunch of major-chord-only pop in between that makes Hootie and the Blowfish sound like the Stones. The only additions to this faithful lineup are the minor-key mood-crusher "Ever Lonely" and some laughingly anemic takes on "Gimme Some Lovin", "Shake a Tail Feather",and "Good Lovin", all of them as mechanical as young Zac's rudimentary drumming. Even the behind-the-scenes footage isn't too dissimilar from the previous tape, the only big change being that the boys have their own televisions and VCRs in their bus bunks. The point of it all is to put you in the action, take you around on all 36 concerts and 25.000 miles of the Hanson's first world tour. That's fine, but as a concert video "Tulsa, Tokyo" works better, since the of its performancs comes from the show. Here, here dozens of performances are stitched together, the show never gels, feeling like so many unnecessary live clips.

JUST BEWARE: Now the retort from every Hanson fans mother: What does it matter if my kid is having fun? Can't argue with that, lady. Just trying to point out that you've probably bought this tape once, if not several times. Don't be a sucker for it again-though, like Hanson's music when played live, this will clearly fall on deaf ears.