Guns N' Roses: Welcome to the Videos

Here's a baker's dozen of Guns N' Roses' most explosive and memorable music videos from 1987 to 1993, and what a lesson they provide in the early evolution of visual style on MTV. Looking back, it seems that Guns N' Roses embraced almost every "type" of music video setting: "Welcome to the Jungle," for instance, finds rapid images of the band's stage performance interspersed with a semi-narrative featuring Axl Rose as a newcomer to the big bad city. "Paradise City" is set against an arena sound check, while "Sweet Child O' Mine" is structured around the now-threadbare idea of a video documentary about a video production. A couple of obsessive themes emerge from this anthology, the starkest involving love and watery deaths ("Don't Cry" and "November Rain"). Most interesting is the opiate-like distortions of "The Garden" and the surreal "Since I Don't Have You," starring Gary Oldman as a grinning devil. Unfortunately, however, unless you happen to be a diehard GNR fan, this extra-less music video rehash, presented in Dolby Digital stereo, is going to seem pretty dated. Optional. Aud: P. (T. Keogh)