411 Mania Rates the GN'R Videos

[-Rob-]

Guns N' Roses: The Videos
Posted by Marshall Slayton on 05.27.2009

411's Marshall Slayton sits down with a bucket of popcorn and watches the official Guns N' Roses videos. He's compiled and rated all of them for your viewing pleasure! Come inside and have yourself a good headbanging!

Guns N' Roses has been with me since my childhood, and I will continue to love the late 80's and early 90's rock spirit forever. I've seen these videos dozens of times, and felt it necessary to share my thoughts and feelings about them with you, dearest readers.

While most of these songs are perfect tens for me, I believe music videos either maintain your relationship with a song, or in some cases, make the song even better.

Let's see which Guns N' Roses videos fall into the latter category. Keep in mind, this is not an evaluation of the songs... just the videos.

1. Welcome To The Jungle

What's Going On?: Axl Rose gets dropped off in a city where he doesn't belong and finds himself strapped in a chair watching news footage of chaos and destruction, a la 28 Days Later.

The 411: Everything about this video screams "badass." From Axl's over-the-top hair to being strapped in a chair with open eyes, "Welcome to the Jungle" is both creepy and intense while managing to rock your socks off. How come we never hear anything this cool on the radio today?

Rating:9.5


2. Sweet Child O' Mine



What's Going On?: Shot documentary style in a large room, Guns N' Roses sing "Sweet Child O' Mine" while black-and-white footage breaks the fourth wall and shows the crew shooting the video.

The 411: The video is pretty bland as far as GN'R goes, but the song's just so damned cool, it's easy to overlook. Putting the band in an intimate setting works because the performance is ours and ours alone. Who wouldn't want a private live show from the old Guns N' Roses?

Rating: 9.0

3. Paradise City

 


What's Going On?: Guns N' Roses play in front of crowds. Large crowds. Very large crowds. Headbanging ensues.

The 411: An amazing song, but a pretty standard video. "Paradise City" shows GN'R rising to fame and gathering massive numbers at concerts, and becoming the rock gods they deserved to be. I tend to skip the video, because the song stands so well on its own. At least they didn't try to make their own representation of Paradise City ? seeing Axl and friends singing on a beach with oiled bikini women would have been clich?, so maybe live footage was the best way to go.

Rating: 8.0

4. Patience



What's Going On?: The band rehearses casually with acoustic guitars. In a hotel room, Slash covers himself with a snake while different sexy women enter his bed. Izzy takes a tray to the lobby and sits with some chatty girls.

The 411: A beautiful song with ambiguous imagery, the video evokes a feeling of isolation using the hotel surrounding as a landscape. Long hallways, naked rooms, and long camera takes provide the viewer with a sense of longing and emptiness from failed relationships. "Patience" is an unlikely single for GN'R at this point, but an excellent song regardless.

Rating:8.5

5. Don't Cry

 

What's Going On?: Axl and Slash are terrible to their women! Axl engages in a fight with his wife (and a gun) after she discovers that he's cheating on her. Slash drives his girl off a cliff, killing her -- and then solos his guitar about it afterward. Axl's inner turmoil is depicted through a series of nightmares, such as stumbling through a snowy blizzard and drowning in an endless body of water. He goes insane and dies a sad, lonely death. Lots of people attend his funeral, while his lifeless body looks up towards the heavens and reaches towards the sunlight. He is reborn as a cute, innocent wet infant.

The 411: The first truly cinematic GN'R video. There's so many ideas presented here, it's hard to keep track of them all. The imagery here is absolutely brilliant: it's hard to picture Axl's wailing at the end of the song without seeing his naked, frozen body reaching towards the sky. The mood of this video can be summed up in one word -- intense. Even the live footage on the skyscraper with helicopters circling has intensity stamped all over it. A timeless video, and one of their best, "Don't Cry" is a top-quality production which all music videos should strive to achieve. It tells an amazing story while successfully forcing your ass out the door to buy the CD.

Rating: 10.0

6. Live and Let Die




What's Going On?: More live footage, only in the dark with strobe lights. An automated Powerpoint Presentation with random black-and-white photos is superimposed over the live footage.

The 411: I would have loved to have seen a GN'R version of a James Bond opening credits sequence, so this is, sadly, a missed opportunity for me. However, this live footage is better than the stuff shot for "Paradise City." Something about seeing the band in the dark with flashing lights ? and better editing - makes it much more intense.

Rating: 8.5

7. November Rain



What's Going On?: Axl Rose is the luckiest man in the world. He's marrying the woman of his dreams with plenty of guests in attendance. At the dinner party, it begins a heavy downpour on the joyous occasion, and everyone runs for cover. Just as quickly as the celebration ends, the wife mysteriously passes away, and a sorrowful Axl attends her funeral ? with the same guests who attended the wedding.

The 411: What else needs to be said about November Rain? It's a masterpiece. And dare I say, one of the greatest videos ever made. Based on the short story "Without You" by Del James, "November Rain" isn't so much a music video ? it's a miniature motion picture. The cinematography is beautiful, the song is haunting, the symphony hall performance is epic, and the story makes for one of the most depressing and effective videos you will ever watch. One of the few examples where an excellent song is made even better by a flawless visual counterpart.

Rating: 10.0

[-Rob-]

(part 2)

8. Yesterdays



What's Going On?: Convert the" Sweet Child O' Mine" video to black-and-white, put some "Live and Let Die" pictures in, and you've got the video for "Yesterdays."

The 411: A great song, but with this video, the guys are repeating themselves. "Sweet Child O' Mine" did the ?intimate performance' feel a little better. On the upside, Axl Rose doesn't look so bad during the black-and-white close-ups.

Rating: 6.0

9. The Garden



What's Going On?: Various shots of all aspects of New York City, in both black-and-white and color. The band members make an appearance briefly. Alice Cooper has guest vocals on this track, but he's nowhere to be found. The "warped" camera effect is used to ad nauseum.

The 411: It's very difficult to tell what this video is about. My guess is that it's about a modern day Garden of Eden, which, according to this video, translates to our New York City. But even the Garden of Eden has dark elements to it: the apple tree in the bible could easily translate to the strip club here. Even Alice Cooper's vocals have a sinister quality to them. Despite the overuse of the "warp" effect, the video puts you into a hypnotic state of mind with its beautiful images.

Rating: 9.0

10. Dead Horse


 
What's Going On?: More live footage. Worth mentioning: Slash wears a sombrero. Axl dons a "St. Louis Sucks!" shirt, and he uses a "helmet cam" for unique camera angles. The video ends with an instant replay.

The 411: Eh. We've seen it all before. The video is nothing special. The helmet camera is a neat idea, as is using footage from a concert JumboTron. But otherwise, there's nothing here that sticks out as unique. Except for the kickass band.

Rating:5.0

11. Garden of Eden

 

What's Going On?: A one-take shot of a Guns N' Roses performance in a room, using a fisheye lens and lots of lights. Words follow on the screen like Sesame Street, but good luck trying to keep up with them ? Axl's too quick.

The 411: The video plays like a gimmick. An accelerated one-take shot of this song proves impressive in terms of choreography, but little in terms of entertainment. It's incredibly annoying (and a bit creepy) for Axl to be staring us in the face the entire time ? at least Slash has the decency to look away when it's his turn to approach the camera. Axl, on the other hand, is so close to us, we can smell his breath.

Rating: 6.0

12. Estranged




What's Going On?: A SWAT team enters Axl's empty mansion as he lays lifeless on the floor. During a flashback, Axl is escorted off the same property, looking at his child before being forced in a limousine. Definitions for the words "estranged," "Illusion," and "disillusion" grace the bottom of the screen, suggesting that he is going through a bitter divorce. Towards the end of the video, Axl leaps from an oil tanker into the ocean as a suicide attempt, but is rescued by a group of bottlenose dolphins who carry him to safety. The video features one of the coolest Slash moments ever: he rises from the ocean and plays a guitar solo on the unfolding water ? like Jesus! (But with a guitar.)

The 411: Like "Don't Cry" and "November Rain" before it, "Estranged" is what happens when you take a decent director, give him an adequate budget, and let him work with one of the coolest rock n' roll bands in the world. This video is a work of art... dolphins leap from billboards, Slash shreds his guitar while the ground moves underneath him, and Axl gets an oil tank all to himself. Some refer to these three expensive videos as an unofficial "trilogy." They go together because they're all exceptional theatrical-quality films. If only MTV had as much vision as this now.

Rating: 10.0

13. Since I Don't Have You




What's Going On?: The last Guns N' Roses video. Gary Oldman plays the devil (!) in this LSD-inspired video from The Spaghetti Incident!. Satan teases Axl with a hot girl and a pair of lesbians kissing by a fire, all while roasting him on a spit. The dark lord isn't a good driver, either. He leaves Axl hanging off a cliff, and lets him plummet to the waters beneath him.

The 411: It's a mindfuck, for sure. Gary Oldman is a welcome addition to any project, and he makes a great devil here. At least when Guns N' Roses was fading out, they decided to make a video which highlighted their bizarre, fun side. This video is both twisted and hilarious all at once, and a good way for the band to go out.

Rating: 7.5

14. You Could Be Mine



What's Going On?: Somehow, a Guns N' Roses concert snuck its way into this full-blown trailer for Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Arnold Schwarzenegger makes his way through a GN'R moshpit very easily, shotgun in hand. (I guess he took care of the security team on the way in.) After analyzing Axl Rose with his CPU, the T-800 decides that killing the band would be "a waste of ammo."

The 411: A fun piece of product placement, this hit single from Terminator 2 also happens to be the only good thing about Terminator: Salvation. (The song has a brief appearance in one scene.) This video is pure merchandising nostalgia, and most bands would kill to have Arnold in their video, wouldn't they? It's cheesy, absolutely ? but you can't help feeling thrilled when Axl and the Governator go face-to-face during the height of their careers.

Rating: 8.5

I'll let Beavis and Butt-Head have the last word:

[jacdaniel]

Garden of Eden deserves a better rating!!!

Insane video! 

[-Rob-]

Garden of Eden deserves a better rating!!!

Insane video! 

I was glad to see 'The Garden' got a rating of 9.

I always thought it was a pretty badass video.

Also, it's cool to see 'NR' is still being hailed as one of the best videos of all time. I remember being young watching that and thinking how fucking cool those guys are.

[Albert S Miller]

#4 Patience, he refers to Izzy taking the tray to the lobby and sits with some chatty girls.  Wasn't that Duff taking the tray to the lobby in a white jacket where he delivers said tray to the front desk, and then it is Steven who is sitting at the end of the couch with his drumsticks, supposedly chatting with the ladies on the end of the couch, but he actually seems board with the situation, it is the girls doing the chatting.

[lynn1961]

^^ You're right.  Although it's been a little while since I've seen the video, that's the way I remember it too. 

Fun read, anyway.  Thanks, Rob, for finding that!   

[estebanf]

Well, they put the Yesterdays video very down; and I think it's the best of them all.

[-Rob-]

Well, they put the Yesterdays video very down; and I think it's the best of them all.

I'm not sure if it's the best, but it probably is the most reminiscent. Kind of sad when it shows those old photos of guys who didn't make it to that period.

[King Axl]

The video for "Estranged" is an exercise in self-indulgence, and completely falls apart at the end.

The "Axl" branded Converse sneakers is a prime example of how becoming rich and famous changes a person, and the shots of Axl swimming with dolphins are just plain silly.

Only the "Since I Don't Have You" video is worse.

[Albert S Miller]

The video for "Estranged" is an exercise in self-indulgence, and completely falls apart at the end.

The "Axl" branded Converse sneakers is a prime example of how becoming rich and famous changes a person, and the shots of Axl swimming with dolphins are just plain silly.

Only the "Since I Don't Have You" video is worse.

Axl chose the dolphins to represent a sense of peace, I can't seem to find that silly, but I do find it to be genious myself .

[Six Strings]

The video for "Estranged" is an exercise in self-indulgence, and completely falls apart at the end.

The "Axl" branded Converse sneakers is a prime example of how becoming rich and famous changes a person, and the shots of Axl swimming with dolphins are just plain silly.

Only the "Since I Don't Have You" video is worse.

Man, you're gotta be kiddin'...

[Scabbie]

Garden of Eden was one of my favorites. Simple, quirky and in your face. Couldn't sing along to it though!

[Layne Staley's Sunglasses]

Well, they put the Yesterdays video very down; and I think it's the best of them all.

Word.

I think my least favorite would have to be The Garden.  I LOVE the song, and that video captures what life was like in the early 90's.  Good cinematography for sure, but I would have liked to have seen more of the band.  We only see Axl for 3 seconds on the subway?