From Devo to Les Paul, Long-Form Videos Stage Comeback

It’s hard to believe that just a year or two ago the long-form music video was considered to be a failure. In just the last month, at least 20 major releases danced into video stores.

And joining them soon will be tapes featuring Neil Young (Tuesday), New Kids on the Block (early May), Phil Collins (late April), Neneh Cherry (May), Alice Cooper (late April), Moscow Peace Festival highlights (May), Lyle Lovett (late June), Queen (late April), the Church (early April), Barry Manilow (mid-April) and Lenny Kravitz (late April).

Among the recent releases:

From Warner Reprise: “The B-52s: 1979-1989” ($19.98), “R.E.M.: Pop Screen” ($19.98), “Lou Reed: The New York Album” ($24.98), “The Jesus and Mary Chain: Videos, 1985-1989” ($16.98).

From HBO (55 minutes and $19.99 each): “Les Paul and Friends: He Changed the Music,” “The Neville Brothers and Friends: Tell It Like It Is,” “The Legends of Rock and Roll” (Ray Charles, James Brown and Fats Domino taped at a Rome concert in the late ‘80s), and “Country Stars: A New Tradition” (live performances by Roseanne Cash, Rodney Crowell, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and others).

From PolyGram Music Video: “The Cream of Eric Clapton” ($24.95), a 75-minute compilation of footage on the great rock guitarist; “Texas: Southside” ($12.95), containing six visual interpretations of songs by a relatively new band from Scotland, not Dallas; and “Swing Out Sister: Kaleidoscope World” ($14.95), six more clips illustrating songs from the British group’s second album.

Also: “We’re All Devo” (Rhino, $19.95), “Bryan Ferry: New Town--Live in Europe” (Virgin, $19.98), “Richard Marx: Volume I” (EMI, $14.98), “Liza Minnelli: Visible Results” (CMV, $12.98), “The Sugarcubes: Live Zabor” (Elektra, $14.98), “World Rap Video Compilation, Vol. 1” (BMG, $16.98), “Kaoma: World Beat--The Lambada Videos” (CMV, $9.98) and “Hard ‘n’ Heavy, Volume 6” (MPI, $19.98).

THIS WEEK’S MOVIES

It’s a good thing there are a lot of music videos to choose from, because there isn’t much happening on the movie front this week.

The best news is that the classic 1955 film of William Inge’s play “Picnic” and the 1943 George Stevens-directed comedy “The More the Merrier” make their video debuts at a nice price ($19.95) from RCA/Columbia.

Also from RCA/Columbia is Brian DePalma’s 1989 vision of Vietnam, “Casualties of War” ($89.95, R), starring Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn, and a straight-to-video action film about terrorists, “Tripwire” ($89.95, R), starring Terence Knox and David Warner.

Other new releases: “Stepfather 2” (HBO, $89.99, R), the disappointing sequel to the black-humor horror film; the Tom Selleck flop “An Innocent Man” (Touchstone, $89.95, R); the 1989 remake of “The Masque of the Red Death” (MGM/UA, $79.95, R) and the comedy-fantasy “Queen of Hearts” (MCEG, $89.95, PG).