Monday, April 18, 2016

A new Rose

So the worst-kept secret in rock is out: Axl Rose is the new frontman for AC/DC. Following Brian Johnson's apparently unceremonious ousting, the Guns 'N' Roses vocalist has stepped into the breach, meaning that the famously indolent singer is now fronting not one but two active concerns. To mark the announcement, Angus Young joined Guns 'N' Roses on stage at Coachella for renditions of a couple of AC/DC songs, 'Whole Lotta Rosie' and 'Riff Raff'.

Meanwhile, fellow Coachella performers LCD Soundsystem - themselves staging what not so long ago would have been considered an improbable comeback - paid tribute to Axl Rose's original crew by dropping a chunk of 'November Rain' into the middle of 'New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down', as well as covering David Bowie's 'Heroes' to good effect. A new LP, their fourth, is scheduled to drop later in the year.

Back to 'November Rain', though: the video trilogy comprising it, 'Don't Cry' and 'Estranged' has been celebrated by Pitchfork's Ryan Dombal, who lauds the videos' "magnificent excess". They had certainly come an awfully long way from Appetite For Destruction by this point.

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