Words by Emma Jones and Amy Heycock
Super Bowl 50. What a time to be alive. For those of us who might not be watching for the football here is a list of the best moments that have nothing to do with the sport.
Lady Gaga and Star Spangled Banner
Before Coldplay and the gang took the stage at half time, Lady Gaga opened the Super Bowl with the Star Spangled Banner. Between her Oscars performance last year and this, Gaga seems to be on a mission to prove to everyone she actually has some pretty nice pipes and is a #serious singer, and she’s doing a really great job at it. However, she also did do a pretty threatening hand gesture at the end… Was she just threatening me? Fine, you’re the best Lady Gaga.
Coldplay opening for Beyoncé
The half time show was advertised as Coldplay performing with special guests, and began in true Coldplay style; Chris Martin singing the opening of Yellow whilst the crowd runs around him. He’s a man of the people! The first half of the performance was a medley of Coldplay classics – Viva La Vida, Paradise, and the screams of fans as they desperately try to keep their grip on front man Martin. Why they were putting so much energy when we all knew Beyoncé was coming out soon is beyond me though.
Beyoncé nearly falling over but recovering – like Beyoncé
There was a lot of hype around Beyoncé and Bruno Mars being guest performers this year. Mark Ronson on the decks and friends assisted Bruno in an all leather rendition of Uptown Funk. Beyoncé appeared as only Beyoncé could – amongst a army of dancers and flames. Then something crazy happened Beyoncé almost fell over though, you probably didn’t notice because she recovered like the queen she is.
Both Beyoncé and Bruno Mars eclipsing Coldplay
By the end, you’d be forgiven for totally forgetting that this was actually Coldplay’s show, until Chris Martin wedged himself between what could have been a dance off between the two actual stars. Sorry if you’re a Coldplay fan, but it seems that no one passed that memo onto Bey and Mars. The Coldplay lyric “I used to rule the world” has never sounded more fitting. The jury has made a decision Chris you are this year’s left shark.
Image via Tumblr
Honourable mention: Taraji P. Henson
Whilst it’s not actually apart of the half time show, the real MVP from this year’s Super Bowl has to be Empire actress Taraji Henson’s tweet where she may or may not have thought she was watching Maroon 5. Big ups to Coldplay for managing to get someone to like Maroon 5. Taraji deleted her tweet but it will always live on through the magic of screenshots.
If you still haven’t seen it yet, you can catch the full performance below.
Main image via Stereogum
One silver lining out of the tragic passing of rock and roll icon David Bowie a little over a week ago was the absolute outpouring of fond memories and incredible experiences of the Star Man subsequently shared by so many of his friends and peers in the music industry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-JqH1M4Ya8
One of the more heartwarmingly hilarious of these personal stories comes today from Coldplay, a band who often find themselves the punchline of a whole lot of jokes. You have to give it to them for their frank honesty and their willingness to take the piss out of themselves here though, after drummer Will Champion revealed the story behind that one time David Bowie swiped emphatically left on a potential collaboration between the two artists.
Speaking to NME, Champion recalled a time when Coldplay had contacted Bowie in the hope that he would be amenable to recording some vocals on one of their forthcoming songs. Bowie’s reply of ‘It’s not a very good song, is it?’ was the most cutting rejection made all the more hilarious by its sheer politeness. Try to read it in any other voice but Bowie’s, you just can’t.
Coldplay had no hard feelings back then and still don’t to this day, Champion applauding Bowie’s high standards. “He was very discerning, he wouldn’t just put his name to anything. I’ll give him credit for that!”. One look at Bowie’s track record of collaborations should attest to that, the icon having worked with fellow rock and roll royalty like Madonna, Brian Eno, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, John Lennon and most unforgettably with Queen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a01QQZyl-_I
He wasn’t one to shy away from collaborating with younger acts who looked up to him as an idol and an inspiration though, in recent years collaborating with people like Arcade Fire, TV On The Radio and James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6c9Ejfu-iU
Say what you will about Coldplay and their music, but we thank them for sharing this, another fantastic story of a man larger than life.
Read our own tribute to David Bowie here.
Image from Mashable.com
Coldplay’s Chris Martin has found himself in a lawsuit after allegedly “intentionally” hitting a paparazzo with his Jeep. The alleged incident occurred back in January when Martin was leaving a restaurant in Santa Monica, California when the photographer was trying to take pictures of Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow, who was also in the car as well as their children.
According to NME, TMZ says photographer Richard Terry has filed charges against Martin, saying he “intentionally turned his wheel sharply to the right, causing the jeep to jump the sidewalk and hit Terry.” He also accuses him of “a significant history of repeated and ongoing violent acts against entertainment news people”.
E Online reports that Terry is said to have “permanent and serious injuries” both physically and mentally and believes the incident was “intentional, malicious and oppressive”.
Many other celebrities have been sued by photographers, such as Kayne West, Justin Bieber and Adele, and whilst we can try to empathise with how annoying this part of celebrity life must be, trying to run someone over with your car is just a little bit too much, don’t you think? The band are also about to embark on a new tour, and whilst that is still going ahead, criminal charges obviously aren’t desirable at this point. Something tells us no amount of sombre pop songs will get Martin out of this any time soon!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtXby3twMmI]
The inevitable teaser trailer for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 has just come out and we are as stoked as any Hunger Games fans to see what the final installation has in store for us.
The eternal struggle between Katniss and President Snow continues in the finale of the epic film series, which features an all ensemble cast of actors like Jennifer Lawrence, Julianne Moore, Liam Hemsworth and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. This last instalment of the franchise will also feature Game of Thrones actress Gwendoline Christie, who will appear as Commander Lyme.
But just as good as the film and franchise itself is the epic and custom-made soundtracks that the film series has spawned over its run, including the likes of Taylor Swift, Arcade Fire, Maroon 5, Coldplay, Sia, Phantogram, Charli XCX, Bat for Lashes and CHVRCHES.
Mockingjay – Part 1 earned praise for its especially excellent soundtrack – one curated by non other than Lorde herself, whose hit Yellow Flicker Beat peaked at 34 on the Billboard Hot 100. The New Zealander helped to assemble an all-star collection of singers to help create the soundtrack.
Even Jennifer Lawrence’s surprise hit The Hanging Tree (as sung by Katniss in the film) was added to the extended version of the soundtrack. Hell, even Kanye West got on board, remixing (or reworking) Lorde’s song into a track called Flicker.
Let’s hope the soundtrack for Mockingjay Part 2 will be just as star-studded as the last!
Check out the trailer here:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmYNkasYthg&w=560&h=315]
The release date for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 is November 19.
What a fantastic year 2014 has been for terrible music. Triple J have put out their list of best albums yesterday, but we find ‘Worst Of’ lists to be infinitely more fun, so we here at Howl And Echoes would like to present our inaugural Album Anti-Awards for 2014!
Our lucky winners include:
The Tylenol ‘Cure For Insomnia’ Award
Coldplay – Ghost Stories
‘Coldplay are boring’ jokes are as old as Yellow, I know, but if they’re going to keep putting out musical sleeping pills like they have once again with Ghost Stories then I’m going to keep making them. Not one track on here is exciting in the slightest. Fitting that it’s called Ghost Stories, because I’m pretty sure we could get Chris Martin declared legally dead after this piss poor effort.
Furthermore, when Sticky Fingers walked through downtown Newtown for Australia Street, it was cool. When these assholes shamelessly ripped them off for A Sky Full Of Stars, with their lame-as-fuck fans filming the whole thing on their fucking smartphones like a bunch of pre-teen twats, it was a floating joke.
The Soulja Boy Award for Shittiest Contribution to Hip Hop
Riff Raff – Neon Icon
Riff Raff is an amalgam of burning garbage and bad facial hair. Open this album up to have your olfactory senses impossibly assaulted by the distinct smell of a trailer park. I can’t verify this with 100% certainty, but I have it on good authority that for every copy of Neon Icon sold, an endangered panda was punched in the face.
Sweet fuck on a crust, Riff Raff sings with the sweet, slithery lilt of somebody who masturbates in public and he raps like he’s reciting your order at a McDonalds drive thru. If you bought this album you are telling the world that there is a good chance that you are poorly educated. Enjoy this GIF of his internationally-televised humiliation:
The 2014-15 Philadelphia 76ers award for Worst Output by a Group
5 Seconds Of Summer – 5 Seconds Of Summer
This is ear-scaldingly bad boy band music. 5 Seconds Of Summer create music to initiate a gag reflex to.Their vanilla-ness makes their forefathers in groups like Boyzone and Westlife look like a bunch of Hells Angels by comparison and the irritating way they abbreviate their name to 5SOS and cite people like Blink-182 as an influence when clearly their influences were just monkey shit and the lost souls of 12-year-old girls is especially grating.
This was Australia’s completely unnecessary, shit-haircutted answer to One Direction, scorch the Earth if they ever get anywhere near that level.
The Scott Stapp Award for Biggest Affront to Rock and Roll:
Nickelback – No Fixed Address
I don’t know what’s more annoying, the fact that Nickelback were pretentious enough to name this album No Fixed Address as though they’re some ‘children of the Earth’ motherfuckers or that they aren’t actually homeless and broke like their rivals for ‘most talentless people to ever pick up guitars’, Creed.
Edge Of A Revolution is Nickelback’s neckbearded attempt at writing an anti-establishment song and it’s so unintentionally funny you might break a rib laughing. The whole album is icepick lobotomy level dumb, because their fans are all shameless morons and are somehow that easily impressed. They should stop loving Nickelback and start loving themselves, shit.
The Michael Richards Award for “Biggest Fall From Grace”
Robin Thicke – Paula
Last year Robin Thicke gave us a terrible song with date rape lyrics and also Emily Ratajkowski from atop Pharrell Williams’ shoulders and people loved him for it. This year he gave us his first album post-divorce and named it after his ex-wife in what may be the least efficient way to get yourself a restraining order. Also, you can rearrange the entire track list to make perhaps the creepiest stalk-iest, threaten-iest letter ever, here look:
Worst Album by a Female Artist:
Taylor Swift – 1989
1989 was regarded as Taylor Swift’s departure from country pop into just regular pop, the difference between the two probably like comparing two puddles of urine to see which one contains less sexually transmittable diseases per square inch. She could have called this album Pumpkin Spice Latte Roshe Run Butterfly Tattoo and nobody would have batted a fake eyelash.
From the incessant whine that is Blank Space to the pantomime twerking nightmare of Shake It Off, this entire album was so fucking boring, so fucking terrible, and yet pretty much the majority of the female population continue to eat her shit up like it’s Froot Loops and MD. Inexplicable. Not even God can help you if you’re a fan of Taylor Swift in 2014.
Worst Album by a Male Artist:
Ed Sheeran – X
Apparently this album is called ‘X’ but pronounced ‘Multiply’. To that end, I propose that ‘Ed Sheeran’ now be pronounced ‘Utter shitbag’ for such pretentious assfacery. The fact that Ed is a soulless ginger aside, have you ever heard something as interminably bland as this album?
It’s like eating cardboard cereal with water instead of milk, for fuck sake. Don’t was apparently not everybody’s simultaneous reaction to Ed Sheeran announcing this album, but about Taylor Swift. If they ever reconcile their differences and collaborate for a joint album I will put my hand up for a rocket ride directly into the sun, just to be sure that monstrosity couldn’t ever hurt me.
Worst Album of 2014
U2 – Songs Of Innocence
Fuck you, Bono. Fuck you, the rest of U2. And fuck you, Apple, for giving my iTunes the digital equivalent of a surprise prostate examination and then leaving the rubber glove in there in the form of U2’s clownfuck dreadful free album. An album that every person on the planet with iTunes suddenly found in their library, regardless of whether they wanted it, and which IS STILL JUST SITTING THERE LIKE A SMUG PRICK BECAUSE I CAN’T GET RID OF IT NO MATTER HOW HARD I TRY!
Understandably, a lot of people were as pissed as I am. Apple then put their pathetic spin on the whole farce, claiming that 81 million people had ‘experienced’ U2’s new album, which was about as impressive as claiming that they were responsible for 81 million people experiencing the human papillomavirus.
Make no mistake about it, there is a special place in the Seventh Circle of Hell for people who pull the kind of dick move Apple did on consumers in foisting this album upon us, but the fact that U2 did so and simultaneously used the good name of Joey Ramone, an old school punk who would have exactly zero time for this kind of commercialistic bullshit, is what makes me the angriest.
And fuck me if Rolling Stone didn’t give it five stars and lose any and all respect from me.
God is dead.