The Edge, U2’s guitarist, has become the first contemporary musician in history to play a music concert inside Vatican City’s Sistine Chapel.
The Edge was asked to play a short acoustic set, as part of a conference on regenerative medicines, Cellular Horizons. The event focuses on angiogenesis, which refers to the body’s ability to grow new blood vessels, specifically in cancer tumours which require new blood vessels to grow and spread. The cause is one which is close to the guitarist’s heart; his father died of cancer, and his daughter was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2006, prompting the artist to join the board of the Angiogenesis Foundation one year later in 2007.
During the short set, Edge – backed by an Irish choir – played the acoustic versions of U2’s Yahweh, Ordinary Love and Walk On, which he dedicated to Pope Francis who he described as “the people’s pope”. He also performed the cover of Leonard Cohen’s If It Be Your Will.
The Edge also remarked about his surprise when invited to do a gig at the Sistine Chapel.
“When I was asked to perform in the Sistine Chapel I didn’t know what to say, because usually there’s ‘this other guy’ who sings,” he explained. “So it took me at least, well, 30 seconds to agree to it.”
This, of course, is a light-hearted joke about the U2 frontman Bono, who as fans of the band know, is physically incapable of setting foot within a place of worship. The guitarist also remarked on how refreshing it was to be surrounded by an audience who were informed about angiogenesis, saying that, “I can tell this is a really cool audience, because normally when I mention angiogenesis people’s eyes glaze over,” he joked. “But you all understand what I am talking about.”
Check out the performance for yourself below, courtesy of ATU2.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ-1zJ9cnxQ]
Image: stereogum
Foo Fighters and U2 both cancelled performances following the attacks that left Paris in ruins and its people in mourning.
Paris’ quiet Friday night was disrupted by six separate violence attacks. One of which occurred at Le Bataclan theatre, where Eagles of Death Metal were performing when more than 100 attendees were taken hostage, many of which were shot, before before police stormed in and stopped the siege. The band, who were in mid-performance when the gunmen burst through the doors, were later found safe in another location.
The death toll currently sits at 132 people, with more than 300 others injured. Among the dead were the band’s Merchandise Manager Nick Alexander, music journalist Guillaume B. Decherf and International Product Manager for Mercury Records Thomas Ayad.
With respect to all of the victims, Foo Fighters cancelled the rest of their European tour.
They released a statement saying:
“It is with profound sadness and heartfelt concern for everyone in Paris that we have been forced to announce the cancellation of the rest of our tour. In light of this senseless violence, the closing of borders, and international mourning, we can’t continue right now. There is no other way to say it. This is crazy and it sucks. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone who was hurt or who lost a loved one.”
U2 also cancelled two performances in Paris scheduled to be broadcast over the weekend. They visited the theatre to pay their respects among the other mourners.
According to The Mirror UK, they also released a statement:
“We watched in disbelief and shock at the unfolding events in Paris and our hearts go out to all the victims and their families across the city.
“We are devastated at the loss of life at the Eagles of Death Metal concert and our thoughts and prayers are with the band and their fans. And we hope and pray that all of our fans in Paris are safe.”
We send our condolences to the victims of this tragedy, people of Paris and anyone else who was affected.
Despite the Australian government’s assertion that musicians are largely filthy, abhorrently rich, the reality is that we live in a world where illicit downloading means that artists are no longer enjoying anywhere near the sweet, nourishing scrilla that album and single sales have traditionally brought them. They are instead forced to turn to other means to increase their revenue stream and get those reasonably attainable government tax benefits.
“We gotta thicken our fuckin’ stream”
To that end, artists have cranked it up in other avenues such as touring and advertising, as well as their music merchandise, to make up for the cash they’re missing out on. Some nail that last one. Others, as we’ve delved into briefly before, fail in ways that push outtheydamnmindedness levels to dizzying new heights. Like:
5: Grimes – Pussy Rings
Aaaaaand we’re off. Canadian singer Grimes usually peddles in a largely inoffensive brand of ethereal electro-pop that indie girls seem to all really enjoy but that I simply don’t get. What I also don’t get is her blatant disregard for both good taste and also Jesus with her attempt at starting a jewellery line back in 2012.
‘Three rings for the Tumblr girls, under the tagged/me sky’
These look like trivia prizes that would get passed around at a hen’s night in Hades. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good old-fashioned vagina as much as anyone, but jeeeeez there are much more subtle ways to promote female liberation and your love of Grimes than this. I’m certainly not looking at anyone crass enough to wear one of these and thinking ‘oh look, there’s a Grimes fan!’, I’m looking at them and thinking ‘oh look, there’s someone with very awful taste. In everything!’.
Not only that, but wearing even one of these just looks unnecessarily impractical, let alone running with three as whoever that is above is living dangerously enough to try.
Elrond knows what to do with these.
4: Keane aprons (with lyrics)
This one isn’t quite as over the top outrageous as the rest of this list, but it just blew me away in cosmic fashion in the ‘who on the fucking planet would even buy this?’ category. Are there really people who are enamoured this much with Keane, just one of England’s many, many contributions to cardboard-boring, mediocre wuss rock?
I’m sorry, England, I’ve just really had it in for you ever since that first Ashes test.
If Buzz Killington put together a mixtape, it would be Keane’s greatest hits album. Their fanbase would have to be the most non-descript, stuffy people imaginable, which is probably why they’re able to, in all seriousness, hawk them crap like this and describe it as ‘natty’.
What better way to tell your dinner party guests that the food they’re about to eat has been prepared by somebody who doesn’t love themselves enough. Honestly, who do you buy an apron with handwritten Keane lyrics (from a song so bland and English-y that it’s about a cafe) on it for? People who have lost the will to live?
This is a gift that would destroy friendships and sever family ties alike, because you would just know that the person giving it to you secretly hates you and doesn’t think you worthy of experiencing any kind of joy, ever, but chances are that you are also a Keane fan and were probably never destined to anyway.
3: Deadmau5 cat headphones
Ugh, I already couldn’t stand Deadmau5. Nothing shits me worse than artists who intentionally spite-fuck my beloved spelling and grammar in the name of their music, and that ‘5’ instead of a simple fucking ‘s’ is so deeply, unshakeably irritating. That he’s also a terrible practitioner of utterly soulless house music, possibly one of my least favourite genres ever to assault my ears, makes this even worse
Cat headphones, because you’re a nut.
I hate cats. They’re creepy little gits who lie around doing nothing all day and then have the stones to be irritable about everything. They’re dicks, but even I wouldn’t do this to one of them. Not that I even could really. There’s absolutely no chance that cat up there hasn’t been stuffed and mounted already in order to capture that moment. There’s simply no feasible way you could get a pair of headphones on a live one, let alone then blasting music directly into its ears, without being murdered in a flurry of claws and hissing.
Only ten ‘Meowingtons’ as they’re dubbed were ever made and they retail for the fuck off immediately price of $999, but the sad thing about psychotic cat people is that there would be well over ten of them out there shitrat insane enough to spend that kind of money on a new way to make their pet hate them unconditionally.
Although supply and demand is going to be a little skewed when most people that insane already own over ten cats.
Apparently all of the proceeds go to the ASPCA, but the absurdity of raising money for animal cruelty by perpetuating more animal cruelty can’t have been picked up by only me, right?
2: U2 ‘Achtung Baby’ condoms
U2 are probably your dad’s favourite band (if your dad is terrible) and Achtung Baby was one of their more mediocre albums of the early 90s. Aside from One, which Mary J. Blige turned around and straight swagger jacked from them, there weren’t many memorable songs on this album at all.
Apparently though, someone’s hilarious father in marketing heard the title of the album and decided to come up with a corkingly good dad joke of a product.
Nobody with a soul has ever had sex involving anything U2, let alone removing and donning a raincoat from a box with weird robot infant faces covering it and a phrase on it that roughly translates to ‘Warning! Baby’. It doesn’t even make sense as a joke. Are U2 warning us that these condoms are so ineffective that they will result in an unplanned baby? I’m not willing to risk it.
They could have just gone the obvious route and called them ‘Bondoms’ but anything sexual involving Bono’s likeness is sure to result in her screams being the exact opposite of pleasure.
‘Bono’d, for her terror’
This is not how normal people have sex. At all. If you took an Achtung Baby condom out and suggested using it in the middle of a one night stand, you deserve every one of the zero phone calls you’ll ever be getting back from the person whose sex drive you have just permanently murdered. People would probably rather have sex with actual, decrepit 2015 Bono while he shouts about starving children than with someone possessing the kind of miserable sense of humour required to spend money on dad joke birth control.
1: KISS Kaskets
KISS, those Juggalos before Juggalos were a thing, have been emblazoning their greasepainted faces onto obscure products since before you were conceived in the back of a Kingswood to Love Gun. Bladed weapons, Babushka dolls, bike shorts, toilet seats, these crafty bastards know exactly how unhinged the KISS Army is and know that they will buy literally anything with their likenesses plastered on it in some way.
ANYTHING. Even if it puts them on a list of sex offenders immediately upon purchase.
The most exorbitantly awful of all the KISS merchandise you can buy though, and there is a butt-ton of it out there, are KISS goddamn Kaskets.
I/Wanna rock and roll all night/And scream in hell for eternity!
What kind of life has someone lead where their last wish is to be interred in one of these? They’ve either lived such a full one that they’ve simply run out of earthly shits to give or, the sad and probably more likely alternative, KISS are their entire lives.
Just $3000 of your dollars (that you can’t take into the grave anyway) will get you one of these, including exactly none of the subtlety or gracefulness that should come with a casket, only poorly photoshopped flames and everybody getting douche chills at your funeral.
Not to mention the Four Horsemen laughing so hard at you when they haul you out of it on Judgement Day.
Worse was Gene Simmons low-key plugging these things by revealing that Pantera guitarist and all-around no-fuck-giver extraordinaire, Dimebag Darrell, was buried in one after his tragic onstage murder.
Damn KISS, just learn some chill and stick to merchandise that isn’t this creepy.
You know what, maybe… maybe just stop altogether
Today marks 25 rollercoaster years of everybody’s favourite yellow nuclear family, The Simpsons. We’ve had the terrifying lows of the present day, the dizzying highs of the 90s, the creamy middles of the early 00s but since first gracing the televisions of the world in 1990, the year of my birth, The Simpsons have been perhaps the one pop cultural constant throughout my entire life. Along the way they’ve had a litany of musical cameos, and to celebrate 25 years, we’re taking a look at the best of them. The one rule: The cameo must be the artist or band performing as themselves, so apologies to Space Coyote (Johnny Cash) and Leon Kompowsky (Michael Jackson). Here we go:
10: Spinal Tap – The Otto Show
The blending of the best parody band of all time along with the most gleefully cutting satire of the 90s was an explosion of hilarity and put me in hysterics. I still quote this shit today: The band wondering who had benefitted more from the fall of Communism than themselves. The lighting crew missing the cue to turn up the house lights so they could let the audience know they’re the sixth member of the freaking group. “My vision!”. Their tour bus crashing in a ball of flames after a lengthy discussion on the quality of last night’s show (‘Yes, quite good’). And of course, one of my favourite lines of all time:
9: Tom Jones – Marge Gets A Job
Usually I’d wrinkle my nose up at anything involving Tom Jones, that ancient crooner all the septuagenarians lose their underpants over; however, his cameo on The Simpsons as one of Mr. Burns’ lavish attempts at seducing Marge was simply amazing. From Smithers showing him what’s inside this briefcase
It was gas
To being held at gunpoint (and knocked out cold by a secret door) and forced to smile (“everybody’s happy…”) to his show-closing performance of It’s Not Unusual chained to the stage, Tom damn near stole the show here.
8: James Taylor – Deep Space Homer
This one is so underrated. ‘Unkempt youngster’ James Taylor (wow, former president, James Taylor) and his ‘unique brand of bittersweet folk rock’ provided the perfect soundtrack to Homer’s ill-fated voyage into outer space. He ran through You Got A Friend, telling Buzz Aldrin to ‘float there and like it’ and then Fire And Rain, changing ‘sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground’ to ‘flying safely through the air. Beautiful. Watch it here.
7: U2 – Trash Of The Titans
I’ve made no secret of my sheer hatred for Bono and U2 but their cameo was actually hilarious, if only because of the adjuvant antics of Homer, who manages to sneak backstage to their show under the guise of the ‘potato man’ (‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’). Bono assuring the crowd that the stage-crashing Homer will ‘get the help he needs’ (while his security team beats him up on the JumboTron) was side-splitting. Even their brief appearance in Homer’s Candy Man-inspired rendition of The Garbage Man wasn’t awful. Well played, Bono.
6: N’Sync – New Kids On The Blecch
One from a later Simpsons episode, the majority of which I am not fond of, New Kids On The Blecch was surprisingly outstanding. A brilliant send-up of the boy band craze that was sweeping the early 21st century, N’Sync were great sports in poking fun at themselves and their discourse. Joey’s insistence on ending sentences with ‘old school’ and JC being dragged off to the Navy at the behest of Lance Bass were the highlights.
‘Yvan Eht Nioj!’
5: The White Stripes – Jazzy And The Pussycats
Another 21st century Simpsons moment that didn’t suck, Jack and Meg come face to face with Bart in a Simpsonified version of the music video for The Hardest Button To Button that is nothing short of wonderful. So is Meg and Jack trying to kick Bart’s ass following him crashing into them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzkRy5kW6Qg
4: Red Hot Chili Peppers – Krusty Gets Kancelled
Krusty Gets Kancelled was littered with guest stars like Bette Midler, Elizabeth Taylor and Hugh Hefner, but the Chilis were the highlight. Their best moment?
Changing Give It Away from ‘what I got you gotta get and put it in you’ to ‘what I’d like is I’d like to hug and kiss you’ seconds after declaring their lyrics ‘like our children, man’,
“Dancing in their underwear… how degrading”
Then turning up at Moe’s still in their underwear for the after party.
‘We want Chili Willy!’
3: The Hullabalooza Lineup – Homerpalooza
No episode captured the 90s slacker cultural landscape that The Simpsons was built upon quite like Homerpalooza. Iconic moments everywhere. From long-suffering oldie Peter Frampton and his talking guitar (and Otto’s talking shoes), Sonic Youth stealing from his cooler, Cypress Hill stealing his London Symphony Orchestra (‘yo did we order an orchestra?’) for an extra classy version of Insane In The Brain
Also, Homer’s introduction to
and appreciation of the Smashing Pumpkins and their ‘gloomy music’ stopping his children from ‘dreaming of a future I can’t possibly provide’. The whole thing was perfect satire of alternative music culture and Lollapalooza, all delivered with that impeccable timing that made The Simpsons in the 90s such a force.
Remember, ‘if it’s brown, drink it down. If it’s black, send it back’.
Also, this.
2: The Beatles – Various
We had Ringo Starr as Marge’s teenage crush finally responding to her fan mail/art after 20 years:
We had the late George, positively chuffed to meet ‘nice fellow’ Homer at the Grammy’s after party:
And we had Linda and Paul McCartney, giving Lisa advice on being a vegetarian. Complete with Apu’s outrageous bongo cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
We were tragically a John Lennon away from the entire band in their yellow form, but these were perhaps the three biggest musical cameos The Simpsons ever had in terms of importance and sheer fame, that they were all an absolute stitch was even better.
1: Ramones – Rosebud
Oh man. Ohhhh man. This is the undisputed heavyweight champion of them all though. Fitting that the greatest musical cameo in Simpsons history came in an episode frequently regarded as one of the best. Everything about this was hysterically superb:
Johnny taking the time to tell the audience his feelings on this gig (it sucks), Joey’s unmistakeable snarling vocals over a gutter punk version of Happy Birthday (to ‘Burnsy’) and C.J. (I’d have preferred Dee Dee but it’s still amazing) saluting Mr. Burns in the most punk way imaginable (‘Go to hell you old bastard’) before the curtain is drawn and they noticeably mellow out of their onstage personas. The whole thing is utterly perfect. It captures everything that the Ramones were in under 30 seconds and does not EVER stop being funny.
And crotchety old Mr. Burns insisting that Smithers ‘have the Rolling Stones killed’ is the howl-inducing cherry on top of possibly one of the single greatest gags in the 25 year history of The Simpsons.
They just don’t make ’em like they used to.
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.