The second biggest selling artist of 2015 was Ed Sheeran - despite him not releasing a studio album during the course of the year. The IFPI says its top 10 chart is the only music industry ranking to accurately capture the worldwide popularity of artists across physical formats, downloads and streams.
Early Bath - Coldplay played to an estimated television audience of 100m during the half-time show at the Super Bowl on Sunday night. The Brits played a medley of hits but Beyonce was judged to have stolen the show, premiering new song Formation.
In its review of the show, Variety said Coldplay were "not a popular band in certain cred-obsessed corners of the internet. They are, however, arguably the only mass-appeal pop-rock act not yet eligible for social security that could make a reasonable claim to the sort of universality that has become the gig's primary pre-requisite, so their booking certainly made sense". However, it added performing with "the far flashier Bey and Mars... Coldplay seemed resigned to politely allowing themselves to be played right off their own stage".
The Guardian agreed, saying Beyonce's "charged affirmation of black female pride... could hardly have been more diametrically opposed to Coldplay's soppy indie. As soon as Beyonce marched onto the football field, clad in skintight leather and Michael Jackson-style military gold sashes, with a posse of impeccably choreographed female dancers dressed like '70s Black Panthers, it was time for an early bath for Chris Martin's band."
Stage Name - Download has renamed its main stage in memory of Lemmy from Motorhead, who died from cancer just after Christmas. The band had been due to play on the Friday night of the rock festival at Donington Park and organiser Andy Copping says they're "working on a suitable tribute for the slot". Another 36 bands have been announced for the line-up including Jane's Addiction, NOFX, Bury Tomorrow and Sixx A.M. They join headliners Rammstein, Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden on the bill.
In Flight Entertainment - An Indian airline has suspended five crew members who let a Bollywood star sing over its public address system - sparking a row on social media. Singer Sonu Nigam entertained his fellow passengers with some of his popular numbers on a Jet Airways Mumbai-Jodhpur flight last month. The airlines said that the crew had been "taken off from flight duty" after an inquiry. Nigam's mid-flight performance was filmed by those on board, and subsequently went viral on social media.
Graveyard Smash - Large-scale circus performed in a graveyard and work inspired by the global migration crisis are on the programme for the 2016 London International Festival of Theatre. This year's event, which runs throughout June and includes work from 14 countries, will see LIFT commission more of its own work than ever before. Nine of the festival's 20 shows have been commissioned or co-commissioned by LIFT, in a move artistic director Mark Ball said is a marker of the event's growth. "The amount of new work that we are invested in is something that has been building year-on-year. Historically, LIFT has been about presenting work but now almost half the work we are showing has been commissioned by us," he told The Stage.
Back Home - Michael Crawford is to return to the West End to star in a musical version of The Go-Between. Cr
