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MUSIC

Bieber and ‘Beliebers’ take over Berlin

Canadian heartthrob Justin Bieber arrived in Berlin on Monday to promote his new single and snap a few artsy Instagram pictures amid a throng of his devoted fans.

Published: 15 September 2015 11:12 CEST
Bieber and 'Beliebers' take over Berlin
Justin Bieber at the MTV Music Awards in August. Photo: DPA

Bieber is in the German capital to promote his new single What Do You Mean?, which hit the top of the charts in 80 countries including Germany this week.

Hundreds of “Beliebers” waited in the rain on Monday at Berlin's glitzy film premiere hub, Potsdamer Platz, to catch a glimpse of the singer at the Ritz Carlton where he is staying.

During downtime on Monday, the now platinum-coiffed Bieber visited a park at Gleisdreieck in the Schöneberg district of the German capital.

As well as making use of the park's skate ramps. the troubled star posted some artful Instagram pictures of himself sitting – and praying – on a disused rail track.

 

#pray

Ein von Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) gepostetes Foto am 14. Sep 2015 um 7:16 Uhr

Ein von Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) gepostetes Foto am 14. Sep 2015 um 11:11 Uhr

 

While these photos are sure to delight his adoring young fans, German police who have recently been trying to persuade teenagers to stop taking selfies on train lines might be less pleased.

Among the 21-year-old's engagements on Tuesday is a spot on Radio Energy in Leipziger Platz from 6pm to 7pm, reports the Berliner Morgenpost.

Trouble brewing?

On a European tour in 2013, Bieber's bizarre behavior proved to be tabloid gold.

In London he threatened to “beat the fuck” out of a photographer, while in Amsterdam he wrote in a log book at the Anne Frank Museum that he hoped Frank would have been a Belieber – the nickname for his fans.

But the strangest incident during that tour took place in Germany, when customs officials at Munich Airport seized the singer's monkey after he failed to produce the necessary paperwork allowing the little capuchin to enter the country. The monkey, called Mally, ended up in a zoo near Hanover after Bieber failed to retrieve it.

There is no word yet on whether he plans to recover Mally on his current visit.

While nothing too high profile has happened on his current visit, on Monday a cameraman caught footage of Bieber hitting him with his car door after he arrived at Tegel Airport.

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CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

Published: 17 November 2023 09:05 CET
New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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