Beyoncé has had a pretty good week so far: she dropped the mind-blowing “Formation“, added some new threads to her site and absolutely decimated every other artist that came near the Super Bowl halftime show. It wasn’t the first time she artfully put Chris Martin in his place, though. In a recent Rolling Stone interview, the Coldplay singer admitted that he once offered Beyoncé a song for the two to collaborate on.
It was called “Hook Up” and she wasn’t interested. Always polite, after hearing the track Bey replied: “I really like you—but this is awful.” Despite selling over 80 million albums, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Martin’s dealings with fellow artists haven’t always been smooth. Earlier this year Coldplay drummer Will Champion revealed that David Bowie also passed up a collaboration and called the doomed track, “not a very good song,” adding, “It’s not one of your best.” Chris’s feelings were clearly not too hurt by Beyonce though; she went on to collaborate with Coldplay on the track “Hymn for the Weekend.”
Martin shouldn’t be too worried about the former diss. After all, when people look back on 2016 in Beyonce and Coldplay relationship history they probably won’t be talking about failed songs. They’ll be talking about successful memes.
Being shut down by one of the most famous people in the world is one thing. But the onslaught of internet comedy around the pair’s Super Bowl appearance is another. In hindsight you can’t really expect to team a queen with the dude who wrote “Yellow” and hope for it to come out looking like an even match—a point Twitter was happy to dwell on.
how could you not like Beyoncé and Bruno Mars, they brought their Uber driver onstage pic.twitter.com/cJdVqliuK5
— actioncookbook (@actioncookbook) February 8, 2016
Following Bey’s scene stealing performance—that’s since been described as the most political statement at a Super Bowl in its half century history—the public has had a lot of fun pointing out Martin’s place in Beyonce’s shadow. Don’t worry Chris, there are plenty of moms out there who still think you’re tops.