10
December 2015
Entertainment
2015 AMA’s have exciting results Artists receive awards and perform the latest hits
# by Allison Brock, Stang Staff On Sunday, November 22, the annual American Music Awards took place, hosted by Jennifer Lopez, who also kicked off the night singing her hit single “Waiting for Tonight,” and performed a dance mash-up of 2015s hottest hits, including Bruno Mars’s “Uptown Funk,” “Anaconda” by Nicki Minaj, “7/11” by Beyonce, The Weeknd’s “The Hills” and “I Can’t Feel My Face,” “Bad Blood” by Taylor Swift, Fetty Wap’s “Trap Queen,” “Hotline Bling” by Drake, “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran, and Skrillex and Diplo with Justin Bieber’s “Where Are Ü Now?.” VOGUE Magazine says Jennifer Lopez’s opening number “certainly got everyone’s attention.” It was a “classic J.Lo performance” according to Huffpost Entertainment. The category for R&B/Soul and Rap/Hip Hop was tied for AMA’s received between The Weeknd and Nicki Minaj. The Weeknd received favorite R&B/Soul album for Behind the Madness and Favorite Male R&B/Soul Artist, while Nicki Minaj scooped up awards for, not only, Top R&B/Soul Album for The Pinkprint, but also Favorite Rap/ Hip Hop Artist over Drake and Fetty Wap. Rihanna picked up Favorite Female Artist over the year, as well. Superstar Luke Bryan was voted Country’s Favorite Male Artist, in correlation to Carrie Underwood for Country’s Favorite Female Artist of the Year. Florida Georgia Line took the Country genre by surprise when they won Favorite Country Duo/Group and Favorite Country Album. In the Pop/Rock category, Ariana Grande received Favorite Female Artist and Ed Sheeran won the opposite as the Favorite Male Artist. Most nominated artist of the 2015 AMA’s, Taylor Swift, collected Favorite Pop/Rock Album of the Year for 1989. Lastly, Fall Out Boy received the award for Favorite Alternative Rock Artist. In the nonspecific categories of the music industry, Taylor Swift won Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist, Enrique Iglesias accepted Favorite Latin Artist, Casting Crowns received Favorite Contemporary Inspirational Artist, and Calvin Harris
was named Favorite Electronic Dance Music Artist. One Direction gathered up awards for Favorite Group/Duo, as well as Artist of the Year for the second year in a row. Top Soundtrack went to 6.6 star movie, One Direction Goes Home Big Boy band, One Direction has an Pitch Perfect 2. Country exciting night at the AMAs singer Sam Hunt won New Artist of the Year, Justin Bieber with Skrillex and Diplo’s “Where Are U Now?” won Collaboration of the Year, and, finally, Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” won Song of the Year. The night was filled with many performances by talented artists, including headliner Selena Gomez singing “Same Old Love.” One Direction performed their hit “Perfect,” Nick Jonas performed a mash-up of “Chains,” “Levels,” and “Jealous,” Ariana Grande premiered her new hit, “Focus,” and Justin Bieber closed the night with mash-up of “Where Are Ü Now?”, “What Do You Mean?”, and “Sorry.” Other performers include 5 Seconds of Summer, Carrie Underwood, Demi Lovato, Meghan Trainor with Charlie Puth, Gwen Stafani, Walk the Moon, Coldplay, The Weeknd, Luke Bryan with Karen Fairchild, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Alanis Morissette with Demi Lovato, Pentatonix, and Celine Dion sang a beautiful melody for all the lost lives and injured in the Paris terrorist attacks. This year’s AMAs was a time to “celebrate the music of the year,” according the Jennifer Lopez. And that is exactly what happened. Atlantic Records says “Congrats” to the winners of the 2015 American Music Awards.
“The most anticipated Phhhoto is the newest social media out on the market Movie of the year” Star Wars movie has fans itching for release # by Jasmine Mata, Stang Staff
After over ten years of anticipation, Star Wars fans now have a new movie to look forward to. A continuation of the movie series that first released in 1977 is set to come out December 18. The new movie, The Force Awakens, is set thirty years after episode 6, Return of the Jedi, which was released in 1983. This was the third film released, and in this episode Emporer Palpatine is trying to create a second death star in order to destroy the Rebel Alliance, while Luke also struggles with the fact that his father is Darth Vader, and he wants to bring him back from The Dark Side. This movie grossed over $572 Million in sales all over the world. According to Wall Street, the movie set to come out this year, The Force Awakens, will earn near “$1.75 Billion in worldwide sales.” This estimate is not far off considering all the hype around the movie release; some say this is the most highly anticipated film of the year. Of the original films, former Writer and Producer George Lucas said, “Star Wars is fun, it’s exciting, it’s inspirational, and people respond to that. It’s what they want.” Some fans do fear that because Disney is now the company in charge of the new movie, the action will be dulled, and the movie will not meet the high expectations of long time fans. But the new director is very confident in the movie, 49 year old J.J. Abrams says, “Star Wars is probably the most influential film of my generation. It’s the personification of good and evil and the way it opened up the world to space adventure, the way westerns had to our parents’ generations, left an indelible imprint.” Overall, the movie is expected to be a big hit and has fans everywhere excited.
Instant moving pictures that you can snap at home
# by Hope Cubbler, Stang Staff
Phhhoto is the newest, creative app that is rapidly becoming more popular according to many people. This new social media allows you to take pictures that move within a certain frame. Long story short, someone could take a picture of a person standing in a flower field with the wind blowing, and the end result would be a still picture with the flowers moving ever so slightly. In a way, you could compare the pictures to videos because of the moving aspect. Teenagers love this new app because it seems to be the better version of Instagram. Phhhoto still allows someone to comment on their friend’s pictures, but also gives them the opportunity to make a private comment. In a way this could be compared to direct messaging on Twitter, where no one else can see what you commented besides yourself and the person whose picture it is. Now, there is a new feature recently added to the app that has caused some confusion among Phhhoto users, which is called a party. A party is a group of your friends on Phhhoto where you get together virtually and create photos that only the people in the “chat” can see. The goal for this feature is that all of the photos inside of the party are similar. So in a sense, you could have a pizza party within the app
where you are doing different things than your friends, but all have the same theme: pizza. Another area that Phhhoto allows access is the WOW page. This consists of the most interesting and popular instant moving pictures that people create (hence the name WOW). This section contains a variety of ideas where people can show either an entrancing waterfall or simply a woman riding her bike along the road. In addition, if a person wants to get featured on the WOW page so that many people can view their picture, you have to comment #wow. Also, the more experienced Phhhoto users have found different ways to “hack” the app so they can create even more unique pictures. One of the more common hacks that people have discovered, includes twisting your fingers on the front of the screen in a circular motion before you take a picture. This allows a person to change the time frame within every snap to create better brain twisting photos. In a certain way, you could relate these pictures to that of a gif, but now you have easier access to create them wherever you travel. Just like other social medias, Phhhoto allows you to “like” other people’s instant moving pictures. Overall, Phhhoto is just like any other mainstream social media, but gives you the opportunity to capture mobile snapshots of what is going on around you. Also, other features this app regularly updates are the after effects you can place on your picture. Sometimes this consists of strobe lights, themes for the upcoming holiday, or making your picture look like a polaroid. Although Phhhoto is not as popular as Instagram or Twitter, many do believe that it will soon overtake those apps and excel in the social media world as well.