the one things i love about the iphone that android is missing is the music integration
on my note 2 stock i cant see album cover from the lock screen or change the song.
and the iphone music interface is so smooth and looks nice. google tried too hard to make theirs and its not nice too look at.
hopefully they improve this soon
Try using "Play Music" instead of "Music Player". When you get into "Play Music" press the button next the home button and select "on device only" so it won't use data trying to stream Google Music.
As long as Play Music is open you should be able to pause, play, skip track from the pattern-to-unlock screen.
This should work, at least it does on my S3.