Lindsay Lohan throws her hat into overcrowded 2020 ring

Kanye West - the character out of the Kim Cardigan show - has already made noises about perhaps running for president in 2020. I think we're all assuming he's using the phrase "running for president" in the sense that Donald Trump uses it, as in "mugging for the cameras".

Now, a second name drawn from the "I think they used to make records, didn't they?" file has announced her intention to run. Step forward, Lindsay Lohan. No, really, step forward, I struggle to remember which one is you and which one is Hilary Duff.

Lohan is already constructing her platform:

The first thing I would like to do as president of 🇺🇸 is take care of all of the children suffering in the world.🎹💜🌎🌏👊🏻👊🏾👊🏼👊🏽🙏🏻💋🙌 #queenELIZABETH showed me how by having me in her country 🇬🇧

Just as a side note, this is the first emoji-strewn post in over a decade of No Rock and Roll Fun, and I couldn't be more proud. I'm using "proud" in the sense that Jeb Bush uses when he says positive things about Donald Trump, as in "jesus, this is still a thing?"

Anyway, leaving aside the manner of delivery, let's just examine Lohan on her policy platform. It might come as news to residents of the UK that the Queen - or hashtagLiz as she's being officially rebranded - is diligently taking care of all the suffering children.

It may also be something of a surprise to discover that hashtagLiz "had" Lindsay in the country - presumably that VIP fast lane at Heathrow immigration is more elaborately staffed than you've ever imagined as you watch people waft into it. I'm assuming the Queen sits at the desk muttering "oh, yes, Mean Girls. One thought so much of Diana when one watched that one. Do come in".

There is a possibility that we're over-thinking this - perhaps Lohan's plan is that you can stop children suffering just by having the Queen let them into the UK.

Imagine. Nigel. Farage's. Face.

And for that reason, and that reason alone, No Rock And Roll Fun is pleased to endorse Lindsay Lohan for 2020 - the first president whose entire policy is to troll UKIP from the White House. I'm already sending an email pledging to work on ads attacking Kanye West - I'm thinking mostly just rolling the "in the French restaurant/ Hurry up with my damn croissants" line over and over in every ad break from now until 2019. Eating in a French restaurant will play really badly in the midwest, and being rude to waiters will kill support pretty much everywhere else apart from Beverley Hills.

Lohan is as good as on Rushmore.

The VMAs happened, and we'd be better off if we try and pretend it didn't

The VMAs - the bit on the calendar when everyone remembers MTV still broadcast - happened yesterday, in a series of events in which pop music finally broke.

Miley Cyrus was on hosting duties, and couldn't decide what to wear. So in the end she wore everything:

Every single one of Miley's VMA stage looks. Which one is your favorite? #VMA #MileyVMAs pic.twitter.com/ThvbZxU3mT

— Miley Cyrus Fashion (@StylishCyrus) August 31, 2015

Seven outfits. Seven outfits, and not one of them worked. The one with the giant Smarties on, clearly, was sold to her by a designer trying to keep a straight face while insisting that he had GaGa on the other line putting in a bid for it. But that was just the worst of a very, very bad bunch.

Somewhere this morning Billy Ray Cyrus is saying "when I said there's no way you're going on stage dressed like that", I wasn't being an overprotective father; I was talking on behalf of Vogue."

It's not just Miley's dresses which had most of America thinking it was time for an intervention, though. She's now got dreads.

Of course, there's no reason why Miley Cyrus can't have dreads - even ones that are so obviously fake that they look like they've recently been used to stop trawlers drifting off to sea - but it came across as a somewhat insensitive thing to do after her recent dis on Nicki:

Miley Cyrus berated Nicki for speaking out on issues that affect black women in the music industry,& is also wearing dreads rn. The audacity

— hot ebony mom (@egbaprincess) August 31, 2015

It shows something of a deaf ear, or poor advice, to spend a chunk of the week telling a black woman she doesn't know how to campaign on behalf of under-represented black women, only to turn up with a head full of shoddy cultural appropriation. It's fair to say it didn't go down well.

And that wasn't the end of the racial insensitivity for the night:

MTV: racism is bad! MTV: allows miley cyrus onstage in dreads, allows rebel wilson to dress up as a cop introducing the hip hop category

— spock kirk (@mrtrohman) August 31, 2015

In case you're not sure that having someone introduce the hip hop awards dressed as a cop making jokes about "injustice" is that much of a dick move, even the Daily Mail noticed.

Kanye was also there. He made reference to that time he was on before and gatecrashed Taylor Swift picking up an award:

He spoke of the aftermath of interrupting Swift lo those many years ago. He bit the hand that was feeding him by saying, "You know how many times MTV ran that footage again, 'cause it got them more ratings?"

It must have been galling that when you tried to make a gallant gesture in order to put the focus firmly on yourself, only for the awards show you're at to make hay from it, eh.

West also used the occasion to announce his plans for the next decade:

"And yes, as you probably could have guessed by this moment, I have decided, in 2020, to run for president."

Cyrus's reaction to this - which came after a break, which means not only did she have time to think of a response, but other people could have, too, was:

“Trump, you had my vote. But now? Kanye West for president!”

Even in jest, to tell Donald Trump you were going to vote for him is deadly. Perhaps there was some metajoke being made about how, if you're going to vote for some guy off a reality TV show, it doesn't matter which one you go for, but somehow, I doubt it.

In happier news, Nicki and Taylor made up their beef. But Nicki wasn't done with Miley:

Minaj thanked her pastor while taking the award for Anaconda, then turned to Cyrus, who was on a nearby stage. “And now back to this bitch that had a lot to say about me the other day in the press – Miley, what’s good?” said Minaj.

Miley was forced to go off script for a moment. Like a pro, she blamed the press:

Cyrus responded to the confrontation, with a brief comment about interview responses being twisted from their intended message. “We’re all in the industry, we all do interviews, and we all know how they manipulate shit,” Cyrus said, before continuing with her script for the night.

Or maybe she didn't, as obviously that was on The Guardian website and you know how the press manipulate shit.

You do wonder, though, why she didn't contact Minaj directly and explain what she really meant when the interview came out, don't you?

In case you've forgotten, there were awards being given out as well, and here's the closest thing to winners in full:

Best Rock Video: Fall Out Boy, "Uma Thurman"

Best Pop Video: Taylor Swift, "Blank Space"

Best Male Video: Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars, "Uptown Funk"

Best Hip-Hop Video: Nicki Minaj, "Anaconda"

Best Female Video: Taylor Swift, "Blank Space"

Best Video With a Social Message: Big Sean featuring Kanye West & John Legend, "One Man Can Change the World"

Song of the Summer: 5 Seconds of Summer, "She's Kinda Hot"

Best Collaboration: Taylor Swift ft. Kendrick Lamar, "Bad Blood"

Best Direction: Kendrick Lamar, "Alright" (Colin Tilley & the Little Homies)

Best Choreography: OK Go, "I Won’t Let You Down" (OK Go, air:man and Mori Harano)

Best Cinematography: Flying Lotus feat. Kendrick Lamar, "Never Catch Me" (Larkin Sieple)

Best Art Direction: Snoop Dogg, "So Many Pros" (François Rousselet, Jason Fijal)

Best Editing: Beyoncé, "7/11" (Beyoncé, Ed Burke, Jonathan Wing)

Best Visual Effects: Skrillex and Diplo feat. Justin Bieber, "Where Are U Now" (Brewer, Gloria FX, and Max Chyzhevskyy)

Artist to Watch: Fetty Wap

Video of the Year: Taylor Swift featuring Kendrick Lamar, "Bad Blood"

Glastonbury 2015: The impossible happened

Who knew that, faced with Kanye West headlining the main stage, it was possible for the density of the self-regarding worn-out unwelcomeds to increase from there?

But it did:

KANYE West's Glastonbury performance was interrupted by an intruder.

The rapper, who was performing on the pyramid stage on Saturday, was greeted by comedian Lee Nelson.

Do you still count as a "comedian" if you have one joke that is so tired it doesn't even wake up when on stage at Glastonbury?

Taking to his Twitter to explain his reasons for joining Kanye on stage, Lee wrote: "Some people were saying Kanye shouldn't headline Glastonbury so I thought I'd give him a hand."

That doesn't even make sense.

Choosing not to address the stage invasion, proud wife Kim took to her Instagram to post a picture of the rapper on stage, along with the caption: "Glastonbury 2015! Craziest show ever!!!!!"

Hold on a moment, OK magazine - maybe Kim was talking about the stage invasion there. Or maybe she didn't even realise that Lee Nelson wasn't part of the act. (Okay, it seems unlikely - if West was going to draft in a comedy stage invasion, there'd be some clunky piece of cross-promotion with a "project". At least Nelson wasn't promoting an energy drink or TLC reality show.)

Glastonbury 2015: Kanye believe it?

There's been a predictable squeal of disrupted lives following the announcement that Kanye West is going to headline Glastonbury on Saturday night:

A petition has also been launched to prevent West from performing at the festival.

The petition [is] titled 'Cancel Kanye West's headline slot and get a rock band'

There's no way, just for clarity, that "rock band" is being used as shorthand for "a group of white men". That's not the intention at all. No. Not at all.

Thing is, there are good reasons for asking if Kanye is right for Glastonbury - but the objections are exactly the same as the objections to U2 headlining Glastonbury. An act well past their best before date being promoted beyond their due. And even those objections... well, you have to remember that when people say things like this...:

We spend hundreds of pounds to attend glasto, and by doing so, expect a certain level of entertainment.

... part of the reason you're paying so much money is because it's a massive festival, and there's about sixty thousand other stages to go and watch. Seriously, if you're paying that much money to go to a music festival and can't find something headlining one of the stages to enjoy, why are you paying hundreds of pounds to go to a music festival in the first place?

(With U2, there was a broader question about whether a festival that still had some pretence at being counterculturally aware ought to be booking acts who shuffle their cash off to lower tax regimes, which is a fair question. Kanye isn't a rock band isn't even a question.)

Us apologise after misidentifying Kanye West as the loudest clown in town. A bit.

At the end of last week, Shirley Manson did a massive post to Facebook saying... well, this:

Dear He who shall remain nameless,

It is with great sadness that I read your email today.

Clearly you have forgotten or are just generally unaware, that in business it is always wise to be kind and respectful in your day to day dealings with other people. Especially those you have never met.

You just never know when you might meet that person who has been at the receiving end of your disrespect for indeed you may have to come on bended knee to that person later on down the line because they hold on to something of value that you need to get your greasy hands on.

What alarms me more than anything about your nasty little barbs is that you are in the business of representing artists interests and yet you are clearly unaware that not all musicians are obsessed with the charts or being famous.

That some of us do not value ourselves by the number of mainstream "hits" we have enjoyed .

That some of us just enjoy making music and having a long lifespan of a career without having to dance as fast as we can, or be the loudest clown in town or be having to hitch ourselves to the latest ,greatest, freshest sound in order to remain "on top" .

There are some of us who just like to live the way WE see fit. Make the music WE feel passionate about. Music that feels authentic to who we are and where we are in our lives.

There are even some of us who do not believe that being famous is the holy grail or the answer to a beautiful, meaningful and rewarding life.

Clearly you are unable to wrap your head around the idea that some musicians actually prefer NOT having to perform on Children's TV shows. Who do NOT want to be gossiped about in the popularity contest columns. Who most definitively do NOT want to be chased by paparazzi and who do NOT want to put their family name to some shitty , poorly made product in order to build a "brand" and who most definately do NOT want to go out every night, dressed up to the nines to the opening of an envelope.

SO allow me to make my choices as I see fit without having to endure your childish and un-evolved criticism.

As you so rightly pointed out, there are plenty of talented people in the world who will sell their grannies to serve your desires.

So now then sir, that all said,
Go F#CK yourself.

The "nameless" bit in the opening line is so frustrating if you're trying to stir up a beef, so a lot of publications - the charge led by Us - assumed that it must be Kanye West. After all, Shirl had a pop at West recently, and... well, if a gossip magazine can't think about more than one thing at a time, the same must be true of everyone, right?

Trouble is, it wasn't about Kanye. So Shirley took to Facebook again:

I would just like to state for the record that my post from a few days ago which has been heisted today by US Weekly and then consequently glommed onto by a variety of so called news sources had absolutely NOTHING to do with Kanye West whatsoever.

It was directed towards a completely unknown industry insider who had in my opinion been rather offensive in his dealings with me last week.

I take great exception to US Weekly rushing to assume who this aforementioned post was directed towards. Instead of doing their due diligence which in my opinion is their journalistic duty, they have instead made lazy, potentially libelous assumptions which I find completely offensive and entirely inaccurate.

Modern journalism in most cases these days, barely resembles the craft that was once practiced with such care, skill and integrity. Instead we are stuck with provocative scandal mongers who will stoop at nothing in an effort to drive people to their web sites.

Ignore all the stupidity and get on with your lives my friends.

I fully intend to do the same.
Be well.
Sx

(You know that somewhere there's a man reading that going 'calling me a loud clown is one thing, but now you've called me an 'unknown' - well, that's going too far, young lady. That's going too far.')

So Us have backed down:

UPDATE: An earlier version of this story stated — erroneously — that Manson had written her Facebook post specifically about Kanye West. A rep for the singer reached out to Us Weekly to clarify that the anonymous subject of Manson’s note was not, in fact, the rapper. Us regrets the error.

They regret the error.

Though not enough to bother changing the headline on the story:

Shirley Manson Trashes Unnamed Enemy as the "Loudest Clown in Town" -- Is She Talking About Kanye West?

No. No, she isn't. In the first paragraph under this headline, you apologise for saying that she was.

An error, of course, they regret.

Although not enough to actually change this image caption either:

Shirley Manson ripped Kanye West yet again on Facebook, calling Kim Kardashian's husband "the loudest clown in town" -- find out what set her off here.

That's quite a piece of work there, then, Us:

From the top, then:
Headline: Implies it might be Kanye West
Image: Says it is Kanye West
First para: Says it isn't Kanye West.

Good work, everyone.

Grammys 2015: Manson crushes West... but not totally

The Grammys, as ever, provided a focus for bad behaviour, most of it of the uninteresting sort.

The red carpet brought this gem, the implication that Taylor Swift was there to get laid:

http://bealiveplaydead.tumblr.com/post/110617904144

Meanwhile, the success of Beck upset Kanye West. Obviously, West isn't really a tiny child who can't understand why his favourites don't win; he just seems to think that his "brand" is somehow "enhanced" by pretending he's fighting for Beyonce's honour:

"Beck needs to respect artistry and he should've given his award to Beyonce."

Yeah, that's how awards work. It's like a fucking white elephant gift exchange. Perhaps they should just put all the prizes in a skip and let Kanye deliver them to the home of the person he decides is most worthy.

You know what? There's no need for the rest of us to tut at West, because Shirley Manson's taken him to pieces:

"Dear Kanye West,

"It is YOU who is so busy disrespecting artistry.

"You disrespect your own remarkable talents and more importantly you disrespect the talent, hard work and tenacity of all artists when you go so rudely and savagely after such an accomplished and humble artist like Beck.

"You make yourself look small and petty and spoilt.

"In attempting to reduce the importance of one great talent over another, you make a mockery of all musicians and music from every genre, including your own.

"Grow up and stop throwing your toys around.

"You are making yourself look like a complete twat.

"P.s. I am pretty certain Beyonce doesn't need you fighting any battles on her account. Seems like she's got everything covered perfectly well on her own."

You've got to admire the artistry in that.

There is a slight problem, though. This line:

In attempting to reduce the importance of one great talent over another, you make a mockery of all musicians and music from every genre, including your own

These are the Grammys you're talking about Shirley. The Grammys are pretty much an attempt by a jury to reduce the importance of one talent over another (or Sam Smith, sometimes).

Ultimately, it's all a dog-and-pony show. West might have behaved like an out-of-towner, his timing is poor and his approach gauche, but isn't half the reason the big awards shows attract television coverage and sponsorship is because people feel invested enough in them to talk about whether the right person won? West's problem is he forgot he was part of the awards machine, not that he prefers Beyonce to Beck.

TMZ cast their eyes at the courtroom

Kanye West is currently being sued by a photographer, and of course, TMZ are all over it.

They're especially interested in a battle over whether the photographer's previous run-in with Britney Spears can be raised in court:

Kanye West has no right to tell a jury the photog who's suing him is the very same guy who Britney Spears famously attacked with an umbrella ... at least that's what the photog is banking on.

Daniel Ramos is suing Kanye for the 2013 LAX attack. Kanye pled no contest to misdemeanor battery, but now Ramos is suing him.

Kanye wants to prove to the jury Ramos is a bad guy ... not only because of the 2007 umbrella incident, but also because he was so gross he tried selling the umbrella and the truck she struck.

Two things: first, you've got to love TMZ considering the possibility of a thing being kept from a jury while detailing exactly what that thing is.

Second: TMZ complaining that someone tried to make money out of a run-in with a celebrity while calling long-lens fame-gawpers "gross"? Clearly, TMZ is now being produced in a room without any mirrors at all.

The beautiful cap on this? The last words of the piece:

It's kinda like having your cake ...

Yes, TMZ. Fancy trying to hold two different positions at once.

McCartney goes West; internet goes stupid

The Paul McCartney/Kanye West hook-up came out on New Years Day, bringing together, at last, the man who did Give Ireland Back To The Irish and the man who did George Bush doesn't care about black people.

Presumably the recording session breaks were filled with conversations about how easy it is to go from being a threat to the establishment to being a national teddy bear.

Anyway, the thought of Macca and West coming together brought out the wry side in a lot of people on Twitter:

Okay, not the best joke of the season, but funnier than anything in Mrs Browns Boys. Fair enough, that's a pretty low bar, but given that the tweet wouldn't have been worded in quite that way if, erm, :/ had really not known who McCartney was, the joke is obvious, right?

Apparently not, as Buzzfeed's Brian McManus managed to miss it:

Yesterday we told you about Kanye’s New Year’s Day surprise collaboration with Paul McCartney, “Only One.” Today on Twitter, some Kanye fans are wondering just who this Paul McCartney fella is.

Brian even manages to reproduce two Tweets which are sodding identical, like a man still expecting to be soaked the third time the clown throws an empty bucket at him:

It's even got the same poorly-chosen emoji, Buzzfeed. It was a laboured joke.

Trouble is, a depressing but not surprisingly large chunk of the internet followed Buzzfeed's line, as if we'd all drunk so much on New Years Eve we'd forgotten how the internet worked. Because if people are online and really want to know who someone is, they don't type his name into Twitter, they type it into Wikipedia or Google.

The only people who really try to find out background details about people by sticking names in Twitter are your gran and Ed Balls, and both of them would be far more likely to be asking who Kanye West is.

But beyond the anger of those with an inability to spot a joke came the counterwave - unfortunately, still comprising people who were unable to spot a joke, but with a different angle:

@epstein @GreatDismal Yup. Most famous 40-50 years ago. Like fans in 1964 not knowing Ray Miller Orchestra of the 20s.

— Insufficient FUN (@shoulderroll) January 3, 2015

It's a spirited defence of young people, but manages to add being spectacularly wrong to not noticing the gag.

So let's at least allow the possibility that some of the people going 'who iz McCartney Beatle lolz' might, genuinely, not know who he is. Would that be justifiable because it's like someone in 1964 not knowing the Ray Miller Orchestra?

While it's true that McCartney and Beatlemania might have peaked a few decades back, it's not like he then went and lived under a rock - he did the Superbowl show in 2005; he headlined Live8; in 2009 he did a benefit gig in New York which raised three million dollars. It's fair to say he has something of a profile.

Indeed, it's that profile which is the reason for Kanye West wanting to work with him - it's not like West stumbled across the Wings theme from Crossroads and thought 'I need to find this person and work with him'; the attraction is that it is Famous Beatle Man McCartney. West is relying on people knowing who he's working with. Otherwise it'd be like having your photo taken with Prince Charles only Prince Charles has his back to the camera - it might as well be anyone. West's calculation is that his fanbase will know who the man is, otherwise it'd be pointless.

But beyond that: is it unfair to expect people to be at least aware of McCartney? Ray Miller might have been a mystery in 1964 partly because he'd not left as big a crater in popular culture as McCartney has - working a time when even radio fame didn't spread very far, and recorded music was less popular than sheet music; and on the far side of a world war which fractured and remade a lot of the culture, even someone passionate about big bands might have struggled to have much contact with Miller's work.

But in a 21st Century with Spotify and YouTube and never-ending channels of Gold and silver memories, it's harder to imagine someone growing up without having come across something Beatley - if, for example, you genuinely don't know roughly what the Abbey Road album cover is, a lot of modern culture will be inexplicable to you.

Whether you like The Beatles or not, the band and its members are surely on the list of shared assumptions of things you know in modern Western Anglophone culture - like Shakespeare and Star Wars and Dickens and Mark Twain and Elvis.

Frankly, not knowing who McCartney is would be the mark of someone culturally inept.

Which is, of course, exactly the point the Kanye fans were making with their jokes in the first place.

Kanye West: "I'm so very, very clever"

Last year, while being investigated for having a pop at a photographer, Kanye West (out of The Kardashians) had to give a deposition. He approached this as he appears to approach everything, with his inflated sense of self-worth hanging out his pants:

In the transcript, obtained by TMZ.com, Kanye said: ''I'm the smartest celebrity you've ever f***ing dealt with. I'm not Britney Spears.

''I'm in the business of trying to make dope s**t for the world. You're in the business of representing scums and trying to make as much money as long as there's this lapse in the law

If you're that smart, would you really go with Britney Spears as a comparison?

He might be smart, but he seems not to have grasped the effect of his lyrics:

{Lawyer] Mr. Goldberg then questioned Kanye on his track 'Flashing Lights', quoting the lyrics: ''Till I get flashed by the paparazzi, damn, these ni**as got me.''

Kanye hit back: ''You have to ask for a hall pass. You can't just say the 'n' word around me. It offends me because you're a white person saying ni**a.''

But he's quoting your own lyrics, Kanye. They're your words. It's a quote.

Hang on, he's off again...

The 'Bound 2' hitmaker also claimed celebrities feel like black people fighting for civil rights in the 1960s.

He said: ''I mean in the 60s people used to hold up 'Die N****r' signs when my parents were in the sit-ins also.''

Kanye, I think you better ask for a hall pass. Suggesting that incredibly rich people who undertake activities to increase their wealth by mugging for cameras are in some way the spiritual heirs of 60s civil rights activists means that 'deliberately leaking a sex tape' and 'deliberately choosing to sit in a whites only area of a restaurant' are somehow morally equivalent.

If you're really so smart, Kanye, why is the character you play saying such stupid things?

Kanye West goes to Wireless

Kanye West was on the Wireless stage last night. He did break into his act of moaning about his life to play a couple of songs, but mostly it was just the classic stuff:

"The first thing they do is crush you… They control you with lies," he repeatedly declared, adding:

"How many people have had people tell you that you aren't f**kin' awesome?... This is what I'm talking about…. They say, 'I don't know what's wrong with Kanye' and make it sound like I'm a bad person in some way. What have I ever done that was so wrong other than believe in myself?"

I love the idea that West has now become so detached from reality that he assumes that being criticised and "not being told you're fucking awesome" are pretty much the same thing. And that nobody else would know what its like to be discouraged to our face.

There's also some sort of beef which appears to be about not being given free trousers by overpriced designers:

"I'm not going to mention any names but... Nike, Louis Vuitton and Gucci. Don't discriminate against me because I'm a black man making music.

"F**k saving face and what it's supposed to mean, it's about living my dream."

No, sweetie, they don't want to work with you because you're a character off that programme about Karadashian or Honey Boo Boo or the people who cut out money off coupons or whatever.

At least we now know that advertising Nike plimsoles is part of West's dreams. What strange, fevered dreams.

Bonnaboo: Kim Kardashian's husband goes down badly

Kanye West's attempts to pull off being a serious artist while working part-time in a circus have failed, cold hard reality reported this weekend.

West went to the Boonaroo Festival, and found says the Examiner, a crowd in no mood for his braggadocio:

Variations of “F--k Kanye” began appearing throughout the audience on graffiti including walls, barriers and port-a-potties.

You'd think that when even the chemical toilets are singling you out, you'd take the hint.

But oh no; not Kanye.

About halfway through his set, when the song “Heartless” was being introduced, Kayne started shouting “Where the press at? F–k the press!”

Many members of the news media were in attendance for the show. But West continued with his rant. He bragged to the crowd about his strong work ethic and his commitment to music.
Kanye continued, “humbled in a way that gave him strength” because at 37, “what you see [of him] now is only the beginning.” and later added, “I am the No. 1 muthaf–kin’ rock star on the planet!”

Paul McCartney might beg to differ. Mick Jagger might beg to differ. Indeed, given Kanye's move to being a hip-hop Honey Boo Boo, even James Arthur might have a case for challenging that claim.

In the absence of other rock stars, though, it was the audience who raised the objections:

The crowd did not take that sitting down. The audience forcefully booed him and many got up and left. But the festival attendees did not leave the area, they migrated over to the UK dance band “Disclosure’s” tent before the duo’s set even began.

The raucous crowd shouted well-organized chants of “F–k Kanye!”
Bonnaroo is noted for its mellow crowd. The festival’s official slogan is “Radiate Positivity.”

That's not entirely true - after all, the last time Kanye appeared back in 2008 he got booed off the Boonaroo stage. That time, though, it was turning up six hours late and the displeasure could have been a commentary on poor time keeping. In 2014, I think we can safely assume this was a content issue.

Kanye West not happy at being on the money

It used to be that appearing on currency gave some sort of lasting fame - just ask Elizabeth Fry. Or the Queen.

Kanye West, though, isn't happy about his appearance on some sort of bitcoin. The Associated Press reports on a coming legal battle:

The lawsuit says the creators of the digital coins "brazenly admit" that they used West's name and likeness to associate their new currency with West because he is a trendsetter.

The lawsuit says entrepreneurs boasted that the currency can't be stopped whether it "looks like a dollar, a dog or a cartoon picture of a rapper." The virtual currency's creators are using a cartoon image of a coin featuring the rapper in large sunglasses.

It's not entirely clear why anyone would want to invest in coins named for Kanye anyway - after all, the value of the coins keeps falling whenever they're used to settle Kim Credit Cardashian bills.

Peter Saville has to eat, you know

Apparently, Peter Saville is going to design a logo for Kanye West:

We’re looking at ways of writing ‘Kanye West,’” he said. “What does ‘Kanye’ and ‘Kanye West’ look like written down?”

It's possible this suggests he isn't bothering to bring his strongest approach to the job - "that bloke out of Keeping Up With The Cardigans wants a logo? How about we write his name down? That'd do it."

Even so, it's like discovering Gainsborough has signed on to rework the Laughing Cow brand.

Kanye talked with Saville about Cassandre’s 1961 logo for Yves Saint Laurent. “He said to me: ‘You’re Cassandre’,” Saville said. “He wants a YSL”.

Surely the kindest thing to say to this is "Kanye, you are not Yves Saint Laurent. You might want to have a think about Chris Ayer's work for Chuck E Cheese."

Can't catch Kanye

If we're to believe the Daily Star, Kanye West has spent a million dollars on kidnap-proof cars.

That makes no sense. Who would want to kidnap a car?

Oh. Apparently it's to protect the people in the cars. Surely the knowledge that if they kidnapped Kanye or Kim Kardashian, they'd have to spend time with them, is a better defence that any armoured car?

Kanye West reckons he could have a go at being an architect

Is there nothing that Kanye West won't turn his hand to? (By "turn his hand to" I mean "grunt at drawings of and sign off his name appearing upon", of course.)

He now fancies a spot of architecture:

What I want to do post-Grammys is I want to work on cities, I want to work on amusement parks, I want to change entertainment experiences or life.

There's a couple of things here. First, the way he says "post-Grammys" where most people would say "after my music career", as if he just expects the end of the process of making music is being given a small metal gramophone and a round of applause.

More crucially, it's the extent to which he's thought this through. For what could be more obvious a sign of having considered his many options than saying "I want to work on cities" before suddenly changing that to "amusement parks".

Still, how difficult can it be, changing entertainment? (Or, possibly, life?) I know that I'd be delighted to ride a rollercoaster put together by someone who's doing it because he's got bored of collaborating with Jay-Z.

Gordon in the morning: Man and woman leave restaurant after finishing meal

A slightly bemusing story - although, obviously, one every word of which has been double- and triple-checked for accuracy - as Gordon reports Kim Kardashian and Kanye West left a restuarant where Jay-Z was having a party:

A source said: “Jay expected Kay and Kim to mingle.

"But as soon as Kim whispered in Kanye’s ear, they left.”

To be honest, I think if Kim Kardashian came up to me talking, I'd leave wherever I was, too. Although I'd be alarmed if she followed.

Gordon in the morning: Near the Queen

Kanye West has been in London, and apparently The Queen is unhappy:

Kanye West tear-up upsets the royals

By GORDON SMART, Showbiz Editor

WHEN Kanye West moved to London it was a dead cert he'd rub a few people up the wrong way with his Zoolander antics.

Now he has not only upset the fashion world but also members of the Royal Family.

Gordon bases this on a quote from Kanye's special friend Big Sean:

"We went to London and we were right next to the Buckingham Palace and the Royal Family."

Gordon inflates this claim:

The rapper has been living at the Lanesborough Hotel — just a stone's throw from Buckingham Palace — for the past few months.

Next to? A stone's throw?

Not according to the hotel's website, which points out it actually sits over half a mile from the Palace.

But, hey, Big Sean can save this non-story. What if the royal family were actually in the hotel?

There were members of the Royal Family staying below us.

"Kanye had rented out the top floor and we was banging that bitch out.

"Every room was a studio. The Royal Family below were complaining like, 'We got all this loud-ass rap music above us and weed smoke.'"

Yes, the Royal Family would be staying in a hotel in central London, on account of not having hundreds of bedrooms available in the city.

It's funny, by the way, how Sean talks about selfishness as if it's a great thing.

Gordon in the morning: When Kanye goes west

Gordon brings us this morning the dreams of Kanye West:

"I was thinking about my funeral a couple of days ago."

That happens when you watch Countdown and the advert with Michael Parkinson talking about assurance pops up, Kanye.

"The people I want to be there are like world leaders."

If it helps, Merkel and Sarkozy have said they can make next Tuesday, providing it's an open casket.

Why would Kanye expect world leaders to congregate at his wake?

"Ones that say, 'Kanye gave me my first shot, he told me to believe in myself'.

"I want to affect people like that if I pass away."

Oh, bless. He's confusing Pusha T with a world leader.

Still, after the Katrina telethon he might get George Bush along for a spot of grave-top jigging.

Kanye, as you'll already have spotted, has something of a set of tickets on himself. In a totally humble way:

"When the lightbulb was invented it wasn't to stop a war.

"I'm not saying what I'm doing is the most important thing that's happening on the planet.

"But it's necessary. Just like one teacher teaching in a class."

The late Miles Kington used to create Albanian Proverbs - phrases which sounded profound at first, but turned out to be meaningless when you thought about them. Nice to see Kanye keeping the flame alive with "the lightbulb wasn't invented to stop a war".

I guess we should just be delighted that he's enough humility to accept that "making increasingly disappointing songs" isn't - quite - the "most important thing that's happening on the planet."

If Kanye believes he's like one teacher teaching a class, what specific teacher would be at his level of "necessary"? I'd suggest he's somewhere around a supply teacher covering an RE class for a group of year three pupils during a flu crisis that means most of the kids haven't turned up. Although that might still be overstating it a bit.

Kanye West wants us to be gentle

Kanye West revealed his ladies wear collection at Paris Fashion Week a couple of days ago, to snorts of derision. They were fair enough snorts, to be honest: some of the designs would have shamed a contestant on the first week of Project Runway.

What's amusing, though, is Kanye's apparent awareness that he was pushing substandard clobber:

"Thank you for anybody that didn't believe, because they motivated us to break our boundaries... We don't know what the reviews will be, we don't know what they will say... I gave you everything that I had.

"This is my first collection. Please be easy. Please give me a chance to grow. This is not some celebrity s**t. I don't f**k with celebrities... The amount of people that tried to get me a celebrity f**king deal. They said, 'You need to do boot-cut jeans, or you won't sell.' Shut the f**k up!...

"I thank anybody who came to this party, everybody who supported, everybody who believed, because people thought it was a joke, and maybe people still do, but I can only grow from this point."

Not some celebrity shit, Kanye? Really? How many other designers have their first fashion show at Paris Fashion Week? And if you know it's so bad you have to issue a plea to be "given a chance", maybe you should be doing what everyone else has to do, and take the "chance to grow" while at fashion school, showing your early work in the more gentle climate of a term-end show.

If you're going to shove actual designers out the way, waving your famous face as the shortcut pass, at least have the decency to take the bad reviews on the chin. Being to be given a chance because it's not something you've got experience of doing is really a roundabout admission that you shouldn't be there.

[Thanks to Michael M]

Protection: Have Jay-Z and Kanye outsmarted the leakers?

The BBC News website gets quite excited by the lengths Jay-Z and Kanye West went to to stop their album leaking:

Billboard magazine reported some of the steps they took - such as storing the music on fingerprint-protected hard drives that were kept in locked suitcases.

To keep hackers out, their producers turned off wi-fi on their computers as the album was recorded in pop-up studios in hotel rooms around the world.

Draft versions of songs were not sent by email. Instead, the duo insisted that all collaborators must come to their temporary studios to record their contributions in person.

The album's art director Virgil Abloh even suggested on Twitter - possibly joking, possibly not - that producer Noah Goldstein had been "sleeping with the hard drives for like 10 months straight".

A man who had been fixing the toilets down the corridor from where one of the recordings took place had his vocal cords removed to stop him singing the songs in the street. Kanye West used selective breeding to create guard dogs crossed with giraffes, that would be unable to bark the beats being used. Seventeen people were disappeared to Central America, only being released again once the album was available. And all the files were password protected with the password "pA55w0rd", which nobody would ever be able to guess.

Lots of fun and games - it must have been like being in Spy Kids 5: The Disappointing Musical - but, almost certainly, pointless, as the key measures were quite simple:

Only a small circle of people had access to the music before it was released on iTunes last Monday, at which point it was delivered to a CD manufacturing plant.

Yes, for all the wi-fi cloaking and circles of toads' blood, if you want to stop a CD leaking don't give it to anyone who might knock a copy off before it's ready to hit the shops.

Of course, easy to do when it's a long-awaited crossover-double-up between Mr. Z and Mr. West. Slightly harder if you're, say, Joe Lean And Jing Jang Jong to persuade your record label to just prepare the presses before they've had a chance to hear what they're going to be releasing. So might not work for everyone.

But did it work for Jay-Z and West?

The album has now broken the iTunes one-week sales record, selling almost 290,000 copies in its first seven days.

That might be down to it not having leaked. Equally, though, it could be down to iTunes having it a week before it was in the shops.

And given the margins are a bit better on physical copies than on digital versions, the duo might have been better off not bothering with the warlock fastening their laptops with a hemlock rope, and just carried on as normal.

But, hey, then how would they have got to play the Hardy Boys?