Kanye West has flung a fair amount of shit while in the public eye. No-one will let him forget his stroppy little tirade when he got all up in Taylor Swift’s face (thereby provoking one of the lamest beefs in pop history).

And lately, Kanye’s twitter account has been a rich source of, well, nonsense. He’s waxed lyrical about being wounded and hurt and pretty much anything else that pops into his funny little brain.

And people have been dragging him over hot coals after he said that he’d allowed Britney Spears to go to number one in the Billboard chart.

People took his comment seriously, thereby showing that either Kanye is massively deluded or that Britney Spears fans are some of the most humourless and dense people to grace the planet.

This saw Kanye having to defend comments that were quite obviously a joke, and thereby, proving that Britney fans are massively stupid.

After Spears beat Kanye’s and Jay-Z’s joint song ‘H.A.M.’ to the number one spot, he said:

“Yo Britney, I’m really happy for you and I’mma let you be #1, but me and Jay-Z’s single is one of the best songs of all time!”

However, when the thick people got involved, he had to say:

“When I said the comment about Brittney I was giving her props for being #1 not dissing her at all!,”

“How can you ‘let’ someone be number one??!! That was the whole joke!!! I know intelligent people know this so bear with me”

“But stop making it seem that my aim is to hurt or down people! That’s just not my style! As pop stars we’re all in this shit together! We on the inside of the TV!”

Okay, we’ll assume that you know that Kanye is using a metaphor when he says that popstars live on the inside of a television set. We feel we have to say this in case any Britney fans start clawing at the screen when she next appears on a music channel or chatshow. Okay? They’re just moving pictures transmitted from far, far away where, in fact, all acts are required to perform songs live, over and over again at your will. Honestly. They’re performing monkeys. If you have a PVR, when you press rewind, they have to act like they’re going backwards. Have a look next time you do it.

Anyway, Kanye continued:

“If you don’t give em a story they just make one up. I’m just trying to focus & stay creative! Keep bringing dope shit to the world!”

Irritatingly, Kanye’s last album is indeed, very good. The git. Sadly, Britney’s – while sounding kinda good – lacks the magic of her biggest hits. We’ll keep an eye on both and probably end up slagging them off initially, before loving both artists unreservedly.

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Despite holding a genuine old person bus pass, smelling of wee and forgetting where he puts his slippers on a regular basis, Cliff Richard has somehow topped the charts again. No, honest.

He’s become the number one bestseller in the hotly contested ‘battle of who can sell the most overpriced calendar to people you don’t really like enough to buy a proper present for, but y’know, it’ll do, it’s almost Christmas and you want to go and get smashed on eggnog and crap homemade mulled wine’ chart.

Weird, right?  You’d have thought all of his fans were dead by now.

What’s even more amazing about this story is the competition he’s up against. He’s outselling the mighty powerhouses of JLS and Justin Bieber – fans of whom will buy literally any old crap they bung their name on, be it condoms (JLS) or their own sweat (at least that’s what the headline ‘Justin Bieber releases fragrance’ was referring a couple of months back).

What’s more, he did all that with his shirt off, showing off his (actually rather toned and buff, really) uncovered elderly torso. I don’t know whether to be disgusted or aroused. Probably both.

BBC news (yes, because he is that important) bellows:

“Sales of veteran singer Sir Cliff Richard’s calendar is beating the likes of JLS, Justin Bieber and Michael Buble, online retailer Amazon has said. The star, who stripped to the waist for one of the shots, has the biggest-selling male celebrity calendar.”

See, Amazon said it, so it must be true. Hopefully, the ‘Spray will spare your eyes by not using the half naked picture from the BBC in the future, as we imagine it would be pretty embarrassing to be throwing up your lunch over your computer while having an enormous erection.

Amazingly, national treasure turned national hate figure Cheryl Cole is outselling second-placed Kylie 4 to 1 despite inflicting a haunted miniature version of herself on the nation week after week. Presumably this means that  the dartboard industry is in for a gloomy time this Christmas.

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It’s good to end your year better than you started it – Britney Spears has, but only because she was cheating.

Britney Spears’ 2008 is ending with her new album Circus at number one in America – and she’s also the first ever SoundScan artist to have four albums sell 500,000 week-one copies.

So well done – Britney Spears’ year has ended better than it started. But then again she did start it in a mental hospital – Britney could have caught Ebola off a rabid zombie meerkat while falling down a lift shaft and the year would have still been an upswing for her.

Everyone loves a story of redemption, especially at this time of year. That’s why people love A Christmas Carol - it wouldn’t be nearly as popular if it ended with Ebeneezer Scrooge punching Tiny Tim down a flight of stairs, machine-gunning a puppy and then hanging himself in the middle of the town square, would it?

And Britney Spears’ year has been a little bit like A Christmas Carol. Not a huge amount, admittedly – instead of being visited by ghosts, Britney Spears was deemed too mentally unwell to feed or dress herself and then, rather than redeeming herself by welcoming a festive spirit of goodwill into her heart, Britney made a record where she went “UHH Pappi LOVE you! UHH Pappi LOVE you!” about 15 times in a row – but a bit.

Anyway, by getting her act together enough to release and promote a new album properly, the redemptive message is loud and clear – Britney Spears is still a bit mental but at least she’s got a proper haircut now – and the American public have rewarded her for it by buying Circus in droves.

You know what this means? Britney Spears is number one again! Reuters reports:

“Circus,” the sixth studio album for Spears, sold 505,000 copies in the United States during the week ended Dec. 7, one of the biggest debuts of the year. She becomes the only artist in tracking firm Nielsen SoundScan’s 17-year history to have four albums sell 500,000 copies or more in their first week.

While that’s enough of an impressive double-combo as it is, it’s not all – Circus by Britney Spears has also made history by being the best-ever selling album to sound like it was recorded by Professor Stephen Hawking‘s wheelchair after it was struck by lightning and learnt to kill, plus it’s the only number one album of the year where the cover features a picture of the singer pulling a face like a laboratory puppy pleading with strangers to put it out of its misery.

So our hearty congratulations go to Britney Spears for the success of Circus. She’s back where she belongs now – at number one, drunk on success and on the precipice of a giant career-threatening mental breakdown. And so say all of us.

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There are all kinds of ways to tell if your comeback has been successful, but Britney Spears has easily just found the best one.

Britney’s big new comeback single Womanizer has jumped 95 places in the American singles chart to reach number one. And you know what they say – when a song that sounds like Professor Stephen Hawking‘s faulty voicebox being jumpstarted by a big spluttering clown-car engine gets to number one, you’ve probably been accepted by the general population to some extent.

And now that Womanizer‘s number one position is the cherry on Britney Spears’ public rehabilitation cake, it’s time for her to celebrate. How? The same way she always does – by shaving her head, mashing anti-psychotic drugs into her food and trapping her own children in a bathroom until she’s sedated and taken to a mental hospital. Hooray!

Britney Spears should go into politics. Seriously, look at how well she’s galvanised the public with her comeback. It’s been so stage-managed and choreographed that nothing could possibly have upset it. Well, nothing except for Britney Spears’ fragile state of mind, which could still explode messily all over the place and end up with Britney Spears kidnapping a stranger’s child and hiding it in the rafters with her at any moment, but let’s ignore that.

Because Britney Spears’ new single Womanizer has just made it to number one in the American single chart, and it’s broken all kinds records as well. E! Online reports:

The song’s 95-spot jump to No. 1 is the biggest in Billboard history… “Womanizer” also set a record by selling 286,000 digital copies. That not only tops the singer’s 179,000-copy debut for 2007′s “Gimme More,” it’s also the biggest digital debut for any female artist since Nielsen SoundScan started tracking digital sales five years ago. Mariah Carey‘s “Touch My Body” previously held the record.

Other records that Womanizer by Britney Spears has broken include Most Popular Song To Ever Go ‘Womanizer Woma-Womanizer You’re A Womanizer Oh Womanizer Oh You’re A Womanizer Baby’ All The Titting Time, Best Song To Make Suspects To Break Down And Confess Their Secrets Now That Physical Torture Is Frowned Upon and Best Alternative Theme-Tune To Prime Minister’s Question Time.

The success of Womanizer bodes well for Britney Spears’ new album Circus, to be released in December, and by and large it’s all down to the exceedingly professional way that her comeback has been stage-managed. So, disgraced celebrities, if you want to make a successful comeback all you need to do is follow Britney Spears’ simple five-point guide.

1 – Turn up in public wearing nice clothes and make-up that doesn’t look like it was applied by an elderly Parkinson’s sufferer in the middle of a temper tantrum. The fact that you aren’t red-eyed and bald will confound everyone senseless.

2 - Let your mother publish a book that graphically describes what a mental old bastard you are, but only so long as the last line reads something like “But, hey, she’s all better now, so phew.”

3 - Release a single that just involves you saying the same word over and over again while a fire alarm goes off in the background that everybody seems pretty ambivalent about.

4 - Get naked in the video for that song, because only then will people actually pay any attention to it.

5 - Pray to God that your little sister makes you look relatively sane in comparison.

Followed all those steps? Congratulations, you’re a success just like Britney Spears! Now you’re ready to be the subject of so much unwanted media intrusion and responsibility-free power that your mental health is almost certainly going to deteriorate to a worry extent. See you in the mental hospital!

Nicolas Cage apparently lives in Bath, but everyone knows that his real home is the top of the weekend box office. Or a wig shop. Who knows?

Anyway, We’re only telling you this because Nicolas Cage’s new film Bangkok Dangerous is number one at the US weekend box office this week, taking in a mighty seven million dollars. Look, that figure might be 22 times less than The Dark Knight took on its opening weekend, but did The Dark Knight feature a skinny man in a funny wig shooting people in a boat? No, no it didn’t. Point proved.

Bangkok Dangerous‘ weekend box office success makes us think that all Asian movies would do well if they were remade starring Nicolas Cage. Imagine Nicolas Cage eating a live octopus in an Old Boy remake. Or Nicolas Cage kicking over cities in a Godzilla remake. Or a remake of The Ring where Nicolas Cage crawls out of a TV and scares Nicolas Cage to death and Nicolas Cage has to investigate it. Yes!

Bangkok Dangerous is the top movie at the weekend box office – and it’s not particularly surprising, given moviegoers’ love for horrible wigs, violent assassinations, generic action thrills and Nicolas Cage patronising the Asians. Maybe if Babylon AD had got Vin Diesel to overpronounce the word ‘holiday’ to a confused elderly man from South-East Asia, that would topped the weekend box office too. Here’s the US weekend box office top five:

1 – Bangkok Dangerous (Another reason why Bangkok Dangerous succeeded was because of the ‘location description’ formula of its title. Bangkok really is dangerous, you see. It’s not a formula that would work in this country, though – would you go and watch Sutton Coldfield Underwhelming? Of course you wouldn’t. Not even if it had Nicolas Cage with a girl’s haircut in it) $7,800,000

2 - Tropic Thunder (Thank goodness Tropic Thunder‘s still doing the weekend box office business, because otherwise Steve Coogan would have only had Hamlet 2 to rely on, and that died a death. Oh Steve Coogan, whyever did you stop making geographical action movies with Jackie Chan?) $7,500,000

3 - The House Bunny (Wow, that’s three for three gormless comedies so far in the weekend box office. America must really love to laugh at the momen… what? Bangkok Dangerous isn’t a comedy? Really? That’s a serious haircut, then? Crikey) $5,900,000

4 – The Dark Knight (Since casting rumours for The Dark Knight‘s sequel have now officially gone berserk, let’s throw this one in here – in the next movie, Nicolas Cage is actually going to be playing Batman. And Alfred. And The Penguin. And Catwoman. Blimey, this cough medicine really is quite strong, you know) $5,715,000

5 - Traitor (We could be wrong, but Traitor sounds like it’s basically the flashback story of Sayid from Lost, except without the sneaking suspicion that the invention of Google Earth has rendered the whole fucking thing completely pointless) $4,660,00

Read more:

Weekend Box office – Box Office Mojo

If you watched the Transformers movie, then you’ll have noticed how sexy Megan Fox is.

Well, maybe not. Maybe you’ll have been too busy noticing how much enjoyment Michael Bay was taking in stomping all over your beloved childhood memories by filling the movie with piddle jokes and confusing Ebonics-speaking robots who enjoy watching teenagers have sex. Anyhow, Megan Fox was also in Transformers and she was sexy.

And that sexiness is official, because the results of FHM‘s 100 Sexiest Women In The World poll has just been released, and Megan Fox is number one. Congratulations, then, to Megan Fox, who can now go to sleep at night knowing that more gawky teenage boys furiously masturbate to disturbing imagined adolescent sexual scenarios involving her than anyone else. Masturbate and then cry. Or is that just us?

There’s no doubt that Megan Fox has a huge future in Hollywood. If she plays her cards right, there’s nothing  to stop Megan Fox from becoming the new Angelina Jolie. She could be bigger than Angelina Jolie, even, because she doesn’t go on TV and get all ‘boo hoo hoo’ about starving Africans all the time.

Megan Fox is certainly sexy enough to become a huge star, because she’s just been named as FHM‘s sexiest woman in the world – the premier poll to help teenage boys develop life-long ingrained unrealistic expectations of women… in the world.

We know, we know – just last month we were telling you that Katherine Heigl was the sexiest woman in the world and now we’re telling you it’s Megan Fox. But don’t be confused – Heigl came top of a poll of ideal potential girlfriends, whereas Megan Fox has won a poll of women who lonely men would like to sleep with once but never enter into a lasting relationship with because trying to have a conversation with them would be like trying to have a conversation with a brain-damaged monkey. Subtle difference. Anyway, The Associated Press reports:

Megan Fox is the sexiest woman in the world — at least according to FHM magazine… Fox debuted on the annual list in 2006 at No. 68 and ranked at No. 65 in 2007. Joining her in the top 10 this year are — in descending order — Jessica Biel, Alba, Elisha Cuthbert, Scarlett Johansson, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Hilary Duff, Tricia Helfer, Blake Lively and Kate Beckinsale. Britney Spears came in last place at No. 100.

That’s quite a list for someone as young as Megan Fox to come out on top of. It also goes to show what sort of a career Megan Fox can expect to have with all this new-found male attention – she can either go the way of 2007 winner Jessica Alba and make a string of massively unsuccessful movies or she can go the way of 2006 winner Scarlett Johansson and make, um, a string of massively unsuccessful movies. The sky’s the limit, Megan!

Oh, OK, we shouldn’t be too hard on Megan Fox. It’s not her fault that she’s pretty, is it? And maybe one day she’ll even prove that there’s more to her than looking like a dead-eyed, quite expensive inflatable sex doll. Let’s not forget that nine million men voted in FHM‘s 100 Sexiest Women list, and you know what they say – nine million men can’t be wrong. Unless they all read FHM.

Read more:

Megan Fox tops FHM’s sexiest women list – AP

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. That’s one of the many mottos passed down to us from our fathers who subsequently had the same advice given to them from their own decaying parents.

And with this firmly drilled in to her mind, it’s good to see Leona Lewis has taken the same advice. As her appearance on X Factor 2006 dragged on, her singing style never really changed that much. Any song with a BPM over 40 was totally inappropriate for her. Instead she belted out ballad after ballad keeping grannies, young children and people in comas extremely happy. After boring us all silly with her hit Bleeding Love she’s now done the same to our American chums. She’s only ruddy gone to number one in the album charts!

You have to hand it to Simon Cowell. He may be the smuggest twat in the world and a crap spokesman for the RSPCA, but he knows how to milk something until it’s dry. So far he’s doing extremely well at doing this with Leona Lewis. The high-trousered judge told The Press Association:

“What Leona has achieved is simply incredible. This is the hardest market to crack and for her debut album to go in at Number One is unbelievable.”

Yup, that’s true. America is pretty hard to crack. Unless you’re a country & western singer, rapper, hip-hop artist or a whiny R&B bod, you don’t have a chance in hell in denting the American chart. And you won’t get a chance to meet Oprah. That itself is an honour; to make music for women to badly dance to. Or, in Leona’s case, sing on a song that you didn’t write, produce or play any instruments on.

But where so many have failed such as Robbie Williams and Jay-Z hating Oasis, there has been a reason for this. You see, Simon Cowell is like the wicked witch of the music world. He casts evil spells that result in bland and unimaginative music. One of the people he shitted out was Leona Lewis. It also helps a fair bit that people will buy anything he’s connected to. Consequently, this means big sales:

“Spirit has sold 204,841 copies this week in the US. Her nearest rival in the Billboard Top 200, the album Troubadour by George Strait, has sold 59,000 copies.”

This comes before her appearance on American Idol which will only have thirty million Americans watching. Of course her singing on the show has nothing to do with the fact that Cowell is a judge on the US version. No, we’re being way too cynical here.

So far, the crater-faced crying Scottish boy who won X Factor in 2007 hasn’t hurt our ears yet with more mass-produced bollocks. But if Cowell is able to turn Leona Lewis – a brilliant karaoke singer, into a household American name, then God knows what will happen. The thought of him shedding his tears in other countries can only depress the people living there. And we want to spread joy, not blubbering and depression.

Still we can’t grumble too much – whilst America laps up Leona, she’s consequently missing from UK radio and TV stations. Something we can safely say is much more important then a credit crunch or global warming.

Read more:

Leona makes US album chart history – PA

Top that, crying bad-haired Scottish boy whose name we can't even remember – Leona Lewis, who won X Factor before you is number one in America.

Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis is number one in the American singles chart, proving that not even global superpowers are immune to personality-free girls doing generally passable Whitney Houston impressions.

It's worth pointing out, though, that Leona Lewis is the first British female to get a US number one single since Kim Wilde in 1987. And if Leona Lewis keeps her head down and work hard, maybe she'll reach the same dizzying heights. That's right, the TV gardener/ health food commercial actor/ novelty Christmas single with the fat one from Smith & Jones combo is now well and truly within her grasp.

Of all the megastars that X Factor has ever produced – like Chico and, um, that crying Scottish boy we just mentioned and Emily the scarily violent schoolgirl – none have been bigger or more successful than Leona Lewis. Right from her first appearance on X Factor, it was a certainty that Leona Lewis would win – she had it all.

OK, not quite 'it all' as such – try and talk to Leona and all you'll get back is a tumble of meaningless robotic statements about how grateful she is and what and honour everything is and how she's wanted to sing since she was a little girl – but Leona Lewis was able to sing a bit like Whitney Houston and looked decent in pretty dresses, which is usually enough to win these things anyway.

And now Leona Lewis has surpassed all expectations after an appearance on Oprah helped push her single Bleeding Love to a coveted American number one spot. The Independent reports:

Yesterday Lewis's single shot to No 1 in the Billboard Hot 100, knocking Usher from pole position – the first British woman to top the US singles charts since Kim Wilde in 1987 with her cover of The Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On"… Despite finding her music "very safe" and "overwhelmingly mainstream", the Billboard contributor Paul Sexton agrees that Lewis has undoubtedly hit the big time. "There's no denying she's a big star now," he said. "Getting to No 1 in America is a very big endorsement, whatever you think of her music."

What's all the more shocking is the chiming endorsement that Oprah Winfrey gave Leona Lewis when she appeared on her show: "Wow, wow, wow… Talk about a star is born. You're the real deal, girl," she told Leona on air – marking the first time in history that Oprah Winfrey has ever got excitable about anything on TV, with the sole exception of everything else she's ever encountered.

And Leona Lewis' success in America has meant that she's leapfrogged Amy Winehouse, who is yet to score herself a US number one despite all the attention she's got there. However, Amy Winehouse can win Grammys and Leona Lewis can't even win a Brit, so if Leona wants to start winning the critics over she should probably start huffing crack on videotape and cutting herself. Just a thought.

Read more:

The Oprah Effect: America's next big thing – The Independent 

In the depths of the countryside, five men collectively known as Radiohead locked themselves away in a big empty house to make their new album In Rainbows.

People everywhere had high expectations for this one so savvy people like us could call it 'the return to OK Computer days' album. Finally in October, an announcement was made that a new album had been created with an immediate release a few days later. Not only would this mean that the traditional three month wait between news of a new album and release would be quashed, but the geeks on the internet wouldn’t have to brave the outside when the big day finally came. And on Monday everyone else got to buy it on CD. 

And, according to plan, In Rainbows has shot to number one.

When In Rainbows came out on the internet, fans had the choice to pay £40 for luxury artwork, vinyl and CD versions of the album and an exclusive CD of extra material. But not everyone is a mega-fan and the average person doesn't have that amount of money to spend on something that will sit on a shelf collecting dust and looking pretty. Unless you’re the sort of fan to make it in to some sort of Radiohead gangster chain and parade down the local indie disco. 

But since last Monday, people have been able to go to the shops and buy a physical, normal-priced copy of In Rainbows for themselves. And they did – enough of them for In Rainbows to knock Leona Lewis off the top of the album charts. Even though we could release a CD of a monkey belching the alphabet in the first week of January and it'd get to number one in the album charts, for the Leona thing we thank Radiohead a lot and offer them an open invite to come round to our gaff for endless cups of tea, coconut cake and those chocolate digestive biscuits with caramel in them. 

So it looks like Radiohead's 'pay what you like and then pay what we ask you to like everyone else' tactic has worked on all fronts. But who are the big losers in all of this? Old record label EMI upset lead singer/writer/depressed man Thom Yorke when it released a statement saying that the band wanted silly amounts of money for a new contract. A reply written like one of our many abusive comments was posted back by Yorke on the band's blog saying it was a load of porkie pies and they wanted to so something different or whatnot. 

The floodgates haven’t quite opened for more people to release music like Radiohead, but we expect the next industry-defining moment to be from Razorlight. Soon they will actually be posting a CD to everyone in the UK with a personalised apology for what they have done to our ears and a grovelling admission of guilt about how they’ll try to give us our time back for the amount lost listening to their bilge.  

Read more:

Radiohead CD Tops UK Album Chart - BBC

Along with the giving and receiving of official Cliff Richard calenders and morbid gluttony, Christmas is all about Simon Cowell getting personality-free dullards to number one with awful pretend-aspirational songs.

And that's no different this year. Leon Jackson, winner of X Factor and a young man so crushingly inarticulate that his primary method of communication is weeping, has been all but guaranteed this year's Christmas number one with his song I Believe or Believe In Me or When You Believe or I Preconceive That My Sleeve Believes Its Weave's Called Steve. Not only that, but When You Believe by Leon Jackson looks set to become the fastest-selling single of the year, selling 300,000 copies in less than a week. That's not the only record When You Believe's broken, either – it's also the only Christmas number one with a tune that nobody can remember even when they've just finished listening to it.

Winning X Factor can change your life completely. Look at Leona Lewis. 14 months ago she was just another Simon Cowell talent show pleb going "woooahaoaha" all over Whitney Houston records on TV, but now she's a multimillion-selling artiste who gets to go "woooahaoaha" over songs written especially for her that only sound like Whitney Houston records. The difference is staggering.

And that's the future that X Factor winner Leon Jackson has to look forward to, if record sales of his first single When You Believe are anything to go by. By all estimations, When You Believe by Leon Jackson is going to be this year's Christmas number one even though a) it's awful, b) it means that Simon Cowell has stretched his run of talent show Christmas number ones to three painful years, c) it's not as good as that song about everyone dying alone and d) it's awful.

According to HMV, When You Believe by Leon Jackson is shaping up to be the fastest-selling single of the year as well as Christmas number one, selling 300,000 this week alone. HMV bigwig Gennaro Castaldo says:

"Even at this early stage it looks like being Leon all the way."

But that's inevitable, isn't it? The winner of X Factor always gets Christmas number one. Even if the show was won by a goose choking on a half-swallowed string of spaghetti – or worse, Chico – it'd still get Christmas number one. So we shouldn't judge Leon Jackson yet. No, we must wait until his first album of red-eyed lazily-slurred awkward cruise-ship swing covers farts into the shops next year. Then we can judge him. 

But, hey, if When You Believe by Leon Jackson is going to be the Christmas number one, who are the also-rans? Well, currently in second place is that Katie Melua cover version of What A Wonderful World that appears to have only been recorded to soundtrack bitterly ironic suicides, followed by Leona Lewis and then Fairytale Of New York by Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl, which got a boost this week because of Radio 1 wanking about with the bleeper button. 

So congratulations to Leon Jackson, who'll go down in history as a Christmas number one even though his song's rubbish. We don't know how Leon plans to celebrate his Christmas number one yet, but we have a feeling it'll involve crying his whole body into dust. 

Still, could've been worse. Same Difference could've won.

Read more:

"X Factor" winner tipped for top spot – Reuters