The American Music Awards – like the Grammys, but more likely to make you lose total faith in humanity – always surprise.

And last night they surprised. The two biggest winners at last night’s AMAs were Taylor Swift (who wasn’t there) and Michael Jackson (who hasn’t released an album of new material since 2001) (and was nominated for a Greatest Hits album that’s over six years old) (and who is quite conclusively dead).

That wasn’t the surprise, though. No, the big surprise was that Black Eyed Peas won the prize for Best Pop Group. Honestly, what’s wrong with these people? Don’t they have ears?

Oh good. It’s the American Music Awards. You know what this means, don’t you? It means that awards season is here. Soon we’ll be up to our necks in 150 different types of award shows, all doling out meaningless baubles to films that nobody watched, music that nobody paid for and TV shows that people only put on because they’re afraid of silence. Joy.

And if the American Music Awards are any indication, the theme of this year’s award season is going to be Let’s Give Loads Of Stuff To Michael Jackson. Last night at the AMAs, Michael Jackson won Best Soul Artist, Best Pop Male, Best Pop Album and Best Soul Album, even though he didn’t release anything within the allotted time period for nominations. Or within any of the last eight allotted time periods for nominations, in fact. People reports:

“It’s not just about the winnings, the awards,” his brother Jermaine said in an acceptance speech. “It’s mainly the message. The message Michael had will live on forever. He saw good in everyone. … Start with love and let’s love each other.” Sister Janet Jackson got a standing ovation when she opened the show with a choreographed-heavy medley of her hits.

Jermaine Jackson is right – the continued love for Michael Jackson isn’t about winning the awards. It’s about being nominated for the awards, because that way Jermaine Jackson gets to spend his evenings somewhere warm where there’s free food. It’s going to be a cold winter, and he’ll need to stock up before people start forgetting about his brother.

It’s no surprise that Michael Jackson won so many American Music Awards – he was nominated for several of them, after all – but we’re praying that this doesn’t start a trend. Sure, a handful of AMAs are one thing, but nobody wants the Oscars to follow suit and award Moonwalker the Best Picture trophy, do they? Nobody wants the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe to go to Michael Jackson for his role in The Wiz, do they? Nobody wants Michael Jackson to win a retroactive British Comedy Award for that time he hilariously dangled his baby from a balcony, do they? What? They do? Weird.

But just because Michael Jackson won so many prizes, it doesn’t mean that the American Music Awards only honour washed-up shells of their former selves out of nothing more than a mixture of guilt and nostalgia, even though the acts are thoroughly undeserving of them, does it? Just take a look at who won the AMA Artist Of The Year award last night.

It was Whitney Houston. OK, you may have a point.

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Last night Ricky Loney was eliminated from X Factor. Hopefully you didn’t form a close attachment to him. Oh, of course you didn’t – he was arse-awful.

But aside from that gigantic inevitability, what else happened on X Factor this weekend? Well, Whitney Houston was the guest mentor, so the theme was obviously Diva Night. We heard it was going to be Ludicrous Former Crack-Addict Hasbeens Who Need Weird-Haired Frank Butcher Lookalike Sidekicks To Keep Them Upright, but that was found to be slightly too niche.

Anyway, how did the X Factor contestants do this weekend? Time for that recap you’ve all been waiting for…

Lucie Jones – Everybody has their own definition of the word ‘diva’. Take Lucie Jones, for example. Based on Saturday’s X Factor performance of How Will I Know, she thinks a diva is someone who drops to the floor inside a perspex testicle and then clomps around like an obnoxiously self-confident four-year-old at a Butlins junior talent show. Still, we don’t think that anybody should actually vote for Lucie. You see, if she continues to fill her routines with as many violently sassy hair-flicks as she did on Saturday’s X Factor, it’ll only be a matter of time before her head pops off and she gets rushed to hospital. It’d be a wasted vote.

Olly Murs – The worst thing about Olly Murs, after his hair and his needlessly large mouth and his stupid face and everything he’s ever done in his entire life, is that he’s almost a good performer. On Saturday’s X Factor Olly sang Fool In Love, and 90% of it was decent. It was in tune, nicely choreographed and – crucially – quite short. But the last 10% just made us want to reach inside our TV and slap his massive clueless face. For instance, does Olly really need to shout “HAH!” and “NOW LISTEN!” between every line he sings? No. Does he really have to be so smug that he’s constantly seems on the verge of dissolving? No? Does he really have to look like a dangerously uninhibited Bradley from EastEnders? Well, yes, probably. And that’s why we’ll never be able to love him.

Miss Frank – You may have noticed that we wanted Miss Frank to win X Factor this year. Well that probably won’t happen any more, and it’s all Miss Frank’s fault. If they’d chosen to sing an old Tina Turner song like Olly did, then they’d have sailed through to the next round. But they didn’t. They sang All The Man That I Need. By Whitney Houston. Whitney Houston, for God’s sake. And they sang most of it solo. And there wasn’t even any rapping. It was just a great big empty nothing. By Whitney Houston. Ugh. It’s a shame – if we know who Miss Frank are more than Miss Frank do, then that can’t be a good sign. Disappointing.

Rachel Adedeji - When we saw Rachel Adedeji start her X Factor performance of If I Were A Boy by lying on her back, we were initially worried that her giant asymmetrical haircut had thrown her back out or something. But no, it was all just a false alarm – in fact, there’s a good chance that Rachel was only doing it to make the song more memorable. It was a nice try, because God knows the song itself was such a fat sack of nothing that we barely even noticed when it finished. If only those four haggard stripper girls were around to save Rachel’s arse every week, then she’d be just fine.

Joe McElderry – Here’s what we learnt about Joe McElderry on Saturday’s X Factor: 1) His childhood was an elongated nightmare that alternated between obesity and transvestitism. 2) If he over-emoted any more during his version of Where Do Broken Hearts Go then he would have actually had to do a shit in his trousers. 3) If Britain ever remade High School Musical, then Joe would definitely be a shoo-in for the role of fourth male lead. 4) We’re not really sure that a show like X Factor should be won by someone who clearly idolises H From Steps to such a worrying extent.

Danyl Johnson – So on Saturday’s X Factor, Danyl Johnson performed I Didn’t Know My Own Strength; a song from Whitney Houston’s new album that nobody has ever heard. How did Danyl manage to cope with such a risky strategy? The same way that he copes with everything – by atonally howling the lyrics at the top of his voice. It was awful, but all the X Factor judges were duty-bound to praise it, because a) the song’s executive producer Clive Davis was sitting right next to them and b) nobody wanted to accidentally call Danyl a raging homo again. For the record, though, it was terrible.

Lloyd Daniels – Lloyd didn’t so much perform Bleeding Love on Saturday’s X Factor as cluelessly mumble the lyrics to Bleeding Love while someone held down the Dido preset button on a 1980s Bontempi keyboard. And it was genuinely horrible, possibly the most embarrassing X Factor performance since the days of The Unconventionals. Nobody liked it. The audience didn’t like it. The X Factor judges didn’t like it. Not even Whitney Houston liked it, and she’s spent most of the last decade off her face on crack. Not that Lloyd was ever in danger of being eliminated, though, because Cheryl Cole cried at the end of it and Lloyd gave her a hug. And that’s the sort of shit that you idiots apparently fall for. We hate you sometimes, idiots.

John & Edward – OK John & Edward, we may have got you wrong. We thought you were just a couple of annoying Irish morons, but we were mistaken. In actual fact you are MINDBLOWINGLY AWESOME. On Saturday’s X Factor John & Edward performed Oops… I Did It Again. All of Oops… I Did It Again. Even the spoken-word interlude. While wearing red leather suits. On a technical level there might have been some timing and pitch issues, but on a spiritual level John & Edward were THE BEST THING WE HAVE EVER SEEN. Watching John & Edward was like watching a UNICORN HUMP A RAINBOW. John & Edward were JESUSLIKE. John & Edward MUST WIN X FACTOR. THEY MUST. WIN. X FACTOR.

Rikki Loney - Whoever decided to make Rikki Loney – weedy little pointless hat-wearing Rikki Loney – sing Respect on Saturday’s X Factor deserves a medal. Because it’s finally what got Rikki slung out of X Factor forever. It was a dreary, muted version of Respect that was as flat and uneventful as we imagine most of Rikki’s life has been up until this point, and not even paying four tubby backing singing to desperately dry-hump their microphone stands could detract from how monstrous it all was. The end.

Jamie Archer – Up to and during his performance of Thank You on Saturday’s X Factor, we were worried that Jamie Archer was going to let us down. True, he did refer to himself as ‘Mr Cool Guy’ in the pre-song VT. And he did say that the song would show the public who he really was – which, based on his performance, means that he’s really a bland, whiny turd. But he didn’t even shout “Come on!” at the audience once during the song. Were we wrong about Jamie Archer? Was he less of a staggering cock than we’d been giving him credit for? No. Because as soon as he finished singing, Jamie Archer high-fived Simon Cowell. Cockitude restored. As you were, people.

Stacey Solomon – Now, OK, based on talent Stacey Solomon should probably win X Factor. But we’re worried about her. We think we’re detecting the genesis of Leona Syndrome with her. You know Leona Syndrome. It’s where a singer is so consistently faultless week after week that the public starts to tire of them, putting their chances of winning in jeopardy. Stacey’s X Factor performance of At Last on Saturday was perfect, just as her X Factor performance of The Scientist the week before was perfect. This is the sort of thing that could get old fast. So thank God she’s such a gibbering chav, eh? That’ll save her.

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Whitney Houston got where she is today by following one rule – take so many drugs that you end up looking like wheezy cadaver.

Wait, no, that’s not right. What we meant to say was that Whitney Houston got popular by following one rule – give the people what they want. And this worked, because in the 1990s people wanted bad films and identical-sounding songs bellowed by idiots. And Whitney Houston still follows this rule.

Because Whitney Houston is still giving the people what they want – anecdotes about the time Bobby Brown went mental, spat on her and started drawing evil eyes everywhere. Splendid.

Thanks to the success of her new album Deliberately Familiar-Sounding Songs Performed In A Slightly Disappointing Way – or whatever – Whitney Houston is back on top. Well, alright, not completely back on top – when she sings live Whitney Houston still tends to sound like a octogenarian tramp having an asthma attack inside a metal dustbin – but it’s enough for now.

Because over the last few years Whitney Houston has faced a number of seemingly insurmountable personal problems. She was addicted to crack. She had to sell everything she owned. She was married to an idiot. She made a reality TV show primarily focused on the dehydrated faecal impactions wedged inside her rectum. Osama bin Laden wanted to hump her quite badly. You could pick any single one of those things and it’d be enough to wreck your life. But not good old Whitney Houston.

You see, Whitney has managed to drag herself out of the mire. She’s been gifted a second chance, a clean sheet upon which she can rewrite her life. Looking back on the bad old times would be preposterously ill-advised – sure, it might help Whitney sell a few more records, but the effect on her personal well-being could be devastating.

So, long story short, Whitney Houston has decided to look back on the bad old times. With Oprah Winfrey. On television. In forensic details. That’s the bad news. The good news is that Whitney Houston’s bad old times sounded hilarious! Especially the part where Bobby Brown became overwhelmed by a terrifying drug-induced paranoia and started painting evil eyes all over the house. Reuters reports:

Houston said that during the couple’s narcotics-filled days, Brown would break glass objects in their home, and at one point he began painting eyes in their bedroom. “Evil eyes that were looking at every point in the room… I’m looking at it and going, ‘Lord, what’s really going on here?’ Because I was getting scared.” … Houston recalled a time when Brown spat on her when he had been drinking.

And Whitney Houston gave all of that up to return to music? That woman is crazy, plain and simple. It’s Bobby Brown who we feel most sorry for – there he is, tired after a hard day of breaking glass, obsessively painting thousands of disturbing eyeballs across every available surface and spitting at things, and all he wants from his wife is a nice cooked dinner and a backrub when he’s finished. But is she there to do all that for him? No, because she’s too busy telling the entire world what an unsettling crackpot he is. For shame, Whitney Houston. For shame.

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With her new album I Look To You, Whitney Houston has a lot to prove. OK, actually that’s a lie – she doesn’t.

Whitney Houston only needs to prove three things. That she can sing, that she’s beaten drugs, and that she doesn’t need loved ones to remove hard-to-reach faecal clods from her rectum with their fingers.

Yesterday Whitney Houston marked her comeback with a TV performance. And it was a total success, provided that your definition of success involves a woman breathlessly speaking the lyrics of her songs like an asthmatic being chased up a hill by an angry dog.

Whitney Houston has had a rough few years, hasn’t she? She became so addicted to crack that she reportedly spent her entire life either trying to punch imaginary demons off her shoulder or locking herself away in her bathroom, which also apparently doubled up as a sort of dildo repository. But that’s not all.

In addition to her addiction, Whitney Houston also became the target of a schoolgirl crush from Osama bin Laden and – thanks to the reality TV show Being Bobby Brown – became primarily famous for being the woman who needed her husband to ease out dried-up poo-clumps from inside her bottom.

Now normally that would be enough – we don’t know about you, but if were known as the world’s leading constipated, terrorist-wooing crack addict then we’d be able to retire happy – but not for Whitney Houston. Whitney’s starred in enough horribly generic movies to know that no story is complete without a triumphant comeback at the end. So that’s what she’s done.

Whitney’s comeback album I Look To You has been several years in the making, and it was finally released on Monday. Now, admittedly there hasn’t been much of a marketing push behind it – almost as if the record label is slightly embarrassed by it – but that doesn’t matter. As soon as Whitney Houston unleashes that voice – that famous, soaring, pitch-perfect voice – in public, then everyone will fall in line behind her.

Whitney Houston knows this, which is why she gave a special performance yesterday on Good Morning America. And, by christ, it was special. Here’s a video…

Whitney Houston is right – she is every woman. Or, at the very least, she’s every exhausted-looking drug-obliterated tone-deaf amateur karaoke night woman with the lung capacity of a pneumonia-stricken field mouse. But that still sort of counts.

As you’d expect, Whitney Houston’s Good Morning America performance has drawn criticism from every quarter, taking her to task for letting the backing singers do most of the work, for speak-singing the ballads like an out-of-shape Isaac Hayes impersonator and for failing to sing large chunks of other songs entirely.

But you know what? Even a terrible, breathless, erratic, out-of-tune Whitney Houston is better than no Whitney Houston at all. Because at least now she’s got an album out she won’t feel the need to rush-release yet another cobbled-together greatest hits album for Christmas. At least this will be easier to ignore.

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Hey kids, remember Whitney Houston? Of course you do. Bobby Brown. Gigantic crack addiction. Come on, you remember.

Oh, don’t be like that. You know who Whitney Houston is. Come on. Bobby Brown. Domestic abuse. You remember. Whitney Houston. Hallucinating imaginary demons. Gruesome reliance on sex aids. No teeth. No? Oh, come on. It’s Whitney Houston! Looks like Otzi The Iceman. Makes people pull constipated turds out of her arse with their bare fingers. Oh, so now you know who Whitney Houston is.

Anyway, Whitney Houston is apparently a singer too, and she’s got a new album out soon. Weird.

It’s been 11 years since Whitney Houston last released a hit record, 1998’s My Love Is Your Love. And just look at all the crap that’s happened in the meantime. Wars, environmental disaster, terrorist atrocities, financial collapse. Would any of these have happened if Whitney Houston hadn’t gone on her extended sabbatical? No, no of course they wouldn’t – the universal themes of love as demonstrated in such Whitney Houston classics as The Greatest Love Of All, I’m Every Woman and My Name Is Not Susan would have single-handedly put a stop to all that funny business.

We mean it. At the very least, Whitney Houston’s continued success would have meant that Osama bin Laden would have been too busy rubbing his crotch up and down the TV screen every time one of her videos came on MTV to plan and execute 9/11. And we can say that with some degree of certainty.

So the world needs Whitney Houston more than ever, if only because a new album of hers would give the endless parade of X Factor contestants something other than I Will Always Love You and I Have Nothing to warble during their interminable auditions. So the good news is this – Whitney Houston is back!

No, really, Whitney Houston is back. She’s ditched her hilariously stereotypical addiction to crack, all the teeth that she lost during her addiction period have presumably grown back and she’s divorced that man whose main role appeared to involve yanking wads of poo out of her bum with his fingers and then discussing it on television – and she’s ready to release a brand new album. Rolling Stone reports:

After a six-year absence from the studio, Whitney Houston will return with a new album on September 1st, 2009. While there’s no word on the track list for Whitney’s September record, Davis had mentioned she was stepping into the studio with R. Kelly to record a song titled “I Look to You” and spoke about a Diane Warren-penned ballad called “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength.”

Now don’t get too excited – Whitney Houston’s comeback album had already been promised for last Christmas, and it didn’t appear then, so it won’t be too much of a surprise if it ends up getting postponed again. In many ways we hope it does, since in our opinion the world of painfully bland hairdresser R&B-lite has always been crying out for a Chinese Democracy.

But let’s look on the bright side here. Congratulations, Whitney. We’re right behind you. That’s mostly because if we get in front of you you might see us, have a crack flashback, mistake us for an imaginary demon and attack us with your shoe. We really can’t stress how eager we are for that not to happen.

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Wow, what a crazy time everyone had at London Fancy Dress Week.

The Geldof sisters were there with Ray Winstone’s oiky little girl. She was with Keith Allen’s offspring, who was probably staring from the corner of his eye at Daisy Lowe’s bosoms, which have been having quite an airing lately, if i-D magazine has anything to do with it.

Of course, Alexa Chung – the only non-celebrity child – was the glue keeping everyone together, with her pipe-cleaner legs and voice like a loudspeaker. What a trendy bunch. And, yet, so difficult to like. It could, of course, sound like a case of sour grapes, but it’s not at all. As this small list of extremely excellent celebrity offspring who we absolutely adore proves…

1. Jeff Bridges, son of Lloyd

Faced with the choice of hoiking himself around A-list hangouts, demanding drinks for free, and blogging about his every waking emotion, or actually doing something, and Jeff chose the latter. It was an intelligent choice. He became a better actor than his dad, and can count Tron, Jagged Edge and the most student-friendly film of all time The Big Lebowski as his legacy. He edges arch magazine editor Peaches Geldof out of the running.

2. Whitney Houston, daughter of Cissy

Yes, she has turned into a strange drug-addled maniac, but before that, this girl was a shining example to all of us. Her mother had sung backing vocals for legends like Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin, but her biggest hit came in 1963, when she squeezed Whitney Houston out of her vagina. The child went on to become even better at singing than God himself, and was mind-bogglingly excellent, until she married Bobby Brown and started playing invisible pianos and telling everyone to get stuffed. Or something like that. She keeps singer/songwriter/chat show thing/flasher Lily Allen on the subs bench.

3. Liv Tyler, daughter of Steven

As the result of sexual intercourse between a Playboy Playmate and a genuine rock star, Liv Tyler is like a better version of Daisy Lowe. She has notched up an impressive film career, when, really, she could probably have just taken her clothes off and stared brainlessly down a camera lens, whilst a sniffing photographer explained in monotonous detail how doing things in black and white makes things look classier. Good for her.

4. Michael Douglas, son of Kirk

For some reason, Michael Douglas doesn’t seem to be as popular as he should be. This might be because some people still see him as the spoilt little brat produced of Kirk Douglas’s mighty thespian loins. Yet, he’s brilliant. Anyone who has seen Wall Street, Romancing The Stone or the one about drugs where he’s the president, already knows that this man has perhaps even surpassed his famous father. Bonus points also for removing Catherine Zeta Jones from the dating circuit. He bulldozes Jaime Winstone out of the running.

This was a guest blog by the masterful Josh Burt from the equally masterful Interestment.co.uk. Go there for a good time.

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Obviously by ‘it all’ we meant an out-of-control drug addiction, outbursts of domestic abuse, the worst reality TV show in history and a mutual love of manually removing constipated husks of turd out of the rectums of their loved ones with their fingers? Didn’t Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown almost have that?

Well, yes. Yes they did. But that’s all in the past now. Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown definitely aren’t getting back together, no matter how many reports you hear to the contrary. And that denial doesn’t just come from Whitney Houston, but all the imaginary demons she allegedly used to see during her gigantic crack binges as well. So, you know, it must be true.

Whitney Houston’s life has really taken off since she divorced Bobby Brown just over a year ago. Not only has she been hard at work recording her big comeback album and making herself look as completely unrecognisable as possible for said album’s artwork, but she’s also now free to date other men like, say, Osama bin Laden if she wants.

Yes, it looks like Whitney Houston has really managed to beat the odds and pull off what could be one of pop’s biggest-ever comebacks. The only thing she needs to do to stop her professional relaunch from becoming a hideous trainwreck of epic proportions is to stay away from Bobby Brown. That’s literally all. Whitney Houston needs to stay away from Bobby Brown.

So, needless to say, Whitney Houston was seen enjoying an intimate dinner in Georgia recently with, you guessed it, Bobby Brown.

Except she wasn’t. Or at least she says she wasn’t. Despite several reports to the contrary, Whitney Houston has firmly denied that she’s getting back together with Bobby Brown at all, because even she’s not that stupid. E! Online reports:

The 45-year-old singer’s publicist has issued a statement seeking to put to rest rumors of a romantic reunion between the formerly tumultuous lovebirds. Nancy Seltzer called a report in Wednesday’s Chicago Sun-Times “a complete fabrication.” The article said Houston and Brown, who divorced in April 2007, were seen in Georgia enjoying an intimate dinner.

It’s bittersweet news for us. Initially it seems like a good thing that Whitney Houston has denied rekindling her self-destructive relationship with Bobby Brown, but is it? After all, Bobby Brown was always there to keep Whitney Houston in check, either by clearing out her blocked-up colon with his fingers or by allegedly beating her up a little bit when she looked at him funny or whatever.

But let’s take Whitney Houston at her word – if she says she’s not getting back with Bobby Brown, then we have no choice but to believe that. Anyway, rumour has it that Whitney Houston has moved on from Brown anyway, and is currently enjoying the romantic attention of Ray J, the man most famous for being the male star of the Kim Kardashian sex tape.

So congratulations Whitney, that’s really a… um, what’s the word for when you think you’re getting an upgrade for something when really you’re just getting the same defective product repackaged differently? Anyway, that.

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It’s a typical (Bobby Brown-like) boy meets (Lindsay Lohan-like) girl story: They meet at a party. They both think ‘ooh, he/she’s fit’. Boy goes to the toilet for a piss. Girl, perhaps aroused by the potential to orgasm while simultaneously inhaling men’s stale urine, follows him in. They have sex. They are now primed to have their first conversation:

Lindsay: Pass us some tissue. Cheers. So, what’s your name and what do you do?

Brandon: My name’s Brandon. My official job title is ’son’. And you?

Lindsay: My name’s Lindsay. I was in a film once and became a celebrity – I played a squeaky clean sweetheart who became an icon for youngsters. Now I do things like toilet sex.

Brandon: We’re both quite dull and expendable in the grand scheme of things.

Lindsay: Yep. I wish I was doing something more worthwhile, like writing about the crap people like me and you get up to for a living.

And so boy realises girl’s personality is like Lindsay Lohan’s. Girl realises boy’s personality is a lot like Bobby Brown’s – relationship ends.

Little is known about Brandon Brown, aside from the fact that he carries half of the ‘Two can play that game’ maestro’s genetics. However, from this we can scientifically deduce that he is at least 50% bell end.

The reported seduction took place in a West Hollywood nightclub two years ago. Brandon Brown told The Sun:

Me and Lindsay got really, really close. She followed me to the bathroom during a private party, and, well, we basically got together. I think she knew who I was when she first saw me. We were just staring at each other and she walked by. I walked into the bathroom and she followed me in.

And who said romance was dead? But, Brandon, how on earth did this Romeo and Juliet story end? He continued:

It didn’t end badly, but it did end weird. I’m actually trying to get back in touch with her – really soon.

Weirdly. It ended weirdly.

Good story.

Kids, he's done it. 

You know how you think that Bobby Brown was the wife-beating idiot who helped plunge Whitney Houston into a spiral of hard drug addiction? Didn't happen. Bobby Brown has written a book where he claims that Whitney Houston was the one who introduced him to all the drugs. Which all seems so obvious now – what was Whitney Houston's pre-Brown dancefloor-filler My Name Is Not Susan if not the desperate shriek of a burnt-out husk with a debilitating antifreeze addiction? 

Here's a game – think of a portion of society that likes Bobby Brown. Quickly! You can't do it, can you? That's because everyone thinks that Bobby Brown is a bit of a bell-end. Look at the facts – the police dislike Bobby Brown and radio DJs dislike Bobby Brown and the other members of New Edition hate Bobby Brown and notorious Islamic fundamentalist terrorist leaders dislike Bobby Brown. Even Bobby Brown's own internal organs dislike Bobby Brown.

But Bobby Brown doesn't care what anyone thinks – he's Bobby Brown, the man responsible for a song on the Ghostbusters 2 soundtrack. Your words can't hurt him. Instead, Bobby Brown has decided to take all this hatred and throw the lot of it in the direction of Whitney Houston. Because, even though he was identified as a bad influence on her from the get-go right up until their divorce last year – and was also arrested for smacking Whitney about – Bobby Brown's actually the victim in all of this.

It's true – Bobby Brown's written a book about it and everything. And the book's called Bobby Brown: The Truth, The Whole Truth And Nothing But, so it's hardly likely to contain the bitter accusations of a deranged, universally-reviled recent divorcee, is it? Oh wait…

Anyway, in his book, Bobby Brown claims that it was Whitney Houston who turned him into such a drug-smashed dipshit. The New York Post reports:

"I never used cocaine until after I met Whitney. Before then, I had experimented with other drugs, but marijuana was my drug of choice," Brown writes… "At one point in my life, I used drugs uncontrollably. I was using everything I could get my hands on, from cocaine to heroin, weed and cooked cocaine." As far as his 15-year marriage to Houston is concerned, it "was doomed from the very beginning. Within the first year we separated, with several more to follow," Brown writes. "I think we got married for all the wrong reasons. Now, I realize Whitney had a different agenda than I did when we got married … I believe her agenda was to clean up her image, while mine was to be loved and have children."

It seems that Bobby Brown has deliberately written this book to coincide with Whitney Houston's big comeback. And if that's the case then he should be truly, truly ashamed. Not because he's taken something as intimate as marriage and sold it all out in a tawdry tell-all in return for a handful of coins, though. But because if this book really does sabotage Whitney Houston's comeback, we'll all have to suffer through another decade of lamely-repackaged Whitney Houston Greatest Hits records every year. 

If that happens, we're coming for you Bobby. We can only take so much.

Read more:

'WHITNEY DROVE ME TO DRUGS' – New York Post 

Amy Winehouse? Don't be silly – we're talking about the queen of substance-deranged power-ballads here, not the scabby-faced pretender to her crack-addled throne, here. That's right, Whitney Houston is back.

Well, sort of back. Whitney Houston's comeback album – her first for six years – will be released in time for Christmas. It'd be ready sooner, but it's going to take nine months of round-the-clock labour to photoshop the album's artwork so it looks like Whitney Houston's pupils are the same size and that she's got teeth and generally looks a bit less identical to Samuel L Jackson in Jungle Fever.

If the American government wants to catch Osama Bin Laden, it'll have its best shot at the end of the year. Everyone knows that Osama has a giant crush on Whitney Houston, and Whitney Houston has a new album coming out in the later stages of 2008, so if the CIA wants to know where he is, he'll either be found at the new releases section of HMV or smooshed up against the Today show window mouthing "Death to America! Marry me Whitney!" when Whitney inevitably does her comeback interview.

Yes, just when you though she'd given up music forever in favour of batting away imaginary demons in a crack-blasted frenzy, Whitney Houston is back. It's been a long journey for Whitney over the last few years – as well as being smashed out of her mind on hard drugs, she's also ended her possibly-abusive marriage to Bobby Brown, was forced to sell off just about everything she owns to prevent losing her house and had to endure dozens of witless arseholes murdering her best-known songs on Simon Cowell TV shows. No wonder she turned to crack.

But that's all in the past now, because the new Whitney Houston comeback album is almost ready according to Whitney's record label boss Clive Davis. Reuters reports:

Four songs have been completed for the as-yet-untitled project, and four more will be put to tape later this month, Davis said during Billboard's Music & Money Symposium at New York's St. Regis Hotel. "We're on track for a holiday release," he said. "We're not going to compromise who she is to fit into today's hip-hop radio market. The public wants Whitney material." Tracks earmarked for the album have been produced or written by Black Eyed Peas singer will.i.am, producer/songwriter Sean Garrett and R&B singer Akon.

OK, two things immediately come to mind here. 1) Four songs? That's rubbish – Whitney Houston's comeback was announced 17 months ago. That's 119 days a song. At this rate we'll be lucky to hear the Whitney Houston comeback album before the Sun expands and engulfs the earth, and 2) Did Clive Davis mean to say "The public wants Whitney material?" Because if Akon and will.i.am are in charge then we think he might have meant "The public wants material that sounds like it's from a fizzy drink commercial."

Still, however dubious we are of Whitney Houston's comeback album ever happening, we've got our fingers crossed that it does. Not only will it give Whitney Houston a feeling of success that she's been missing for a decade, but it'll also mean that we won't have to see shelves full of lazily-repackaged Whitney Houston Greatest Hits albums like we've done for every year of our adult lives. And that has to be worth something.

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New Whitney Houston album set for holiday release – Reuters