What Shirley Manson doesn’t understand about the Kanye West brouhaha
Much has been made in the past two days of Shirley Manson’s open letter to Kanye West denouncing him for nearly interrupting–and then later, completely shit-talking–Beck after the sandy-haired Scientologist won the Album of the Year Grammy for his recent release “Morning Phase.”
In it, she scolds the noted rapper, couturier and speech interrupter for his insolent rant using, among other words, the adorably Scottish insult “twat”:
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.
Ps. I am pretty certain Beyoncé doesn’t need you fighting any battles on her account. Seems like she’s got everything covered perfectly well on her own
As might be expected, this missive lit up social media with cries of “YESSSSS SHIRLEY MANSON,” “”how DARE she?” and “Did Avicii remix “I’m Only Happy when it Rains”? For every Buzzfeed listicle explaining in GIFs why Beck deserved to beat Beyonce, there’s an article sincerely titled “Shirley Manson is wrong: Kanye’s Grammy rant was an act of brave solidarity.” And around and around it goes.
As happy as I am to see a childhood favorite in the news again, both she and her detractors are missing one obvious, glaring fact: none of this is fucking real. Or rather, it’s real in that it happened, but it’s not “real” in that its primary purpose is not a sincere exchange of opinions between colleagues, but rather, to keep the celebrity machine churning by trolling everyone into talking about an otherwise boring-as-shit cultural event. Whether or not they’re fully aware of what’s going on–and I think they’re more aware than people give them credit for–every famous person here wins:
Beyonce gets compulsory universal acknowledgement of her untouchable artistry sternly enforced by the Beygency’s head officer, as well as by all the liberal white bloggers out there who insist on substituting cultural preferences for actual politics.
Kanye gets to reinforce his reputation as an ~unpredictable wild card~ and the only interesting thing about any given TV broadcast on which he appears.
Beck gets…well, embarrassing admission: up until yesterday, I had no idea that Beck had a new album out. Now I’ve made a mental note to listen to said album, and I’m sure I’m not alone.
I’m not proposing a conspiracy theory whereby all such controversies are concocted in the offices of Big PR and handed down to the various players in script form. But like Walter White in the fifth season of ‘Breaking Bad’ or Kim on a particularly poignant episode of ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’, it’s possible to use your actual feelings in service of a completely devious end. To mix truth and lies in a postmodern crockpot until you’ve changed the very definition of reality. Wake up, people.
My only remaining question is: did Shirley Manson get trolled too, or is she playing the game better than all of them? I smell a conveniently timed comeback album.
