Following the Grammys fallout, misunderstood satirist Kanye West provides another anwer to the question: what happens after pop has eaten itself?
But first, a recap. You will recall that it was all the way back in 2009 that Kanye first stormed an awards stage, interrupting Taylor Swift’s VMA acceptance speech for Best Female Video with the immortal words: “Imma let you finish.” In the US, the moment was rightly judged more culturally shocking than the publication of the Senate report into CIA torture.
All things retro being cool once more, Kanye affected to reprise the stunt this year – approaching the Grammys stage just as Beck was delivering his thanks for winning Best Album. As Kanye latterly explained, the “voices in my head” were telling him to do it.
He didn’t go the whole hog this time – a stay of dickishness that apparently disappointed Taylor herself most keenly. “Taylor Swift came up to me right afterwards, like literally afterwards, and tells me I should have went on stage,” he explained to an interviewer. “That’s is the irony of my life.”
But the irony doesn’t stop there – if, indeed, it even starts there. Because Kanye explains that Taylor and her would-be nemesis are actually going into the studio together, to record a collaboration upon which Lost in Showbiz is hereby slapping the working title Reichenbach Falls. Two may go in, but surely only one will come out.
As for his stage-rushing tic, Kanye is keen to explain his mastery of this vital role in early-21st-century awards culture: “It’s almost like a chiropractor … It’s like a little jolt of truth, right? And then, you know, everyone feels better after the fact, or everyone is way more famous after the fact, or everyone sells way more albums after the fact, and then Kanye just goes on being an asshole to everyone.”
So there you have it. Think of Kanye West as the chiropractor of pop: quasi-mystical, pseudo-scientific, and on occasion demonstrably bonkers. Having said that, if you’re desperate, you’ll try anything.
