Emily Eavis got death threats for booking Kanye
Repeat after me: Kanye West performing at Glastonbury is not the end of the world. That didn’t stop people sending festival organiser Emily Eavis death threats about booking the rapper to headline one night of this year’s event, or signing an online petition to have him struck off the lineup. Eavis has already written about discovering, perhaps for the first time, why reading the bottom half of the internet often feels like stepping right into the fiery depths of hell, and this latest piece of news seems to support her initial shock.
Eurovision happened, and Sweden won
I’ll spare you the gory details, but Austria hosted the 60th annual celebration of musical Euro-kitsch on Saturday – in a touching gesture of appreciation, the host country picked up precisely zero points from fellow voters. Sweden won, with a dance-pop song that sounded half-finished and a performance that featured an animated pencil drawing and a man resembling a budget Enrique Iglesias in leather trousers.
BB King’s death sparked a dispute between his children and estate
BB King’s death last week hit his fans hard. The legacy of his contribution to the blues has this week been slightly sullied by a public dispute between his children and his estate, which has played out in a series of back-and-forth statements. Two of King’s 11 children wrote in affidavits that they believed their father had been poisoned, before the claims were swiftly dismissed by King’s estate’s lawyer. In this case, the musician’s estate and his offspring aren’t one and the same, as they often are.
Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch is up for sale
Are you rich? If so, and you can’t decide what to do with the spare $100m (£65.5m) burning a hole in your deep pockets, you may be keen to spend it on Jacko’s former home and grounds. Sadly, the zoo and amusement park have been removed, and you may never be able to separate the property from its association with a series of child sex abuse allegations lodged against Jackson before his death in 2009, but don’t write it off quite yet.
Morrissey praised Ireland’s referendum on gay marriage
The singer expressed his happiness with the world’s first ever popular vote in favour of gay marriage. But he didn’t leave it there. This wouldn’t be a Morrissey story without a footnote from him on the treatment of animals – a sweet little addendum to remind everyone that even if you support gay marriage, you’re still a waste of space yet to “welcome yourself into the 21st century” if you haven’t sorted out all aspects of animal abuse and the fur industry.
Azealia Banks was cast in a film, to be directed by Wu-Tang’s RZA
A heartfelt so-called skit on her Fantasea mixtape may be the closest Banks has previously come to showing fans her acting chops, but that’s set to change. The Harlem rapper has been cast as the lead character in Coco, a rap-based drama to be directed by RZA and feature Jill Scott and Common. Will this be what it takes to convince her detractors that she means business, and has moved on from her past Twitter spats? We’ll see.
Today was my first day on the movie set and I had a blast !!! Such a change from what I'm used to but it's really fun!
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) May 28, 2015
Angelo Badalamenti is going to score the Twin Peaks reboot
It’s all coming together now. The forthcoming season of Twin Peaks not only has original director David Lynch on board, but also composer Badalamenti, who wrote the music and generally created the sonic style that we’ve come to understand as “Lynchian” today. Someone get me a slice of cherry pie, because this should be good.
A lock of Mozart’s hair fetched £35,000 at auction
A lock of the composer’s hair, wrapped around a note about its origins and kept safe in a locket, may sound like the most twee gift for a fan of period dramas. But it’s also hugely valuable, and was put up for auction at Sotheby’s on Thursday. Rather than sell for the estimated £12,000 (seriously, who are the people buying stuff like this?) it went for a solid £35,000.
Daniel Barenboim designed a new kind of piano
The classical pianist showed off his new piano to a few journalists this week, and we’ve got the video to prove it. Though it looks similar to the average concert grand piano, Barenboim swapped the traditional Steinway’s diagonal strings for straight ones that run in parallel lines. Whether or not the average listener will be able to tell the difference is another matter, but congrats to Barenboim in any case.
U2’s longtime tour manager died, aged 68
Dennis Sheehan had worked with U2 for 33 years before he died of natural causes, aged 68. His body was found in a West Hollywood hotel room on Wednesday, the morning of U2’s second scheduled stint at LA’s Forum on a leg of their Innocence + Experience tour. The band played the show anyway, paying tribute to Sheehan on stage.
