Kanye West Going to Anger Management?

Kanye West's days of using his blog as a vessel to spew rage may be coming to an end, as the rapper's own management team are reportedly hatching a plan to get the often-outspoken West to attend anger management classes. West's reps hope anger management will not only help restore the rapper's psychological well-being and his relationship with friends, but also help him grab some endorsement deals after advertisers expressed concerns that he might be difficult to work with. West recently lashed out at all those Bonnaroo "squid brains" after performing a massively delayed set at the Tennessee festival, and in the past has raged out at music journalists and publications alike. Then there were those two incidents at two separate MTV Video Music Awards: In 2006, Kanye stormed the stage with an expletive-laden outburst after losing out for Best Video, then as an encore, in 2007, West exploded after his performance of "Good Life" was relegated from the main stage of the VMAs to a suite at the Palms Las Vegas.

These might be the end of days for Kanye's angry blog posts, as West seemed calmer in a post today clarifying an issue he's had with Harper's Bazaar that's been bothering him for over a year. A portrait in the rapper's house, which was photographed by the magazine, looks like it casts West as an angel, even though that's not the case. "I was made out to be Ben Stiller's character in the movie Dodgeball with the huge pic of himself wrestling a bull in his office," West complains. Kanye simply asks — without use of expletives or Caps Lock — the magazine to mention that the angel in the portrait is not Kanye.

UPDATE: Turns out Kanye isn't headed to anger management. As he says on his blog, "If anything I need anger enhancement! LOL!."

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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