Earlier this month, Kanye West announced the release date for his long-awaited seventh album, SWISH. Given that the record has been lusted after and worked on for close to three years, it’s probable that SWISH is the only album Kanye will be releasing for a while. Look elsewhere for your news though, and there’s another full-length on the way – a tribute album to David Bowie, featuring covers and original verses over the Thin White Duke’s classics.The Daily Star – a British newspaper famous for breaking stories like “Monster Rats the Size of Cows” and “Why Did This Man Push 114 Wotsits Up His Bottom?” – report that Kanye has been in the studio, putting his own spin on classics like “Heroes”, “Changes”, and “Rebel Rebel”. A source said: "Some are straightforward cover versions with Kanye actually singing. On others he is rapping with his own lyrics over Bowie's music”. Except, of course, he’s not.There is no Kanye West: Tribute to David Bowie album. It never existed, ever, even as a twinkle in someone's eye. In a statement to TMZ earlier this morning, a representative for Yeezy rubbished The Daily Star’s claims. Yet even before Kanye’s team responded, there was no tribute album. An “anonymous source from The Daily Star” is essentially a warning that what you’re about to read is one gigantic lie. The publication comes from the same glut of tabloid newspapers who claimed the “rap prat” planned to release a “three-hour spoken word album” on vinyl, and that he has a “rage-room” in his house stocked with second-hand televisions and other smash-able items.To anyone with a working brain – it should have been fairly obvious The Daily Star had pulled a story out of its ass. Yet the news has been everywhere: from the Daily Telegraph to the bottom feeders on Facebook’s news-feed, all giving themselves a stress-hernia because they thought an album with Kanye spitting bars over “Heroes” was about to be released. By now, you’re no doubt aware of what petition signers think about Kanye – a “talentless douchecanoe” (who has won more Grammy’s than nearly every living musician), “the worst thing to happen to music” (despite influencing a generation), “an insult” (to your intelligence for believing a fake news story).So, just like last Summer when the rapper headlined Glastonbury, someone did actually start a petition. This time: to “STOP KANYE WEST RECORDING COVERS OF DAVID BOWIE'S MUSIC”. Of course, the petition itself only has 5,000 signatures, but was covered to the same extent as one with one hundred times that. At this point, publications are preying on the gullibility of their readers and the profitable hate-click, and so the story was reported ruthlessly by the mainstream press, as if Vivienne Westwood had driven a tank to Westminster and ordered it so.The thing is, Kanye West and his wife Kim Kardashian are content royalty. You only need to look at the response to Kanye’s recent releases, which were trending number one on Twitter, Kim’s #BreakTheInternet campaign, the way a Kardashian app crashed the iTunes store and made a million dollars “a minute” to see the strong-hold the couple have over the media. Yet, as all online content moves toward one indistinguishable mess, and celebrities like West provide hits, we’re moving closer toward a landscape where respectable publications quite happily report on stuff like anonymous sources from crappy newspapers. The only difference between The Daily Star’s Kanye story and one from last year, where Kanye likened himself to the next Nelson Mandela, is that the latter was from an official parody site. The Daily Star has sources, giving their brand of parody a little more credence, but no less credibility.So lets say it once and for all. Kanye West is not releasing a tribute album to David Bowie. He was never releasing a tribute album to David Bowie, and he will not be releasing a tribute album to David Bowie in the future. Stop believing everything you read on the internet. In fact, just go ahead and disconnect your wi-fi right now. Go outside: breathe in the cool, light, winter air. Feel the wind touch your face. Know that out here, such matters are nothing more than trivial compared to nature’s beauty. Good night.You can find Ryan Bassil on Twitter: @RyanBassil
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