Beyonce continued on her tour last night with a stop in Edmonton and surprised the audience with a rare cover of Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love”. I don’t think I’ve heard this song anywhere but the grocery store in the last decade, but Bey rocked it out like it was her own and that dress? That dress? Can we talk about how damn fine mama looks in that dress? The House of Dereon has been doing Bey right these days, that’s all I’m saying. Jeezey peezey.

What do you think about the cover?

Ah, you know what a fan I am of Beyonce.  Watch B and Lady Gaga do high kicks and writhe around in multi-colored bustiers.  Enjoy!

I don’t know about you, but this recession has taught me one thing: If it costs more than five dollars, I can’t afford to eat it. This has forced me to eat many meals at my local taco truck and lots and lots of steamed broccoli (great fiber, you guys), but honestly it hasn’t been that bad. Until today, anyway. That’s when I saw that Bey and Jay are going out and spending 1200 bones on a mid-day meal and leaving behind 500 dollar tips. Damn! Just the thought of that makes me want to go splurge on a seven dollar sandwich and get as crazy as my idols. Pics of the couple dining with who I assume are business partners below…

I can’t believe I’m about to ask this, but can we please discuss Beyonce and her history with southeast Asia?

Two years ago, Beyonce cancelled a scheduled performance in Malaysia because she wasn’t willing to put some clothes on.  The Malaysians have rules and she wasn’t willing to pay respect to a nation’s culture by putting on a shirt.  She ended up performing for those progressive Indonesians instead.

A few weeks ago, Beyonce said that she’d be performing in Kuala Lampur as part of her “I Am” tour — should be the “I Am A Liar” tour.  The concert promoter has announced that her performance has been “postponed to a future date to be announced shortly.”  In other words, this show is never going to happen because Beyonce still won’t robe up and obviously thought she could change the mind of an entire government body.

I think it’s high time that B accept the facts:  Malaysia isn’t ready for your jelly.

Two years ago, Beyonce was scheduled to perform in Malaysia, but canceled the show after members of the country’s conservative Islamic majority threatened to protest or petition the government to ban the concert if she didn’t cover up her bootyliciousness. At the time, Beyonce’s PR people claimed that the show was canceled due to a scheduling conflict, but really, she wasn’t willing to follow the country’s modesty laws which state that any female must cover herself from shoulder to ankle. She went to Indonesia instead, where the dress code is more lax.

Now, her website has released a statement saying the singer will take the stage in Kuala Lampur on October 25th as part of her “I am” world tour. The majority government isn’t too excited about it, and released a statement containing one of the most amusing anti-western quotes in recent history:

Sabki Yusof, youth vice head of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, said Sunday that they would send a protest note to the government over the concert. He said it was the government’s “responsibility to protect the people of Malaysia” from what he described as immoral Western influences.

“We are not against entertainment as long as it is within the framework of our culture and our religion,” Sabki said. “We are against Western sexy performances. We don’t think our people need that.”

In Knowles news of a smellier sort, Beyonce is currently being sued by Abercrombie and Fitch for copyright infringement. The company claims that a fragrance named after Knowles’ alter ego Sasha Fierce violates a copyright they hold on fragrances named “fierce.”

Ironically, both Knowles and Abercrombie are being sued by Garth Brooks for infringing upon the copyright he holds on lame alter egos and general doucheyness.

Oh, how this pains me.  You all know that I’m not a huge fan of Beyonce’s — molls is a die-hard fan and I really wish this story broke while she was still working — but you have to watch this.  Last night, after Kanye acted like the biggest asshole in the universe, Beyonce won Video of the Year and turned over her acceptance speech time to Taylor Swift so that she could have her moment.  I begrudgingly admit that Beyonce was a true class act.  I searched far and wide for a quality clip that didn’t involve the camera cutting to Perez, but I failed.  As an aside, Lady Gaga looks like a fantasy danish.

Kanye was supposed to perform but his time was scrapped.  It’s all rumor at this point, but people on Twitter were saying that he was escorted to the door.  Oh, how I hope that is true.  People reports that Kanye did post an apology to Taylor on his blog.  I didn’t see it there this morning, but People would never lie to me, so it must be true.  I’m sure it read something like:  ”TAYLOR I’M SORRY BUT BEYONCE IS THE BEST AND YOU ARE IRRELEVANT”

Katy Perry may have summed it up best on Twitter last night:  ”FUCK U KANYE. IT’S LIKE U STEPPED 0N A KITTEN.”

Kelly Clarkson has been fighting with her record label in an effort to stop the release of her single “Already Gone”.  She co-wrote the lyrics against a trace provided by Ryan Tedder, a music producer.  Turns out, Tedder gave the same track to Beyonce who used the music as the backdrop to her single “Halo”.  

Clarkson says, “No one’s gonna be sittin’ at home, thinking ‘Man, Ryan Tedder gave Beyoncé and Kelly the same track to write to.’  No, they’re just gonna be saying I ripped someone off…I fought and fought”.  In the end, they’re releasing it without my consent.  It sucks, but it’s one of those things I have no control over. I already made my album. At this point, the record company can do whatever they want with it. It’s kind of a sh- – -y situation, but . . . you know, you learn.”

I’ve posted both tracks above.  Which is better?  I’m sure all the Evil Beet regulars know my vote.

Beyonce wrapped up her London tour with a duet performance of “If I Were A Boy” with George Michael. 

It was nice of George to take a hiatus from exposing himself in bathrooms and doing drugs in parks, and all, but I have to ask:  Does this version of “IIWAB” really sound that much better than the hoax recording of Beyonce from a few months ago?

Is she just going to spend the remainder of her career writhing around in black-and-white with two backup dancers?

Anyway.

I love this song’s lyrics.

Beyonce is in Austria and has already pissed off the people there.  Yesterday she was scheduled to attend a specially arranged tour of the famed Albertine museum.  Instead, she sent a look-alike to appear and pose with the director of the museum so that Beyonce could go shopping instead.

The museum spokesperson, Verena Dahlitz, summed it up like this:  “What a cheek.  We were a little doubtful yesterday, but weren’t really sure. It could have been her.”

What the people at Albertine don’t know is that the impostor was Sasha Fierce.  Duh.

In more Viennese hijinks, Beyonce’s concert was only half-full and received lots of mixed reviews.

UPDATE:  Another hoax story!  This is the second one in, like, the past week.  Listen, guys.  I think this is God’s way of telling me that I’m not supposed to be writing about Beyonce.  Though I am happy to report that the part about her bad reviews and half-full arenas-totally true!

Thanks to our friends at Celebitchy for straightening all this Beyonce madness out!

I’d written this whole article about how ungracious Beyonce was being, which I’m sure some other sites will be doing as well in the next day. Luckily, Celebitchy’s husband – who’s German – offered to read a few of the articles and translate, and the English articles got the story entirely wrong. What actually happened is that radio station Krone-Hit arranged the museum visit as a prank on the museum without Beyonce’s knowledge. Presumably they were acting as though they were Beyonce’s representatives. Then they sent the Beyonce double to the museum. Who, from the picture, isn’t that great a doppelganger – she has a much smaller frame, and even with sunglasses you can tell the face isn’t all that similar. She looks a lot more like Leona Lewis than Beyonce in my opinion.

The museum employees became suspicious because the faux-Beyonce avoided eye contact with the director and was behaving oddly. The radio station has YouTube video up (it’s in German) but according to Celebitchy they’re still not admitting it isn’t her, though it’s obvious to anyone with semi-vision. The woman shows up in a limo that has a picture of Beyonce on the window and bodyguards surrounding it to give the impression that it’s her.

Beyonce and the museum were just the victims of a stupid prank. The problem is that it seriously wasted the gallery’s time, and it may very well become a PR issue for Beyonce. I’m fairly certain most sites don’t have the advantage of a German translator at the ready and will have to assume that Yahoo’s story is accurate. But to be clear, Beyonce appears to have had absolutely nothing to do with it. The only thing that was correct about the article was that her concert got some pretty bad reviews.

Co-stars Beyonce and Ali Larter went for very different (although, IMHO, equally ridiculous) looks at the NYC premiere of Obsessed.

Who looked better, kids?

As much distaste as I may personally feel for Beyonce, and I feel a lot, fairness and truth must prevail.  So, in said fairness, I sadly report that this board mix recording of Beyonce performing on Today was apparently altered by someone who hates Beyonce as much as I do.

Beyonce has officially been cleared of all bad singing charges — the atrocious supposed “board mix” of her performance on “The Today Show” last year was altered after all.

Just as Mathew Knowles told us, the audio clip that many people believed was leaked from “Today” was indeed a fake.

In fact, TMZ found the person behind the prank who was surprised it went as far as it did, saying, “It’s a little bit crazy. No one in their right mind would sound like that, and no one would cheer for someone singing like that.”

Oh, those twits at TMZ seemed so confident in their source!  I trusted and now I must live with the devastation that she didn’t actually sound like she was stuck under the wheels of an SUV.

People, this is not the way to start my day.  Hold me.