Morrissey wrote Live Earth’s organisers a scathing letter

Morrissey is back. Not with music, though he’s set to tour Australia and the US in May and June, having been dropped by his label last year. No, he’s back with another set of sharp words about meat-eating, this time for Live Earth 2015 organisers Al Gore and Kevin Wall. No one is safe from his wrath. Always remember that.

Joni Mitchell is not in a coma, her website said

News of her collapse on 31 March is likely to have reduced most Mitchell fans to quivering, blubbering wrecks. That story was briefly topped this week by an online rumour, based on a court filing, claiming she’d slipped into a coma in hospital. But rest easy: a statement posted on her website on 28 April said that while Mitchell is indeed still in hospital, “she comprehends, she’s alert, and she has her full senses”. Thank goodness.

Mariah channelled the film Glitter in Vegas

After seeing pictures from the launch of her Las Vegas casino residency, I’ve the sneaking suspicion that Mariah Carey endured the ridicule of starring in flop film Glitter just to recreate her character’s sequin- and fur-loving look in real life. And recreate it she did, cruising to the venue in a retro convertible car behind 18 mobile billboards screaming the names of her US chart-toppers in all-caps text. Say what you like, but somehow this display of ludicrous pop star opulence seems to just make her more likeable. Ridiculous, certainly, but likeable nonetheless.

There’s a salad named after a Kendrick Lamar lyric

In big news for pun lovers the world over, an American health-food restaurant chain riffed on a Kendrick Lamar song title. Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe has now been immortalised in vegetable form, as Sweetgreen’s “beets don’t kale my vibe” salad. According to music blog Stereogum, Lamar (or someone on his team) has signed off on this, with 10% of every sale going to the charity FoodCorps to help teach children about nutrition, health and fitness. The jury’s still out on whether the charity will also be teaching children about Compton and the host of conflicted characters featured on Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D City album.

Amy Winehouse’s family isn’t happy with documentary, Amy

The biographical film, headed for a premiere at the Cannes film festival in May, has not gone down well with Winehouse’s family. Their spokesperson has said they “would like to disassociate themselves from the forthcoming film about their much-missed and beloved Amy”, and slammed it for being imbalanced and misleading. The makers of the film issued a statement defending the film’s “total objectivity”, but this looks likely to head down the well-worn path of music docs without family buy-in.

Stephen Hawking said Zayn could still be in One Direction …

In the perfect illustration of some sort of meta-futurism, Stephen Hawking, speaking as a hologram beamed into the Sydney Opera House, linked theoretical physics with Zayn Malik’s recent departure from the boyband One Direction. Asked what he thought the cosmological effects of Zayn leaving One Direction might be, he replied that if one day there were proof of multiple universes, Zayn may still be a member of the band. Guys, there isn’t even much more to say about this. The Twilight Zone is real and we’re living it.

… While Take That told One Direction to give Zayn a call

In a radio interview with Take That bandmates Gary Barlow and Howard Donald, Mark Owen sent out a little nugget of advice to the 1D guys: ring Zayn up and make sure he’s all right. Take That’s failure to contact Robbie Williams when he ditched them and went solo led to a decade of silence between them. A cautionary tale from veterans in the boyband strife game.

Kate Tempest’s album cover was deemed gallery-worthy

A photograph of the poet and rapper, seen on the cover of her Mercury prize-nominated album Everybody Down, has been acquired by London’s National Portrait Gallery. The image was shot by Dav Stewart in his east London flat, and features Tempest looking as though she regrets eating a plate of potentially dodgy mussels – but it is pretty. The music desk has compiled a gallery of other cover portraits we reckon could hang on museum walls.

Axl Rose tried to stop the executions of the Bali Nine in Indonesia

The Guns N’ Roses frontman added his voice to the clamour asking the Indonesian government not to execute a group of people linked to the trading and smuggling of drugs. Rose wrote an open letter to Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo, copying in other powerful political figures, including US secretary of state John Kerry and Indonesia’s ambassador to the UN, Rezlan Ishar Jenie. Of the three people Rose named in his letter, two were executed – Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran – while Filipina Mary Jane Veloso was spared.

One half of Milli Vanilli wants to make a comeback

Redefining an inability to let sleeping dogs lie, Milli Vanilli’s Fab Morvan is reportedly making music again. But it gets worse: Morvan, according to TMZ, is firing up this comeback with one of the singers whose voice Milli Vanilli lip-synched to all those years ago. Will anyone still care about this in 2015? Morvan’s willing to find out.