Kanye West returned to the scene of the crime last night at the MTV VMA's in minimalist (for him) style. A red-suited West took the stage armed with just an MPC - and local ballerinas - to perform the spare and actually-pretty-good-despite-its-wacky-cringeworthy-lyrics (anyone using "douchebags" gets struck from the honour roll automatically) track 'Runaway'.


Kanye West - 'Runaway' live at the VMAs

The performance comes, of course, just a week after West posted the Taylor Swift apology track 'Devil In A New Dress' on his blog, along with a manifesto addressing the fallout from his drunken bumrushing of the stage during Swift's acceptance speech last year at the same award show. Well this year Taylor Swift was given the green light to perform her own response to the altercation. Meta millionaire lament alert.

Coming in as something between a diss track and a power ballad from a disaster movie, 'Innocent' starts with a wobbly flashback to the 2009 incident (just so you know who the song is about) before Swift mourns in a broken house (her shattered innocence) before shirking off her tiresome bandmates and barely belting out something about retribution and lessons learned (delivered via the barefooted honesty sprite, hamming it up for the cameras) and then scampering off the stage with nary a smile or Kanye chest bump. Another delightful faff party then.

Update: MTV is taking these clips down as fast as they can. If the below doesn't work, try the following "taped off TV" version. Or here.


Taylor Swift - 'Innocent' live at the 2010 VMA's



Dare I say it: did Swift's song threaten to go somewhere good during the first four bars?