TMZ.com

The comment section for Don Toliver's new music video reads like a Russian Bot Farm -- at least that's what the internet thinks ... accusing his label of attempting to juice his stats.

Here's the deal ... Atlantic Records is under fire on Twitter, with a ton of people reading into the engagement numbers for a bunch of its artists -- specifically, on YouTube, where some feel like the data ratios for new projects just aren't adding up (likes to views, etc.)

DT's video for his song "Do It Right" -- which was posted just a few days ago -- is the prime example being hoisted up on the bird app as supposed evidence of fakery that's alleged to be afoot ... most notably, in the comments, where many see telltale signs of phony fans.

You can go check it out for yourself -- there are a lot of strangely written comments that have flooded this upload in the past 48 hours, with more and more pouring in with odd spelling, unconventional capitalization and grammatical errors. Others make no sense at all.

Plus, there are a lot of comments that have posted nothing but emojis, which are also seemingly jumbled together at random. When you click on some of these profiles, it looks like their accounts are relatively new and have only one comment ... for Don's 'DIR' video.

Indeed ... it certainly comes across as bizarre, and some -- including media personality DJ Akademiks -- have made outright allegations of this happening on a mass scale at Atlantic.

There are other Atlantic artists who've been lumped into this phenomenon, and none appear to have addressed it just yet ... including Toliver. It's worth noting -- while some point to the comments and seemingly lopsided engagement stats on their own as proof, there's no real smoking gun that we can find. This mostly amounts to people speculating and theorizing.

Still, we've reached out to both Atlantic and Toliver's camp for official comment ... so far, no word back.

Matty Healy is back to planting his lips on people during live performances -- something that apparently needed to be clarified as unproblematic in 2022 ... by the kiss-ee herself.

The 1975 frontman was performing with his band in Vegas Friday to a packed crowd. At one point, he was singing their song "Robbers," during which he pulled up a female fan from the crowd and started to get all love-dovey with her in the middle of the show.

Soon enough, he went in for some suck-face ... and she kissed him back. It got a huge response from the audience -- mostly ladies losing their minds in jubilation.

On Twitter, the reactions are by and large joke-y jealous posts -- with tons of folks writing it should've been them, etc. But it would seem some on the bird app were offended on behalf of this gal who made out with MH, because she felt the need to clear something up.

She identified herself as the woman who was kissed and made sure to clear Matty's name of any perceived wrongdoing -- namely, kissing someone without their consent -- by writing, "On a real note I do want to state some facts before we get any farther, i had this on my phone because he mentioned at some point 'I can only make out with you'."

The woman added, "So I did this, he saw it and brought me up, HE ASKED before he kissed me!  Also I’m a grown age of 24." In other words, Matty boy had permission here.

FWIW, the eccentric singer has a bit of a history of smooching with people on stage ... female and otherwise. He's puckered up with men in the past too, notably in the UAE where homosexuality is generally criminalized. Dude just likes to spread the love.

There's a super rare piece of Bob Dylan history going up for sale ... the original lyrics to one of his most famous songs, "Desolation Row" ... and it's got a six-figure price tag.

Bob scribbled the poetic lyrics on a couple sheets of paper way back in 1965, and now the manuscript is hitting the open market for the first time ever. The parchment also has a few of Bob's edits.

The good folks over at Moments In Time are handling the sale ... and the asking price is a staggering $425,000 ... so ya gotta have some pretty deep pockets.

As Bob's fans know, "Desolation Row" is generally considered one of his top five songs of all time. The sprawling song features a ton of lyrics -- the track is over 11 minutes long -- with Bob flexing his skills as a poet with tons of literary imagery.

"Desolation Row" is the last track on Bob's famous 1965 album, "Highway 61 Revisited," which opens with his biggest hit, "Like a Rolling Stone."

Shakira is firing back at Spanish prosecutors, claiming she's the victim of a smear campaign and has the receipts to prove it.

The singer filed legal docs Friday in Spain, answering allegations she failed to pay more than $14 million in taxes for income earned from 2012 through 2014.

Shakira says during that period, she was NOT a resident of Spain. According to the laws of the country, she's required to pay taxes if she spends 183 days or more there in a single year.

She says during the period in question, she actually paid $10,141,075 in taxes to the U.S. government -- this is the time when she appeared as a coach on "The Voice." She says she was not in Spain for the requisite period of time -- 183 days.

Prosecutors are seeking an 8-year prison sentence and a $24 million fine if she's convicted in the upcoming trial, but she says in new legal docs she's paid more than $90 mil to Spain's version of Uncle Sam.

According to the legal docs, Shakira declared herself a tax resident of Spain in 2015, after settling there with her family and enrolling her son in school.

Shakira claims the government is also gunning for her failure to pay in 2011 ... she says she was on a global tour and only spend a grand total of 60 days in the country.

The man who was seen in video brutally beating another man after an Elton John concert at Dodger Stadium last weekend has a VERY different story of what went down, and he says the alleged victims are really the villains.

Attorney Glen T. Jonas, who represents the man who's wearing a blue t-shirt in the video, tells TMZ, "The so-called 'victims' drove their SUV in a restricted area, hitting my client with the SUV mirror."

Jonas says his client didn't incite the husband and wife in the SUV. He says they got out of their vehicle and began screaming profanities, accusing his client and others of hitting their mirror.

Jonas says they then attacked his client and 2 women, adding, "The driver used a wrestling move, grabbed the woman by both legs and lifted her up, causing her head to smack the concrete." He says while this was going on, the wife choked and pulled the hair of the other woman.

The attorney says his client came to the aid of the woman whose head was smashed into the concrete. Jonas says the video only shows the end of the altercation when his client repeatedly punched the man.

Jonas' take is this ... "An initial aggressor that loses a fight is not a victim, he's just a bully that earned his karma."

Jonas does not want to ID his client, because of the heat he's taking on social media.

So far, only one of the involved parties -- the man in a black t-shirt -- has been arrested for vandalism after allegedly damaging a phone someone was using to record the incident.

Jordin Sparks says American Music Awards execs screwed up when they pulled the plug on Chris Brown, and much like Kelly Rowland ... she's shocked there's still debate about whether he belongs at these events.

We got the singer outside ABC Studios this week in NYC, and she thinks Chris has been one of the best in the game for a while now, and absolutely should've been at the AMAs ... to perform and to receive the trophy he won.

As you know, Chris told fans the AMAs canceled his Michael Jackson tribute, and while producers still haven't offered a reason ... Jordin seems to think it stemmed from him beating Rihanna back in 2009.

Granted, Jordan might be slightly biased -- she and Chris had a huge 2008 hit with "No Air" -- but she says that incident "shouldn't even be a conversation anymore" ... and Chris' massive talent should be the focus.

As we reported, Kelly had Chris' back the second boos started popping up in the AMAs crowd, as she announced him as the winner for Favorite Male R&B artist -- thanking him for his contribution to music.

We got Kelly the day after the AMAs, and she gave us some pretty powerful remarks about Chris and the haters. Similar to what Kelly said, Jordin says everyone deserves the chance to "grow and learn" without the past hanging over them.

Clearly, lots of people don't agree, but Jordin's not shy about backing Chris.

Here's a painful lesson for all stage invaders ... the Black Crowes do not find you "Hard to Handle" -- not when they've got guitars and mic stands to beat you down!!!

This scene went down Sunday during the rock band's Melbourne, Australia concert -- as they started playing "Stare It Cold," one rowdy fan looked like he instead wanted them to play "Twice As Hard" ... 'cause that's what he got.

The guy jumped up from the front row and sprinted in front of lead singer Chris Robinson as security chased him to a corner of the stage.

Stupidly, he decided to put up a fight with bodyguards, and that's when lead guitarist Rich Robinson stopped playing ... literally and figuratively. He took off his guitar and used it to smash the dude in the neck.

While the Robinson bros are famous for being at each other's throats, they came together for this battle ... as Chris used his mic stand to help beat back the fan.

Almost immediately, the guy fell back into the crowd ... before security showed him the door and the Crowes restarted "Stare It Cold."

Neal Schon claimed his Journey bandmate, Jonathan Cain, was cutting him off from funds available to the band -- but Jon's calling BS ... saying the dude's just fiscally irresponsible.

Cain just filed legal docs, obtained by TMZ, responding to Schon's lawsuit from October ... in which NS alleged that his old pal was boxing him out of an AMEX account that's supposed to be controlled by both of them for the purpose of official Journey business.

Neal alleged Cain wouldn't grant him access to key records, and that the account was only able to be used by JC of late. However, Jon says that's not quite right, alleging Neal's simply a reckless big spender -- and that's why he lost his privileges to the company credit card.

Jonathan tells TMZ ... Neal's always had access to the credit card statements, and what he's really upset over is not being able to up his spending limit on his own. Jon says Neal's been dealing with a lot of pressure over debt related to his extravagant lifestyle and excessive spending -- which he believes Neal was trying to resolve by even more spending.

Jon says when measures were taken to limit his pillaging of Journey's credit line, that's when Neal went on the offensive with his lawsuit -- which Jon says is frivolous and without merit.

His lawyer, Alan Gutman of Gutman Law, backs Jon ... further explaining that Neal's personal expenses were north of a million dollars and completely unnecessary for Journey.

Kelly Rowland says it's beyond time for the public to treat Chris Brown the same as anyone else who royally screws up -- and, yes, she believes that includes forgiving him for beating Rihanna.

We got the 'Destiny's Child' singer in WeHo Monday and asked about her American Music Awards moment -- when she scolded a booing crowd pissed about Chris' win, and then sang his praises.

Check out KR's remarks to our photog, 'cause they're pretty powerful. She says everyone is worthy of second chances, and that we all need a dose of humility ... especially amid our own transgressions. Essentially, it's the Golden Rule she's advocating for here.

Kelly also suggests folks oughta bask in the good, rather than fervently looking to cast stones at every turn -- especially when related to events almost 14 years old, like Chris' Rihanna incident.

In the end, Kelly thinks we all come up short at one point or another -- and we all deserve to start over again.

Disney+ customers tuning in to watch Elton John from the comfort of their couch got some unwanted politics mixed in with their music ... all thanks to an apparent hack of the streaming service's closed captioning feature.

Viewers reported on several occasions the name "Donald Trump" mixed in with the captioned lyrics during Sunday night's live broadcast. It appears to have happened during the songs "Levon" and "Candle in the Wind."

One Twitter user wrote, "Disney will be firing someone. They snuck Donald Trump into the closed captioning of the Elton John Live concert for about 30 seconds and then started to delete it." Another said, "The caption on this Elton John concert said “Donald Trump” for like a full minute.

The show, from Dodgers Stadium, marked the last of the U.S. leg of Elton's farewell tour, before he hits Europe and other parts of the world. Elton was also joined by Dua Lipa and Kiki Dee during the event.

The stars were shinin' BRIGHT at the American Music Awards ... and it looked like everyone was having the time of their lives behind the scenes at one of music's biggest nights!

Kelly Rowland, Måneskin, Lionel Richie, and Meghan Trainor were just a few of the big names pulling up to the Microsoft Theater in L.A. Sunday night -- Taylor Swift and Smokey Robinson were even huggin' it out when the cameras weren't rolling.

Country singer Dustin Lynch and Machine Gun Kelly cheesed for a photo together ... and it looks like MGK's still trying to keep some social distance with that wild outfit!!!

Sabrina Carpenter and Gayle also met up with Taylor between breaks ... and the 3 were lookin' fabulous together -- maybe a possible collab in the future? 👀

Aaron Carter's dog has made it safe and sound to a new home ... and we're told she's staying somewhat within the fam -- going to a relative of his fiancée.

Jennifer Martin, Melanie's sister, and her fiancé Max tell TMZ ... they took in Zelda, the 3-and-a-half-year-old German shepherd, the day after Aaron passed.

Zelda was in the room with Aaron when he passed ... and seemed to be in shock when she was found ... acting nervous and scared.

Jennifer and Max tell us ... Melanie was going through a lot after Aaron's death, so it just felt right to take Zelda in, adding the dog's been doing a lot better since the traumatic incident. The couple has started a TikTok for Zelda's journey.

Zelda isn't going to get fixed, but they don't want more pups ... Zelda's already had 2 litters. They're worried about the surgery changing her temperament -- she's already been through a lot.

Ticketmaster is spelling out what went wrong with their Taylor Swift tour sales -- and the justification for the fiasco was basically chalked up to ... a necessary evil to defeat bots.

The Live Nation company posted an explainer Friday night, giving an in-depth breakdown of why so many people had such a hard time buying tickets to TS's 'Eras Tour' during the presale window this week ... and it consisted of both an apology and a defense of the chaos.

For starters, Ticketmaster acknowledges what TayTay said ... that she was told they were anticipating an unprecedented amount of traffic and were prepared. However, TM adds that despite this ... when the digital doors actually opened, their expectations were exceeded.

Ticketmaster posted a graph that shows just how many people (and not-real-people) flooded their site ... even though they had a rigorous registration system in place to make sure real, authenticated fans were able to buy tickets, as opposed to spammers who would otherwise snap them up in bulk and hawk them on the resale market with massive markups.

Regardless of this seemingly airtight system being in place -- consisting of 3.5 million users successfully preregistering/confirming their IDs -- Ticketmaster says that on the day of the sale, even more unregistered fans and bots came flocking in ... partially crashing the site.

To resolve this record amount of traffic while simultaneously taking care of the folks who should've been guaranteed a chance to buy passes ... Ticketmaster says it started staggering queues, the result of which ended with longer wait times and, inevitably, frustrated users.

Ticketmaster says they know this caused confusion -- and in some cases, people to lose their spots outright -- but insists it was the best option under the circumstances. TM also proudly touts the fact 2.4 million tickets were, in fact, ultimately sold to authenticated fans ... and that less than 5% of the tickets sold ended up for resale, a W in the site's book.

Ticketmaster says it regrets the fact some were left empty-handed, but also adds this perspective ... it's unfeasible to please everyone, especially at this level of interest.

TM says, "[B]ased on the volume of traffic to our site, Taylor would need to perform over 900 stadium shows (almost 20x the number of shows she is doing) … that’s a stadium show every single night for the next 2.5 years. While it’s impossible for everyone to get tickets to these shows, we know we can do more to improve ... and that’s what we’re focused on."

Chris Brown says he was supposed to put on a big tribute to Michael Jackson during the AMAs this weekend -- but claims honchos pulled the plug last minute out of nowhere.

The singer posted a lengthy video Saturday that shows him in a dance rehearsal with a group of people ... and he's putting on some serious MJ-inspired moves to a few classic hits, which Chris says would've been part of a showstopping number during Sunday's broadcast.

The songs featured include "Beat It," "Billie Jean," "Wanna Be Starting Something" and "Thriller." Presumably, this is in line with the 40th anniversary of Mike's best-selling album.

Chris's original caption reads, "U SERIOUS?" He followed up in a later comment, writing ... "WOULDVE been the ama performance but they cancelled me for reasons unknown." IG users are mostly in support of Chris, openly asking why they scrapped it if it was this good.

Of course, there's speculation as to why CB's performance may have been nixed. Frankly, he's controversial ... even all these years later. Michael himself is obviously also polarizing ... especially in more recent years with the allegations highlighted in the documentary "Leaving Neverland."

Still, Chris's tribute would've been a nice full-circle moment -- the guy has famously done MJ tributes in the past, like in 2010 when he did a big one at the BET Awards ... a year after Michael had died.

There's also the nonstop comparisons made between himself and the King of Pop. Akon recently brought it up again, saying Chris could've been as great if he had a cleaner crew.

Adele barely got through opening night of her Vegas residency ... repeatedly dissolving into tears, saying she was super scared to take the stage.

The Caesars Palace Colosseum was unsurprisingly packed Friday night, as Adele told the crowd she was "so scared and nervous."

As for why ... as you know, the residency was scrapped at the last minute in January after there were production disputes and COVID concerns. She took heat for the cancelation, and a reboot seemed uncertain.

Adele told the crowd, “I should be giving you a standing ovation. Thank you so much for coming back to me. I really appreciate it. You look amazing and it looks just what I imagined it would look like, it's perfect."

She went on ... "I'm so scared and nervous, but I am so happy. I don't know what I was thinking putting piano ballads at the top of the set ... hopefully over time my nerves will disappear. I would also really like to thank Caesars because there have been a lot of rumors and they never once asked any questions, they've been amazing."

Adele's man, Rich Paul, son Angelo, and good buddy James Corden were all front and center.

Post Malone is celebrating a new addition to his already impressive jewelry collection -- a blinding 23 carats worth of diamonds, and all that bling is just for the littlest finger of them all.

Guess his hand was feeling a little light, because sources close to Post tell TMZ ... he called up his pals at Angel City Jewelers to hook him up with a new piece for his pinky.

Angel City's owner, Isaac Bokhoor, came through with the goods while PM was making a recent tour stop in Las Vegas ... and unveiled the "Rockstar" sized ring ... which we're told set the singer back about half a million bucks!

For that kinda dough, ya better love it ... and Post clearly does. Check out his reaction right after getting it backstage -- you're looking at a 5-carat Emerald cut center stone, with another 5 carats of round diamonds on the side. There are 13 more 1-carat stones around the band.

Of course, the "White Iverson" is no stranger to getting blinged out by Isaac and co. -- remember, he was the master behind Post's $250k Dallas Cowboys chain.

He got it back in 2019, appropriately while he was in Dallas at AT&T Stadium. That one came with 3,000 stones, 9.7 carats of baguettes, 13.5 carats of sapphires and 8.7 carats of diamonds.