buddha be praised!
and i know what you mean. i had so-so taste as a kid. okay, okay, i had horrible taste. but to my credit, i hated both debbie gibson and new kids on the block. therefore, i think i would have hated britney as a child. i mean, i was pretty young when she hit the scene (14/15ish) and i still hated her whereas many of my peers idolised her. pretty scary.
but you're right. moz will always (deservedly) have a loyal audience and people will always buy his albums as long as he keeps making him.
that being said, i truly believe he could have had a record deal at any time all along. maybe it's like you said, and he would have had to bend a little and give up some artistic control (or dump the lads), but record companies recognise his genius - and they know about his fanbase.
> Yeah, it is pretty sick, but then if Morrissey's albums sold as many as
> Britney's, he could do whatever he liked and still have the record
> companies eating out of his hand, he could have his cat write his songs
> and they would lap it up! I'll never understand who buys that crap, when I
> was a kid I had good taste in music and so did my friends, we would never
> have listened to that.
> But we don't need to worry too much about Moz, he always lands on his
> feet. And sounds like he's having enough fun these days that he'll be
> doing this for a while yet