Please Close The Door Behind Me - Morrissey statement at TTY

It's a long one!

PLEASE CLOSE THE DOOR BEHIND ME - true-to-you.net
20 August 2014

Morrissey statement

In response to 77 million questions I can only say this much on the subject of the Harvest drama. It is quite true that Harvest initially appeared like a saintly beacon of light, and they instantly packed us off to France where we recorded World peace is none of your business. The universe was back in balance, and we all considered this to be the very best Morrissey recording ever, and even the boo-hoo-suck-it-off elements of the press appeared to want to agree. At last I am born.

It all seemed too good to be true. It was. I believed that the rich soil of the album had several strong hit singles. Frayed tempers began when Harvest arranged the 'spoken word' films, none of which gave any clue as to what World peace is none of your business intended to be, or is. The films were OK, but they went nowhere and stayed there.

With every nerve alert, we pushed the label for a proper video for Istanbul to precede the album, not least of all because a single ahead of the album release might inch the album to a higher chart position. The label backed off, even though Istanbul received 55 radio plays in just seven days on a major US station. Instead, the label requested a fifth spoken-word film, which naturally had me fumbling around for an axe: no independent thought required. The UK label, meanwhile, created a quite fantastic television advertisement to transmit during the week ahead of the album release. I could taste excitement once again. The TV ad never appeared and my hackles bristled as my bristles heckled. The label responded with frosty aloofness, and I suddenly realized that we were not, after all, of the same species. I ploughed into them insisting upon "proper band videos, where the band play and I sing" - an evidently confusing concept that required seven weeks of explanation, detailed graphs and several drawn up maps.

The label suggested I come to Los Angeles and read passages from Autobiography in front of selected audiences. As frightening as that idea was, I hung on, desperate to believe that Harvest were not as cheap as they now looked. I hope to finish this statement whilst I'm still clean-shaven, so I will jump to the final curtain: during the weeks of the album release, the label were minus one single structural idea, and it appeared evident that each member of the team was acting in separate rooms without doors or windows. Mutual mistrust exploded between Harvest and I, and with fashionable pessimism, the label boss yawned and ordered the surface smartness of dropping World peace is none of your business three weeks after its release. There, now! This would not have happened to the Teletubbies.

Sorrily botched the project may now be, but it's worth it to get Morrissey out of our Inbox. Yes, I can be intensely persistent, and I certainly have an over-active fantasy-life, but the Harvest experience tells us that despite the blinding flash of teeth and smiles, it doesn't take much for the coin to flip and suddenly we're all compromised and shattered. All you need to do is disagree with the vanity of the label boss and your beheading will be slotted in between bottles of the most average champagne on the market. Just one weak-chinned drone can assert the fist of injustice and all of our efforts are flushed away. And thus ... they were.

I might be wrong, but I think World peace is none of your business will instantly disappear from iTunes and record stores and every download-upload-offload outlet on the planet, because Harvest technically have no right to sell it.

Most of the Harvest team are very nice, and I sincerely thank them for trying and caring so much - even if their promotional duties were fully undertaken by the Morrissey audience themselves, whose You Tube videos for World peace is none of your business fully provide the art that the label could not muster. The listeners instantly understood how entertainment could also be art. Staggeringly, I still believe that there's a label out there with my name on it, and one that will issue World peace is none of your business, and afford it the respect it deserves.

Thanks for reading this (rashly assuming that you have), and thanks once again to the Harvesters who tried.

We are boot-camp ready for Lisbon in October, so with the will of many gods, hopefully at least 38 of you will turn up.

MORRISSEY
20 August 2014



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Re: TTY Statement : Please Close The Door Behind Me

There's a total *this* in for that. It must fall in line with artists finding it hard to live up to former greatness among their fan base or something? But I totally agree with you. I'd rather listen to [insert your subjective 'worst Morrissey album'] on infinite loop than have to hear one song of Creed, Distained, Disturbed, whatever the names are of alternative rock in the mainstream here. Same goes for the hip hop and pop.

But of course, I haven't turned on the radio in years, other than AM talk radio. I enjoy independent stuff on channels like somafm.com. That and I'm a big nerd who listens to a lot of bloops and bleeps without singing, mixed with trance and dubstep sounds, such as can be heard on scenesat.com.

Practically all of the music played on most radio stations is absolute drivel. Then again most of the DJs are mentally-impaired loud-mouthed shallow-minded egotistical miscreants who just love the sound of their own voice, and who assume all listeners are brain-damaged with the IQ of a broken brick. If someone says to me 'I don't buy or listen to any particular type of music, I prefer to listen to music on the radio' I lose interest, and as Morrissey says ... walk away.
 
Re: TTY Statement : Please Close The Door Behind Me

It really isn't, you know, and that is one of the most outlandish comparisons I've heard in a long time. Hatful of Hollow was no Blue Period, Maladjusted was certainly no Three Musicians, and World Peace is definitely no Guernica.

Picasso was a bona fide genius in a world in which that word is overused unlike almost any other. Morrissey is a just singer. A very good one, but just a singer.




aha.

clumsy comparison you've welcomed quickly and tried to make a mock of the poster and morrissey in one move.

it's not your fault or sin if you're not capable to understand morrissey as poet and philosopher; you recognize singer only.





p.s. i sing an apology
 
Re: TTY Statement : Please Close The Door Behind Me

Perhaps, but I get the sense that the same goes for the other camp at times. I thought we were having a rational, interesting discussion regarding Richard Blade's Facebook post on the "Morrissey Intervention" thread, but I guess we weren't oozing with enough praise for Morrissey there.

I'll accept anyone's well-articulated thoughts, whether I agree with them or not. It makes for an interesting discussion when we don't throw up our hands in outrage and resort to name-calling. Or the infamous - "You're blocked". Reminds me of The Kids in the Hall sketch - "I'm crushing your head!"

Again, for the record (since every current thread resorts to this), I really like the new album. My fascination with Morrissey as a troubled icon is on a different level of interest to my appreciation for his art. I'm grateful for this, because most individuals aren't likely to entertain you in one facet. With Moz, I get a myriad of amusements.

And I still want him to thrive, in whatever way that is for him.

Yes that Your Blocked comment is really something else. I asked Uncle Skinny what it meant and got no reply. Does it actually mean Maurice E. Maher can't post here anymore under that username? If so it's ridiculous. How the hell did he become a moderator?
 
Re: TTY Statement : Please Close The Door Behind Me

Yes that Your Blocked comment is really something else. I asked Uncle Skinny what it meant and got no reply. Does it actually mean Maurice E. Maher can't post here anymore under that username? If so it's ridiculous. How the hell did he become a moderator?

Not being able to post here is banned. You can see if someone is banned by looking at their profile. Blocked tends to mean that you put the person on your ignore list. I finally started using it recently. Makes life here much more enjoyable.
 
Re: TTY Statement : Please Close The Door Behind Me

Not being able to post here is banned. You can see if someone is banned by looking at their profile. Blocked tends to mean that you put the person on your ignore list. I finally started using it recently. Makes life here much more enjoyable.

Oh I see. So nothing to really worry about then. Yes the ignore list is magic and getting longer each day.
 
God, that's pathetic.
 
Re: TTY Statement : Please Close The Door Behind Me

I have been a fan since the The Smiths, and until the past three releases, continued to give him a listen. WPINOYB SUCKS. IT SUCKS.

All of you on this site who can do nothing but kiss his arse are such lemmings that it is laughable.

Cheers.

Why are people unable to have a difference in opinion without resulting to childish insults. Some people, like me, think the new album is amazing. Others, like you, think it sucks. Who cares.
 
Re: TTY Statement : Please Close The Door Behind Me

Sorry clown, I was busy today--the school where I teach started back this week. Actually, too many loners in the U.S. take money from the government, and the current administration is such a cause of the problems here--Obama is a joke--and insult.

I have been a fan since the The Smiths, and until the past three releases, continued to give him a listen. WPINOYB SUCKS. IT SUCKS.

All of you on this site who can do nothing but kiss his arse are such lemmings that it is laughable.

Cheers.

My god, you're a teacher? Jesus!

Yes we know your thoughts on the new album. Yes we know you think we are lemmings who can't think for themselves. Is there anything else you want to say other than the same repetitive shit that drools from that hole under you nose before you disappear?
 
Re: TTY Statement : Please Close The Door Behind Me

When Morrissey talks about wanting to sign to only a major record label I'm left wondering which labels are left for him to sign to? The way he's going he could fit nicely on Cherry Red's roster. But seriously are there that many major labels left these days? The labels all seem to have been bought by bigger parent companies more interested in re-releasing older material than signing new artists.
 
Re: TTY Statement : Please Close The Door Behind Me

I understand Moz was signed by Harvest to a 2 album deal. He delivered one of those albums and, setting aside for the moment who is to blame, was then dropped by Harvest leaving him w/o a label.

What I don't understand is how dropping Morrissey releases Harvest from ownership of the album? As referenced in his recent statement, Moz correctly predicts the album will, in short order, be unavailable for download online. Morrissey seemingly now is the sole owner of the album and can do with it as he wants? Any clarification on this would be greatly appreciated.

If Moz is indeed the sole owner, I wonder if this rather bizarre situation might be in an odd way the perfect impetus to push him towards a self styled online release? I fully appreciate his desire to be courted, to be on a major label, and thus have the ability to reach a larger audience (not saying I agree with this). Given the album was already released, charted #2 in the UK, and virtually no promotion was done would this not provide amble cover for Moz to self release the album? If he ever wanted to build his brand online and be his own boss this could be the perfect opportunity.

I wonder if he has the energy and desire to do the amount of work it would take? Regardless, as an author of a well received book and holder of many an inflammatory opinion, I find it hard to believe he couldn't garner enough media attention to sustain a re-launch of the album.
 
Permission to ask a stupid question...

What is the advantage of signing to a major record label versus an indie label? Do they pay better? Is it the difference between carrying a real Fendi clutch or a cheap Chinese knock off? I'm totally serious. Because if you equate the analogy to say...working at a bookshop, I'd rather work at Powells than corporate NASDAQ-driven Barnes & Noble for cool factor, let alone the motivations of an indie label are about rocking the f*** out to music instead of fame and exposure which as far as I can tell is a passé motivation reserved for the Kanyes and Beyonces of the world. But please correct me if I'm wrong or not seeing a seminal angle, I want to understand.
 
Re: TTY Statement : Please Close The Door Behind Me

What I don't understand is how dropping Morrissey releases Harvest from ownership of the album?

Harvest never owned the album. They only ever had it on licence from Morrissey.

Three possibilities:

1) Morrissey negotiated a deal with Harvest which made it very easy for him to revoke the licence any time he felt like it (although I reckon it's very unlikely a label would agree to this).

2) Harvest committed some breach of contract and their lawyers advised them they should just drop Morrissey and not engage in a costly legal fight to keep him (even if they stood by their legal right to a second album, it's pretty clear that they would never actually get it).

3) Given Morrissey's public statements, Harvest saw an opportunity to maximise profits on WPINOYB. Sales having slowed to a trickle, they realised they would make more money by dropping Moz and withholding payments to him in lieu of all or part of his advance.
 
312th comment that nobody will read but......
You can only admire the mans integrity. Never does he flinch, there are and have always been "easier options" for him, certainly more lucrative. And yet he still constantly strives, we can, and should, only sit back in pure admiration.
 
Re: TTY Statement : Please Close The Door Behind Me

I would agree. It's certainly not as bad as Kill Uncle (funny how nobody references this album anywhere) but it's not as brilliant as Refusal or Quarry either.

World Peace production values make both Refusal and Quarry sound like they were recorded in shoe boxes. But World Peace lacks their cohesiveness and falls down on sloppy lyrics.

Then again, I'm Not A Man, Staircase At The University, Kiss Me A Lot, Smiler With Knife and Oboe Concerto all sit very comfortably in the Morrissey cannon.
 
Permission to ask a stupid question...

What is the advantage of signing to a major record label versus an indie label? Do they pay better? Is it the difference between carrying a real Fendi clutch or a cheap Chinese knock off? I'm totally serious. Because if you equate the analogy to say...working at a bookshop, I'd rather work at Powells than corporate NASDAQ-driven Barnes & Noble for cool factor, let alone the motivations of an indie label are about rocking the f*** out to music instead of fame and exposure which as far as I can tell is a passé motivation reserved for the Kanyes and Beyonces of the world. But please correct me if I'm wrong or not seeing a seminal angle, I want to understand.

I wonder this too, if only because nowadays most indie labels also have their music in the shops alongside the major label stuff.
 
I wonder this too, if only because nowadays most indie labels also have their music in the shops alongside the major label stuff.

I think morrissey's zinger about the cheap champagne might explain a little bit, perhaps the label's duty is to lavish the artist with whatever their needs are and indie labels don't provide that service? Or maybe it's as simple as money.
 
312th comment that nobody will read but......
You can only admire the mans integrity. Never does he flinch, there are and have always been "easier options" for him, certainly more lucrative. And yet he still constantly strives, we can, and should, only sit back in pure admiration.

Your comment has been read and appreciated. Morrissey's refusal to compromise has always been a source of conflict: if success in the music industry was based solely on talent, then he should have been one of the biggest pop stars in musical history; unfortunately, the biggest pop stars tend to be 'manufactured', and they would never jeopardize their fame by challenging authority. So Morrissey has to settle for being admired by a smaller, but fiercely devoted, group of fans who don't want to be spoonfed mediocrity from former Disney actors, American Idol winners, or bands that are absolutely indistinguishable from one another . I just hope that he can find a way to carry on because it will be a very sad day when the door finally does close.

lynnda
 
there can be argued a few advantages but the most common mentioned seems to be distribution on all levels (physical/digital).
 
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