He's selling out shows on his legacy alone. If you informed ticket buyers on the next tour that he would be playing a setlist solely consisting of 19 new songs from the supposed "two unreleased albums fluttering against the bars" he's written, and made it abundantly clear there would be no Smiths songs or other solo songs played, I highly doubt he'd be selling out show after show.
Record companies don't care about legacy. They care about how much your last album sold. When you go from selling 400,000 records to 88,000 in a span of 5 years, no one is going to promote you like you're still a massive draw. Yet he expects that. The problem IS the new songs. They are weak in every way and fail to generate considerable buzz and demand even from his most devoted fans, so what would make him think a record company would show any interest? Any rational person would think the solution to a failure would be to go back to the drawing board and try again - not Morrissey...he thinks if he plays the same songs enough, you'll grow to like them. It also doesn't help that he consistently garners attention these days for absurdly negative comments. It actually seems like he does MORE publicity when trying to get a record deal than, you know, when he's actually supposed to be promoting an album/single.
Morrissey doesn't know his place...he expects the competitive music industry to take a step back in time to accommodate him, rather than him step aside, make a deal with an indie label that gives him complete freedom and enter the phase of his career where he releases material without the aim of getting it to the top of the charts. I honestly would respect him more if he were putting out bad music like he has for the last couple of years if I wasn't so sure he thought it was the best music of his career and worthy of being #1 on the charts.
