The Telegraph: "No record label will touch Morrissey – and that’s the music industry’s loss" (June 4, 2021)

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Telegraph have done an opinion piece hoping Morrissey gets a new record deal - despite accusing him of supporting the EDL. 🙄

Edit: it would probably help if I remembered the link.


No record label will touch Morrissey – and that’s the music industry’s loss​

However objectionable you find the Smiths singer, he shouldn't be reduced to hawking his new album to the highest – or lowest – bidder
JAMES HALL 4 June 2021 • 2:10pm

The last 12 months have been unkind to us all. Even, it seems, rock stars living in Los Angeles. Morrissey, the pugnacious former Smiths singer, said this week that he’s had “the worst year of my life”.
On one level, sympathy may be in reasonably short supply. Partly because of the LA rock star thing but mainly because Morrissey has in recent years made a barrage of offensive pronouncements including swipes at the Chinese, seeming defences of individuals accused of sexual abuse and sympathy for groups such as the English Defence League. But all of this notwithstanding, the former king of bedroom melodrama has still had a genuine shocker.
Last summer his beloved mother died. In April he was lampooned in an episode of The Simpsons called Panic on the Streets of Springfield. The show featured a vegan singer from the 1980s called Quilloughby – complete with thick-rimmed glasses and a quiff – who sang in a band called the Snuffs. But Quilloughby turned out to be a figment of Lisa Simpson’s imagination and was actually an overweight, meat-eating man with anti-immigrant views. Morrissey’s manager called the episode “hurtful and racist”.
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And last November, Morrissey was dropped by his record label. “We wish him well in the next chapter of his career,” BMG said in a statement at the time.
That’s a bad 12 months, indeed. Heaven knows he’s miserable now. But on Sunday Morrissey sprung a surprise on us all. “The worst year of my life concludes with the best album of my life,” he said. He has recorded Bonfire of Teenagers in LA, an album of 11 new songs with none-more-Morrissey titles such as Rebels Without Applause, My Funeral and Saint in a Stained Glass Window. His lack of a record deal? No problemo, as Bart Simpson might put it. A message on the singer’s website read: “Morrissey is unsigned. The album is available to the highest (or lowest) bidder."

That’s right. Morrissey’s new record will be sold to the highest record label bidder. My initial thought was “Poor lonely man”. It was accompanied by a slight sucking of teeth. “Bit embarrassing if no label buys it,” I mumbled to myself. But this was soon overridden by a feeling of “Why not?” There was even a dollop of respect there. It’s a ballsy thing to do. A bold "f––– you" to the system. How typically Morrissey.

Besides, traditional means of music distribution – whereby a label puts out an album by an artist to which it has paid an advance – have long since broken down. Technology and the streaming revolution have seen to that. There are countless examples of artists seeking alternative ways of releasing new music. And auctioning an album to a label is another addition to this list.

In 2007 Radiohead, out of contract with EMI, released In Rainbows as a pay-what-you-want download. This honesty box approach saw 62 per cent of downloaders paying nothing (but those who did pay spent an average of around £5 globally). Four years later the Kaiser Chiefs released The Future is Medieval as a create-your-own-album concept. The band streamed snippets of twenty songs online and let fans choose their 10 favourites for £7.50. In 2014 U2 famously gave away Songs of Innocence to 500 million iTunes users free of charge: it appeared on iPhones and iPads around the world (whether people wanted it or not – millions didn’t).

The point is, anything goes when it comes to getting an album out there. My favourite alternative release story probably relates to rap collective Wu-Tang Clan. In 2015 they printed just one CD copy of their album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin and auctioned it off as an art object. A legal stipulation meant that its contents could not exploited commercially until the year 2103. The CD was bought by businessman Martin Shkreli, who reportedly paid $2 million for it. But in 2018 Shkreli was convicted for securities fraud and a federal court seized his assets, including the Wu-Tang album.

I hope the Morrissey album is picked up. Because despite his stupid pronouncements he is on something of a musical roll. When he was dropped by BMG he said that his three albums with them – 2017’s Low in High School, 2019’s California Son, and last year’s I Am Not A Dog on a Chain – were the best of his career. “I stand by them till death,” he said. While not quite up there with Vauxhall and I or Viva Hate, they are very strong records.

Last year’s single Bobby, Don’t You Think They Know? featured Don’t Leave Me This Way singer Thelma Houston on guest vocals. It’s an epic and slightly bonkers track that is completely absorbing. And 2017 single Spent the Day in Bed is up there with his best solo work.

This isn’t to say that Morrissey would be an easy artist to have on your roster. He was the final performer I reviewed before lockdown kicked in last year. His gig in Leeds in March 2020 was typical of the man: he slated critics, largely ignored his hits, and at one point mock-sneezed on the crowd to make some kind of point about Covid-19. Perhaps if he’d known what was around the corner, he’d have been more circumspect.

Or perhaps not. A comment on his website at the weekend about his upcoming Las Vegas residency (called Viva Moz Vegas) said the following: “Morrissey’s 5 nights at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas start on August 28, and there are no anti-social distancing or facial concealment rules in place.”

But however "toxic" people find Morrissey, there are many musicians who have done things far worse than him who have record contracts. There are members of rock bands with record deals who’ve spent time in prison for domestic abuse; meanwhile it was reported last year that a British drill rapper was offered a record deal while in prison awaiting trial for murder. No matter how abhorrent you may find Morrissey's opinions, he's committed no crime.

So here’s my message to labels: take a deep breath and snap up Bonfire of Teenagers. It’ll probably be quite good. And you might just cheer up music’s biggest grump.
 
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I can't help but respect how much Morrissey refuses to back down and take a 'smaller' deal, how much he won't compromise or say the right things, will continue to annoy the industry and be a difficult bastard to the end. He just can't be swayed, sold or coerced on any level, even if it kills his career - and who else can say that? He's a one-off.

I've never found self-destructiveness to be a particularly admirable quality. If it were in pursuit of some noble cause perhaps it would be understandable but there's nothing admirable about Morrissey's apparent determination to destroy what's left of his career.
 
A bit misleading to say no record label will touch him. Before he started supporting far-right politics, and when BBC were happy to play his new songs, a record label knew they could shift 30,000 to 60,000 copies of a new album. Now that's shrunk right down to 5,000-10,000, but plenty of other indie acts sell that amount e.g. The Flaming Lips, Jarvis Cocker, Tim Burgess etc and keep the record companies happy. So, record labels will offer (and probably have offered) him a deal, but just based on the shrunken fanbase.
 
A bit misleading to say no record label will touch him. Before he started supporting far-right politics, and when BBC were happy to play his new songs, a record label knew they could shift 30,000 to 60,000 copies of a new album. Now that's shrunk right down to 5,000-10,000, but plenty of other indie acts sell that amount e.g. The Flaming Lips, Jarvis Cocker, Tim Burgess etc and keep the record companies happy. So, record labels will offer (and probably have offered) him a deal, but just based on the shrunken fanbase.

Now that returns from physical sales are diminishing and streaming doesn't bring in much either, live shows are the most lucrative things for musicians and labels. Bearing in mind that ticket sales for Morrissey's last shows weren't exactly spectacular, I'm wondering if prospective labels are waiting to see how the Las Vegas shows pan out before committing. I do worry that those shows may represent some kind of watershed moment for his career.
 
I've never found self-destructiveness to be a particularly admirable quality. If it were in pursuit of some noble cause perhaps it would be understandable but there's nothing admirable about Morrissey's apparent determination to destroy what's left of his career.
I tend to agree. But when it comes to artists, the adage that, it's better to burn out, then to fade away', comes to mind...
 
Morrissey is a great artist but he is a perverse conundrum of a person. The Smiths reportedly split because Morrissey wouldn’t make a video for Sheila, Take A Bow. It was the final straw for Johnny Marr. Then what does Morrissey do? Make video after video for The Smiths and his solo releases. He also probably wants more money than his dwindling sales warrant.
 
Who is to blame for this horrific situation? We need names!

No one will touch him because it won't sell, he has racist mates, and he'll tell the record company to f*** off and blame them for everything.

Who could resist such a proposition?
did the divorce papers finally come through,is that why your in a c--t of a mood,shes not coming back,in the words of frozen,let it go.
 
Let me translate that for you...

"He has said a load of stuff that turn off the buying public so no-one will part with their money for his product and as a result no record company will spend money to lose money"

Also - it seems to me that you are comfortable with him consorting with racists. Wonder why that might be?
Tedious old man. Go away.
 
Domino Records or Mute could be perfect for him. Domino Records successfully reissued all My Bloody Valenine backcatalogue and Mute managed to sell well rhe last New Order album to date
 
A bit misleading to say no record label will touch him. Before he started supporting far-right politics, and when BBC were happy to play his new songs, a record label knew they could shift 30,000 to 60,000 copies of a new album. Now that's shrunk right down to 5,000-10,000, but plenty of other indie acts sell that amount e.g. The Flaming Lips, Jarvis Cocker, Tim Burgess etc and keep the record companies happy. So, record labels will offer (and probably have offered) him a deal, but just based on the shrunken fanbase.

I'm sure The Flaming Lips sell a few more copies of their albums than Jarvis or Tim. Also, neither Tim or Jarvis could sell out Wembley Arena as a solo artist.
 
I'm sure The Flaming Lips sell a few more copies of their albums than Jarvis or Tim. Also, neither Tim or Jarvis could sell out Wembley Arena as a solo artist.

Not sure about that, don't know the sales figures but Flaming Lips and Jarvis (with his new band) released albums last year, Jarvis's landed at number 11 in the charts and Flaming Lips were 17.
 
Morrissey is a great artist but he is a perverse conundrum of a person. The Smiths reportedly split because Morrissey wouldn’t make a video for Sheila, Take A Bow. It was the final straw for Johnny Marr. Then what does Morrissey do? Make video after video for The Smiths and his solo releases. He also probably wants more money than his dwindling sales warrant.
Well, that's just not true. No evidence from Mozipedia, Marr, Rogan etc. backs that claim. They recorded a whole album (Strangeways) after Sheila and, anyway, there is a video for it, although I do not know about the circumstances it was made in:

 
Not sure about that, don't know the sales figures but Flaming Lips and Jarvis (with his new band) released albums last year, Jarvis's landed at number 11 in the charts and Flaming Lips were 17.

I reckon they'd have sold more, plus as a live attraction, a recognized band like that will always be a bigger live proposition. And i say that as an ex-Pulp fan.
 
There is also a thing called 360 deal, which has become common when the physical sales have declined. To quote Wikipedia: "The company agrees to provide financial and other support for the artist, including direct advances as well as support in marketing, promotion, touring and other areas. In turn, the artist agrees to give the company a percentage of an increased number of their revenue streams, often including digital and online sales, live performance, merchandise, endorsement deals and songwriting royalties." From what I've understood -- feel free to correct me -- Morrissey has never agreed to such a deal, which of course makes him an even tougher sell to many record companies.
 
The British press is always like this - at any moment they'll do a full reverse ferret & will entirely forget that they seriously accused him of being a fascist.

I'm glad Moz is so robust & music has more roads open - theatre has had 5 suicides in the past month. Apropos (tweet from a director unlikely to ever work again):

20210605_133501.jpg
 
I’d be amazed if he hasn’t already got expressions of interest from some labels. He’ll have put the statement out now so he can turn it round and say “oh yeah?” to those who think no one will touch him now.

All about news management and timing.
 
I've never found self-destructiveness to be a particularly admirable quality. If it were in pursuit of some noble cause perhaps it would be understandable but there's nothing admirable about Morrissey's apparent determination to destroy what's left of his career.
Yeah, maybe 'admire' wasn't quite the right word. I wouldn't want to swap places with him. It's just unusual - most people naturally try and do what helps them, they play the game. Morrissey endlessly self-sabotages, alienates himself, burns bridges and you think - what drives him? Why does he do this when it only damages him? Is he driven by anger?
 

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