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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Morrissey is just too contrarious to comply or conform with any set of expectations. And he objects to any form of control. And he honestly believes it's an artist's role to behave that way. That makes him a tough sell.

And yet, the music industry without Morrissey would be an even duller place (assuming his new stuff is good).
 
November 5th 2021. Has to be.

ba5db12a6db3446481df5c11a0355e8c.jpg

hope before then.

He’s got those Vegas dates, gotta release a single
at least, or one song download only
as some sort of promotion.

Maybe he should release a single himself, and labels seeing how well it does :pray:will then pick up the whole album.
 
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.

Yes! And I love him for that.
 
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.

He's just true to himself.

That's his noble cause.
 
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.
And how does that stance get him what he wants? He wants money thrown at him, he wants No.1 albums, he believes he deserves it. It's not a contrived position, it's what he believes he deserves. Again - how does this stance get him what he wants? By allying himself with racist gobshites and saying things that lose him sales? Yes it's his fault, but to what end? Do you think it's part of a master plan?
 
hope before then.

He’s got those Vegas dates, gotta release a single
at least, or one song download only
as some sort of promotion.

Maybe he should release a single himself, and labels seeing how well it does :pray:will then pick up the whole album.
Me too. It will be Guy Fawkes/bonfire night so it was a play on the album title.
 
You love him for being mates with well-known racists? Yeah, good luck with that. That'll propel his career into the stratosphere.

No, Peter. First, I love him for his music, which is not separated from his personality.

As we all know, Morrissey's personality has contradictory aspects, like all humans have, and sometimes he messes things up, for himself and for other people, (as he's pointed out many times in his lyrics), like we all do in our lives and have to deal with the consequences.

So, what's the difference between him, a worldwide known artist, and us ordinary people?

Morrissey is in the public eye, so every little thing he does or says is magnified, printed, recorded and referred to over and over again.

While we, mortals, have the luxury to mess things up more privately and freely.

I don't believe Morrissey is more racist than most humans. The opposite it true: half his band is Latinx, his favourite author is black and well known for writing about the civil rights movement, and for being friends with Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, Malcom X... And on top of all that, he chose to cover Only a Pawn in Their Game, which is about Medgar Evers murder, while he could have chosen any other song among the hundreds of songs that I'm sure he loves and would like to cover. No true racist would ever, ever, get even near all of these subjects, let alone close to and involved with them.
 
And how does that stance get him what he wants? He wants money thrown at him, he wants No.1 albums, he believes he deserves it. It's not a contrived position, it's what he believes he deserves. Again - how does this stance get him what he wants? By allying himself with racist gobshites and saying things that lose him sales? Yes it's his fault, but to what end? Do you think it's part of a master plan?
And what do you want? To cancel Morrissey? Woke tart.
 
View attachment 72982

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”.
Advertisement

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.

I'm no fan of Karen, she rarely gets it right but will spend ages speaking in circles, ignoring the comments of actual long-term fans who have, slightly more knowledge than what you get from the NME or biogs, etc

That said, Im happy she posted this its this kind of article Morrissey needs. NOT one from Fiona Dotty- someone who is quite obviously paid for ,in some way, by The Team.
The trouble with Dotty is, she can not write, her opinions are puddle deep and reek of bullet point dictaion.
Also, its really only hardcore M fans, mostly who don't respect her, that read it, so it achieves nothing.

This article is more like it. Thank you Karen
 

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