What was so wrong with The Smiths deal with Sire Records?
- Thread starter butley
- Start date
Cornflakes
"A bit iffy" ★★☆☆☆ - AV Club
Here's a few things...
1) It seems like the main reasons they signed to Sire were that they liked some of the bands on the label and Seymour Stein had courted them. They may well have looked back and felt that they should have asked a few more questions.
2) Sire didn't invest an enormous amount marketing the Smiths. They upped it considerably for Strangeways, but a lot of that money didn't end up getting spent because the band split and so the promotional activity that would have been funded didn't happen. I'm not sure whether this is about Sire being stingy, though. I think it may be more that the Smiths were put in a "college radio" bracket, and so a lot of promotion wasn't seen as the best way to sell records. But Morrissey and Marr may well have felt that the band should have been getting more attention in America and it was down to Sire that they weren't.
3) In Johnny's book, he gives the impression of not really knowing why the Smiths wanted to leave Sire in late 1985. He says that there was suddenly a new lawyer around, who he doesn't give the impression of liking very much, trying to push them in that direction. He says he doesn't know how the lawyer got hired - if he didn't hire him, then we can only presume it was Morrissey, and Morrissey wanted the band to leave Sire for reasons best known to him.
4) It's worth noting that Morrissey re-signed to Sire after the Smiths split.
1) It seems like the main reasons they signed to Sire were that they liked some of the bands on the label and Seymour Stein had courted them. They may well have looked back and felt that they should have asked a few more questions.
2) Sire didn't invest an enormous amount marketing the Smiths. They upped it considerably for Strangeways, but a lot of that money didn't end up getting spent because the band split and so the promotional activity that would have been funded didn't happen. I'm not sure whether this is about Sire being stingy, though. I think it may be more that the Smiths were put in a "college radio" bracket, and so a lot of promotion wasn't seen as the best way to sell records. But Morrissey and Marr may well have felt that the band should have been getting more attention in America and it was down to Sire that they weren't.
3) In Johnny's book, he gives the impression of not really knowing why the Smiths wanted to leave Sire in late 1985. He says that there was suddenly a new lawyer around, who he doesn't give the impression of liking very much, trying to push them in that direction. He says he doesn't know how the lawyer got hired - if he didn't hire him, then we can only presume it was Morrissey, and Morrissey wanted the band to leave Sire for reasons best known to him.
4) It's worth noting that Morrissey re-signed to Sire after the Smiths split.
A
Anonymous
Guest
They were never signed to Sire like they were signed to Rough Trade. THIS is his problem.
"...Seymour is in fact signing Rough Trade for licensing access to the Smiths."
"...Seymour is in fact signing Rough Trade for licensing access to the Smiths."
Cornflakes
"A bit iffy" ★★☆☆☆ - AV Club
That doesn't explain why signing to Sire was a mistake, though. The alternatives would have been signing to another label in the same way or not having a label at all in the US.
A
Anonymous
Guest
There was no mistake in signing to Sire as they were NOT signed to Sire. Rough Trade were signed to them and just lisenced the Smiths music.
Cornflakes
"A bit iffy" ★★☆☆☆ - AV Club
You need to tell Morrissey that, not me. He's the one who thinks it was a mistake.
This is interesting as I seem to have a lot of Sire related promotional material for Moz and it looked ok - he must have mellowed a bit.
As for The Smiths - Autobiography says it all:
"Geoff shuttles the band to New York (in row 62, cattle class), where Seymour Stein awaits with a deal to sign the Smiths (ostensibly) to Sire Records. The deal, though, is not quite what it seems (are they ever?), and Seymour is in fact signing Rough Trade for licensing access to the Smiths. As thick as two short planks, Johnny and I sign – once again witnessed by Andy and Mike. We have no idea what we’re signing, in an act of legendary mental deficiency.
Generally though, the Smiths as a working unit are assured and agreeable, their main misfortune so far being the way in which they had been sold like a cow at a market to Sire Records. Like Allen Ginsberg perched on the top of your mother’s wardrobe, Geoff Travis had looked down smiling his whooping-cough smile as the Smiths lumbered along, hopelessly unaware of their global financial worth.
I telephone Geoff, who is staying on the Upper East Side and concluding dinner at a friend’s apartment, having coaxed Morrissey and Marr – with child-like ease – to sign a deal with Sire Records that will land several platinum discs bearing Rough Trade’s otherwise unsellable logo on the Billboard charts.
‘Geoff, there are cockroaches ON the bed,’ my voice cracks.
‘Well, it’s only for a few nights,’ he says, signing off.
In the US, Sire release How soon is now? as a single, but they cannot get it onto the Billboard 100 even though the song is receiving national airplay and garnishing fantastic attention from coast to coast.
Sire then paste together a predictably vomit-inducing promotional video to accompany the single, and my heavy heart sinks further as I witness the cold-blooded mess on VHS. The Smiths will encircle the US twice – to quite outstanding success in large arenas – yet Sire cannot get a television spot for the band. We have no publicist, and we have no support from the label. At a chaotically sold-out Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles I announce:
‘I would like to thank those who made all of this possible ... the Smiths’ – it is petulant, of course, but it’s the only way to get the point across."
Regards,
FWD.
