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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🧐
peeps ignore the woke trolls, the album
will be released as soon as negotiations
are completed:hammer:
Great post! I believe that Morrissey will be OK no matter what. Looking forward to the new album. Maybe next year Morrissey will be able to tour. Morrissey offers a lot of hope in this lonely world.
 
Meanwhile grime "music", probably the most destructive form of music ever created, is lauded by white middle-class Guardian types, as city's across the country's revel in blood-red machetes. F-off you twat.
No one is making Grime, there hadn't been any Grime made for about a decade.
 
Haven’t gone back to reread posts, and I could be wrong, but was he revisioning his first statement or is it just the way you’ve been reading his posts?
Maybe go back and read it before asking? First it was "Please show evidence that he's impossible to work with" and then it was "Is that a realistic expectation?"
If you just argue any time anyone says anything that you perceive as negative about Morrissey, but your arguments are as weak as "didn't read what you're talking about but are you sure you're not wrong," why even bother?
Yes, lots of people are difficult to work with and some, like Morrissey, are impossible no matter what compromises someone might make, once he decides they're out. Sometimes it's because they simply want to be paid. Stephen Street talking about Viva Hate said, "Basically, what happened was, for the producer’s royalty on the record, he initially wanted me to take the one point I got when I was working on The Smiths stuff. I pointed out that a producer worth his salt, working on a such a record would be getting three or four points, and it took months, and months and months to agree on me getting paid a royalty rate that was regarded as fair, and basically it tarnished his thoughts and feelings towards me, and I was out of the picture."
So the team that worked on the record that many regard as his best, and even if you have other favorites you'd have to agree it's one of his most personal and unique, was broken up over the producer and cowriter wanting to be paid a fair rate for the months of work he put in.
How are you supposed to compromise on that? Work for free for the privilege of working with Morrissey? It's another example of his self-destructive tendencies. Eventually that team would have run out of steam but it didn't have to end then or that way.
 
"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."

Mock-sneezing on a crowd during a pandemic.

Now that is funny! /s
Old guy humor?
 
He should just release the downloadable tracks on Bandcamp (they can be lossless FLAC and WAV there as well, so no poor quality MP3 issues), and then have a small boutique label produce collector's edition CDs and LPs for people who want those. He'd probably do just as well financially, or even better, going that route, than what he'd get in royalties from a big name label these days.

Perhaps he's just stuck in the old "Big Label" mindset - especially those he grew up adoring - and won't give it up and realise he just doesn't even need them any more. Just get the music out there dude - the real Moz fans who've stuck by him will know where to find it even without a Big Label to promote it.
 
Did you not read his Morrissey Central post? He's practically begging for a label. He's got a complete product that he doesn't want to put out himself. He and his organization are not capable of putting out a record or else why would he put that he was looking for bids? Maybe he was he being funny or looking for pity, either way it's not a good look.
Nothing wrong with what Moz did. He's just letting potential buyers know and generating some buzz.
 
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.
"The music industry" ? More like, "Business bastards." John Lennon You need the music industry Morrissey, like you need a rattlesnake in your hip pocket.
 
Well it's been years since I've been on here. When did this place turn into a right wing echo chamber? FFS folks, open your eyes. The man is a bigot and a narcissist who blames everyone else for his own failings. He's wrote some cracking tunes but his output for the last few years has been sub par. So glad I've left all this behind - what a shower of ignorant plicks.
 
Well it's been years since I've been on here. When did this place turn into a right wing echo chamber? FFS folks, open your eyes. The man is a bigot and a narcissist who blames everyone else for his own failings. He's wrote some cracking tunes but his output for the last few years has been sub par. So glad I've left all this behind - what a shower of ignorant plicks.
I don't think you've quite grasped the concept of "left. behind".
 
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November 5th 2021. Has to be Bonfire Night (Guy Fawkes).

ba5db12a6db3446481df5c11a0355e8c.jpg
We used to celebrate it here in Australia up until around the early 80's, but we called it Cracker Night.

Hmmm, interesting. In 1988, when Morrissey released Viva Hate it was initially released as Education In Reverse in Australia on the plain EMI label until it was re-released as its UK counterpart on HMV.

Maybe Morrissey could release the album here as "Cracker Of Teenagers", but in today's PC world that might be a major turn off, because the word "Cracker" is also slang for a sexy person. Morrissey has firmly stated in interviews that he has never condoned child abuse or anything that vaguely resembles it, even though in a later interview he made ambiguous remarks about the Kevin Spacey scandal.

I don't think that he was defending paedophilia though, contrary to what some critics have said. Paedophilia literally means having an obsessive sexual love for pre-pubescent human beings, which is of course universally disgusting. He was stating that adolescents know about sex, and they should not be putting themselves in such compromising positions, especially knowing about the nature of the acting industry beast.

I concur. When I was a teenager, I virtually spent all my after school life at home or record shopping once I turned 17. I didn't become sexually involved with anybody until the age of 23, even though I first learned about sex when I was 11 thanks to an NHS book called "How We Grow Up". Added to that, I didn't even know the word paedophilia until 1987 in a book I bought called "Understanding Sex".

The Internet has opened up a whole new world of education about sex for children and adolescents, which is a good thing. But it has also opened up a world of social media in which prudes, political correctoids, pornography merchants and slanderers have also given children mixed ideas about sex too.

It just makes me depressed to even think about it. I wrote a song a few years ago about it called "If You Don't Talk To Your Kids About Sex, The Pop Stars Will".
 
He should sign to Danzigs Evil Live or get with Ryan Adams and put his own stuff out digitally, both those artists have no problem saying whatever they feel just like Moz. Could be a productive union until any disagreement arises.
 

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