The Telegraph / James Hall: "Morrissey: ‘My whole life has relied on free speech – naturally, I’m gagged’" (September 9, 2024)

Morrissey: ‘My whole life has relied on free speech – naturally, I’m gagged’

The forthright singer’s ‘masterpiece’ Bonfire of Teenagers was finished in 2021. He reveals the ‘idiot culture’ blocking its release

https://archive.is/J2hBl - no paywall.

Morrissey: ‘My whole life has relied on free speech – naturally, I’m gagged’

The forthright singer’s ‘masterpiece’ Bonfire of Teenagers was finished in 2021. He reveals the ‘idiot culture’ blocking its release

www.telegraph.co.uk

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Related items:

• Morrissey-solo.com: "What has happened to Bonfire of Teenagers? - media request" - September 2, 2024
• The Times / Will Hodgkinson: "Morrissey says he is being censored. He isn’t" (September 10, 2024)

 

[SteveWS]

the bequiffed bard of 1980s bedrooms

Good grief. Even my cat's a better writer than this twit. Better than me too, but that's not the point.

 

[The Wild Turkey]

Ya gonna have to go underground
with it Moz.
Go underground and let it grow up.
Guys like Jac Holzman ain't around
anymore to let ya through the door.

 

[Stephen Hofmann]

"Naturally, I'm gagged"—in an interview with a major publication. The album isn't being "silenced." Presumably students in 1970s Britain took a basic economic class. Sellers of a product consider demand and market factors. Record companies exist to make money, not to facilitate freedom of expression. He could self-release the album, but for some reason he won't.

Because he has an ego and wants it on a major label.........when he could have been doing what every other 80's artist with any sense has done and got a serious website and released their own music/merch.........gone on Patreon and had way more fun.

 

[Amy]

Still moaning about him then............and still here.

I always hope that he's not really as much of an arsehole as the media makes him out to be. But he always is. This article is nothing more than a copy-and-paste of the Bonfire chronology that FWD linked the journo to in the earlier thread, and even Moz' snarks are recycled.

 

[Uncleskinny not logged in]

Why is this idiot not banned?

You do realise you are arguing against the free speech position your benighted hero espouses?

Well done!

 

[Gregor Samsa]

Bullshit interview. Has he lost it?

“Controversial means intelligent, doesn’t it?” No it f***ing doesn’t, but as long as he thinks that it does, he will continue to make a fool of himself.

 

[ACTON]

“I think I made my point without turning it into the war of the worlds… which, of course, I easily could,” he says.

What a pathetic, deluded dickhead. He thinks that the New Order crack makes him superior, when really it just shows that he's such a nightmare that millions of pounds could not tempt Marr into the same room. Most people would be ashamed of that, not bragging about it.

Sheesh Amy, don't pull any punches!

 

[dallow_bg]

 

[SteveWS]

You do it to yourself, you do,
And that's what really hurts
Is that you do it to yourself, just you,
You and no one else

 

[Jacob Grease-Smog]

God forbid he addressed some of the bad smells that surround his name....might be more the reason those labels run for the hills. Oh and the price tag......

 

[Roman Holiday]

It's not just about demand and supply. Blackrock, for example, which owns assets getting on for $10 trillion dollars, have said that they will only invest in companies who support social responsibility. Which may explain why so many big companies are keen to promote 'woke' ideology. Even if it loses them customers. Look at Nike and Budweiser with their disastrous 'woke' advertising. Losing some customers is still way better than having your shares plummet to zero over night.

Those things would fall under the market factors I mentioned. Even if Bonfire of Teenagers is somehow so radical and provocative that it's going to cause a record label more controversy than they want relative to profit, then they'll pass on it. That doesn't mean Morrissey is being silenced.

He can self-release it. I remember in the 80s there were straight edge hardcore bands whose "record label" was someone with a dual tape deck willing to painstakingly make copy after copy of their master tape for them to sell at their shows. That shows principle. No one's freedom of speech is being curtailed by a record label passing on them.

 

[DaveJCarr]

Bullshit interview. Has he lost it?

“Controversial means intelligent, doesn’t it?” No it f***ing doesn’t, but as long as he thinks that it does, he will continue to make a fool of himself.

I'm sure Moz has nothing but respect for the "controversial" carnivore diet folks.

 

[ACTON]

Meanwhile Robert Smith is one glass of merlot away from announcing a new Cure album, THE THE released the excellent 'Ensoulment', and SACK (the Irish irrepressible intelligentia of indie who supported Moz back around 2002) are finishing up their new album. The world spins slowly but it's still moving.

 

[dallow_bg]

Meanwhile Robert Smith is one glass of merlot away from announcing a new Cure album, THE THE released the excellent 'Ensoulment', and SACK (the Irish irrepressible intelligentia of indie who supported Moz back around 2002) are finishing up their new album. The world spins slowly but it's still moving.

For real.

There's so much music being released, by everyone.
Everyone has an opportunity to be heard.

Morrissey has the album and rights to release it, but no, he of all people is being "gagged".
So gagged he can whine about being gagged.

Cry me a moon river.

 

[TheSmiths_1985]

All the major labels say it’s a masterpiece? In the same way that your mum would say that those spaghetti-and-glue pieces of “art” you made in nursery school were masterpieces?
“Yes, MOZI, it’s great, a masterpiece. In fact it’s too good. Too good for us. You’d actually be better off asking someone else to release it! What’s that..? You’ve asked them all already…? And they said… what? Sorry MOZI, you’re breaking up… hello?”

 

[Thewlis]

Meanwhile Robert Smith is one glass of merlot away from announcing a new Cure album, THE THE released the excellent 'Ensoulment', and SACK (the Irish irrepressible intelligentia of indie who supported Moz back around 2002) are finishing up their new album. The world spins slowly but it's still moving.

Been playing nothing but Ensoulment these past days. Such a great album!

 

[JoeSellMozza]

Moz sends some words to the Telegraph journalist?! Who believes this rubbish?

 

[DaveJCarr]

Meanwhile Robert Smith is one glass of merlot away from announcing a new Cure album, THE THE released the excellent 'Ensoulment', and SACK (the Irish irrepressible intelligentia of indie who supported Moz back around 2002) are finishing up their new album. The world spins slowly but it's still moving.

THE THE album Ensoulment Is actually an excellent comp, I think for the current stage of Moz. "Kissing the ring of POTUS" expresses many of the same sentiments as something like all the young people must fall in love", but it's a t's a song I could very easily picture Morrissey himself writing. Indeed, it contain a lot of the tics, I don't particularly find all that compelling about this stage of Morrissey: the rhyming, the repetition all of it.

The key difference, though and Matt Johnson certainly is no stranger to writing explicit political messaging in his song – this is not the first time nor will it be the last, is that THE THE are not hoisting themselves up on their own petard (like Moz is) positioning themselves as the only one making explicitly politically charged material., or using music to mean something. Morrissey seems to think he is the only one doing this. And he is not.

There is more pointed political writing in popular music right now than most other times in my lifetime I can conjure, and for the most part people may remember them, but even the best ones don't really endure.

Or to put it another way:

I thought that if you had an acoustic guitar
Then it meant that you were
A protest singer
Oh, I can smile about it now
But at the time it was terrible

 

[ACTON]

THE THE album q\
Ensoulment Is actually an excellent comp, I think for the current stage of Moz. "Kissing the ring of POTUS" expresses many of the same sentiments as something like all the young people must fall in love", but it's a t's a song I could very easily picture Morrissey himself writing. Indeed it contain a lot of the tics, I don't particularly find all that compelling about this stage of Morrissey: the rhyming, the repetition all of it.

The key difference, though and Matt Johnson certainly is no stranger to writing explicit political messaging in his song – this is not the first time nor will it be the last, is that THE THE are not hoisting themselves up on their own petard as the only one making explicitly politically charged material. There is more pointed political writing in popular music right now than most other times in my lifetime I can conjure, and for the most part people may remember them, but even the best ones don't really endure.

Or to put it another way:

I thought that if you had an acoustic guitar
Then it meant that you were
A protest singer
Oh, I can smile about it now
But at the time it was terrible

I was thinking along similar lines. Matt Johnson isn't fond of being described as 'political' in his lyrics but he certainly writes/sings what he thinks and holds up a mirror to life as it is led. Nobody (as far as I know) is hellbent on silencing him or his releases. Matt hasn't spent the last x years going on about how his new album is a masterpiece. He just released it. To public and critical acclaim. And is touring it with no distracting drama.

 

[Stephen Hofmann]

You do realise you are arguing against the free speech position your benighted hero espouses?

Well done!

That's the first time you've ever had the nerve to engage with me.