The Times: "Morrissey is back — but here’s why we’ll never see a Smiths reunion" (February 16, 2025)

By Will Hodgkinson.

The controversial singer is touring in June and so is Johnny Marr — but not together. Will Hodgkinson talk to insiders and listens to the best tracks he’s written in years.
(Times typo not ours).

Excerpt:

Is Morrissey really “gagged”, as he has claimed? I contacted dozens of musicians — including the 65-year-old Philip Larkin of rock himself — and industry figures for comment and got either silence, a straight no, or a request to stay off the record: people are scared of Morrissey, scared to be seen to support him, or both. In Seventies Britain it was, “Don’t mention the war.” In 2020s Britain it is, “Don’t mention the Moz.”
“Honestly, I think the way he has been treated is unfair,” says his former manager Pete Galli, who survived nine months of representing one of the most difficult men in pop. “People want artists to be their own people and then react angrily when they are. This is the guy who wrote The Queen Is Dead and Margaret on the Guillotine. True artists have always been controversial. Why is it different today?”

Morrissey is back — but here’s why we’ll never see a Smiths reunion

The singer-songwriter has announced UK dates in June, as has his ex-band mate Johnny Marr. Former Morrissey managers and lifelong fans tell Will Hodgkinson what to expect

www.thetimes.com

 

[WhalleyRange]

Yeah I'm deranged if you say so genocide junkie
Just stating facts you smug coward

 

[Moltisanti]

Many artists only gain significant appreciation after their death. I predict that the tidal wave of eulogies and hypocrisy when he's gone will be unbearable.

 

[gashonthenail]

Many artists only gain significant appreciation after their death. I predict that the tidal wave of eulogies and hypocrisy when he's gone will be unbearable.

I have had that thought too. Paint A Vulgar Picture will be pure prophecy.

 

[WhalleyRange]

Many artists only gain significant appreciation after their death. I predict that the tidal wave of eulogies and hypocrisy when he's gone will be unbearable.

Nah he'll be seen as a coward and self absorbed muppet who tried to drag an entire generation to his self pity party that in 2025 looks a bit silly

 

[WhalleyRange]

The post also attached the epithet 'vast' to the 'support' that Morrissey (apparently) receives from the 'conservative media', although the only thing that could be described as 'vast' is the obvious derangement of the poster. I can only speak for the UK, as it's where I live. The mainstream media here in the UK is wall to wall woke. It's a constant diet of the danger Trump poses to global safety, the climate 'catastrophe', how wonderful refugees are, and how awful Israel is. You would love it, Aubs. I live in London - Ramadan is coming so there are adverts everywhere praising Allah and promoting zakat. If I was Jewish, I wouldn't go out.

The poster proved I was right as you well know you self righteous know nothing.
Take your ball home to mummy crybaby.

 

[Moltisanti]

Nah he'll be seen as a coward and self absorbed muppet who tried to drag an entire generation to his self pity party that in 2025 looks a bit silly

And yet, here you are. Your love for the "coward" is undeniable.

 

[WhalleyRange]

And yet, here you are. Your love for the "coward" is undeniable.

Yeah about once a month really heavy duty
Your tiny brain not get around the concept of liking the art disliking the artist ?

 

[WhalleyRange]

Burning kids to death just for being Palestinian or for not accepting Trannys.
(Not that Trump's so cool anti woke regime is driving any American LGBT to suicide or anything eh?)
Bombing zoos f***in ZOOS

That's a chunk of your fanbase cheering this on Stevie baby. Well done. Congratulations. Your rhetoric has - unintentionally I'm sure - helped radicalise people into Trumpism and as I've just mentioned that means the intimidation of LGBT and driving them to suicide. And god knows what else the orange rapist is planning.

 

[Moltisanti]

Yeah about once a month really heavy duty
Your tiny brain not get around the concept of liking the art disliking the artist ?

A typical love-hate relationship. OK. There's nothing to be embarrassed about.

 

[Jamie]

I didn't realize that Ariana Grande committed a terrorist attack - or so the awkward wording would have you believe. And thanks for the reminder that we've had Jesse around for 20+ years now. Rub it in, why don't you.

I continue to remain unmoved by the notion that M has been "cancelled." He has been - and is - making concert appearances that sell at a steady clip for a "legacy artist." He could talk at length to anyone in the press he wants to but chooses to deploy Dodwell as his toothless apparatchik-of-choice. His inability to land a record contract to his liking is due both to a long string of execs being capriciously tossed under the bus when prior albums haven't performed to his grandiose expectations and the fact that he will air unpopular opinions that other execs have calculated are a risk too far to do business with him. More over, he bought back Bonfire of the Teenagers and has every right to release it on his own. M is his own obstacle.

The trouble with Galli's van Gogh comparison is that it cuts both ways: yes, he was unquestionably a genius...but he was also profoundly mentally ill.

 

[Anonymous]

The trouble with Galli's van Gogh comparison is that it cuts both ways: yes, he was unquestionably a genius...but he was also profoundly mentally ill.

Morrissey's combined traits of a massive ego + rampant paranoia is not a winning combination, but it can make for some interesting art. Morrissey is (or was, depending on your point of view) a great artist, but at the same time his own worst enemy. He deserves all the plaudits for the highs, and all the criticism for the many times when he has willingly driven his own career off the side of a cliff.

He seems to be heading on a bit of an upswing at the moment in terms of tour announcements, so lets just enjoy this moment before the wheels fall off again.

 

[Roman Holiday]

The post also attached the epithet 'vast' to the 'support' that Morrissey (apparently) receives from the 'conservative media', although the only thing that could be described as 'vast' is the obvious derangement of the poster. I can only speak for the UK, as it's where I live. The mainstream media here in the UK is wall to wall woke. It's a constant diet of the danger Trump poses to global safety, the climate 'catastrophe', how wonderful refugees are, and how awful Israel is. You would love it, Aubs. I live in London - Ramadan is coming so there are adverts everywhere praising Allah and promoting zakat. If I was Jewish, I wouldn't go out.

It's vast relative to his public profile. Exactly how many Brendan O'Neill hymns to Morrissey do you expect the Spectator to publish about a 65-yr-old whose last album was released 5 yrs ago? One every week?

And if the UK media is "wall to wall woke," then why is the Spectator publishing any Morrissey articles in the first place, and why does Unherd even exist? Shouldn't they have converted to Islam at this point? Put a lid on the hyperbole, please. Your government hasn't squelched the internet. All the non-legacy pundits (Vance, Watson, Barton, etc.), who support him are free to mention him whenever they like, and we know how they lean politically.

 

[Dirk Blaggard]

Non-gated version of the above:

https://archive.is/njALx

---

Pages extracted from The Times Culture Magazine today - digital edition:

View attachment 152272
View attachment 152273

And an advert in The Times (same magazine):

View attachment 152276

FWD.

isnt this just PR ?

 

[Dirk Blaggard]

This article reminds me of "Manchester's Answer to the H-Bomb" back in the 90s and covers much of the same ground. It's interesting to read this right after the Factory thread, too - where Galli says that M is essentially decent underneath and is misunderstood, but Tony says he is just a nasty man and treats people like dirt.

We'll never really know. What strikes me most from both articles is that you could work with Morrissey for years and years, and still not know him because he never let that guard down. He doesn't really want people to know him, and I think the end result of that is the sort of Wilson viewpoint where people feel wronged or discarded and then that leads to the image he now has. Very few people have ever known him, I think. And his social difficulties, anxiety, ego... I can see how those things wouldn't endear him to managers and producers and so on. I think Galli's quote about him being like Van Gogh and having to be aware that "he could cut off his ear at any time" is so accurate.

Two different time zones, two different opinions, I'd fecking wager he is both nasty and nice, like most people. I also think Tony knew and understood M, way way more than his last manager and probably more than most people in his band. The Van Gogh quote I have heard about a lot of mentally unstable people, he is right about that but most of us know, M is mentally ill and the shitty thing is so do the media and people who attack him and they do not give a shit
I agree, he was M's best manager, for ages if not ever. He seemed to think he could speak on M's behalf , which was a mistake

It is true he doesn't pay people, it is true he lies , it is true he can be a nasty fecker . I think it depends if he considers you a friend or not , it depends if he likes a person too much or not. Lots like to think they are his mate when they fecking ain't, if Alan was his mate, do you think he would let him get messed about to the point, that he had to leave? Do you think they would do that to Linder if she joined the band ??

The media have lied about him, and so have people in his career, lots of people have made money out of him, so why would he feel he fecking owe's anyone? Some of us said, M is not going indie , as he probably thinks, at some point, the fashion will change again and he will have two to three lps to sell, so he should get a good fecking wedge. M knows his worth in the scheme of things, he ain't bothered by short-term fashion. He knows the pop artist Morrissey, has already secured his place in pop history, nothing anyone can do, it's just a case of waiting for fashion to come back around for him.

 

[Dirk Blaggard]

I couldn't agree with you more! The cancel culture is ever present still, in this article too, of course. Personally, I think it's a tragedy that resorting to (likely) made up explanations like 'being duped' is apparently the only way to try to save Moz in the (woke but loud part of the) public eye. Once in a blue moon, a genius like Moz comes along, and for that we ought to be nothing but grateful. We need to let them voice their opinions, for Christ's sake, and then bloody counter them if you don't agree – but this silencing of free-thinkers is a disaster.

That is only really true in the UK, and maybe Germany now though, isn't it? .
Surely Trump has shown in the USA, that cancel culture is dead, DEI is dead. It's a new dawn, The guy who owns FB, went on Rogan and pretty much said, he would not block opinions and censor them anymore.
People had enough, in the USA. The UK though is another story. So many people leaving. The UK now has a new online law which is nasty, you have people getting arrested for tweets and the MSM is locked down. and that's due to the media class being a little tribe mainly is London. You actually got the PM labelling the working class as racist, It's a shit show in the UK . Even King Charles prefers to cuck to Islam, than stick up for the people. The longer you spend time outside the UK
the more you see how unhealthy the UK is, and how much people are controlled. Its why we create good artists, they don't want to engage with real life, so they create art. It's why us fans are so into music, it's an escape from the shit show. The only thing that saved the UK in the 70s, 80s, 90s was music.
I don't think M was ever cancelled though, was he? He still tours, he did have a record contract, he was the one who messed that up. He has been offered other labels, he didn't want them. So how is he cancelled? I think, M saw that he could use cancel culture in his defence, he could use it to make a martyr out of himself, and lots of his fans are so low IQ that they eat it up. So that is what he did. Rather than admit he went all soy boy with Miley he pretended the labels tried to cancel him and change his art. due to him being too "real". It's a great move, as he knows a lot of people will fall for it Its total BS though

 

[gashonthenail]

The trouble with Galli's van Gogh comparison is that it cuts both ways: yes, he was unquestionably a genius...but he was also profoundly mentally ill.

Morrissey is entitled to his privacy, but it does seem clear, by his own admission, and lyrics like those in 'Something Is Squeezing My Skull', that he too has had some form of contact with psychiatry? I'm just glad that he seems happy and healthy currently.

 

[Redacted]

Morrissey is entitled to his privacy, but it does seem clear, by his own admission, and lyrics like those in 'Something Is Squeezing My Skull', that he too has had some form of contact with psychiatry? I'm just glad that he seems happy and healthy currently.

I think he has,he said on Larry King that he suffers from depression but doesn't take anything for it

 

[gashonthenail]

I think he has,he said on Larry King that he suffers from depression but doesn't take anything for it

I think he has also said that he has been offered 'treatment', medication and therapy, and I would imagine has tried at least some of that treatment in the past. Most doctors these days will offer you antidepressants at the drop of a hat. I can't imagine Moz wanting to talk to a therapist though - his lyrics, and singing on a stage, are his therapy.

 

[Redacted]

I think he has also said that he has been offered 'treatment', medication and therapy, and I would imagine has tried at least some of that treatment in the past. Most doctors these days will offer you antidepressants at the drop of a hat. I can't imagine Moz wanting to talk to a therapist though - his lyrics, and singing on a stage, are his therapy.

Yes, psychiatric meds are very over prescribed and if someone feels they can cope with their depression without meds or therapy, they should follow their instincts and preferences on that. If he were delusional or violent or suicidal, that would be a totally different thing. I am also just guessing he was probably formally diagnosed and offered some kind of treatment. People say antidepressants make them sort of oblivious to their own feelings, which would not be good for someone who writes about feelings.

 

[DrStatham]

I think he has also said that he has been offered 'treatment', medication and therapy, and I would imagine has tried at least some of that treatment in the past. Most doctors these days will offer you antidepressants at the drop of a hat. I can't imagine Moz wanting to talk to a therapist though - his lyrics, and singing on a stage, are his therapy.

He did say in autobiography that he tried anti-depressants in his younger years but they made him behave weirdly and so he stopped