Morrissey Dropped By Label, Blames Diversity Initiative

Jordi Vidal / Getty Images

Morrissey Dropped By Label, Blames Diversity Initiative

Jordi Vidal / Getty Images

Everyone’s sick of Morrissey, including his label. The once-iconic singer has spent the last couple years torpedoing his reputation and career alike, tarnishing the legacy of his work by leaning into his most reactionary, racist takes. Now, his label BMG has decided to cut ties, and, naturally, Morrissey’s camp blames a new “diversity” initiative.

The news comes from Morrissey’s official website, which is increasingly reading like the work of a conspiracy-driven right-wing nutjob. (Seemingly innocuous as it is, they try to pump the commercial performance of his recent album I Am Not A Dog On A Chain with stats “depending on which official chart you follow,” which just feels like a hilarious disclaimer.) The post claims that BMG have appointed a new executive who “does not want another Morrissey album.”

“This news is perfectly in keeping with the relentless galvanic horror of 2020,” Morrissey said in a statement on the site, in case you assumed he’d lost any sense of melodramatic and solipsistic self-pity. “We would be critically insane to expect anything positive. My three albums with BMG have been the best of my career, and I stand by them till death. Recording them has been a pivotal period in my life, and I thank the previous BMG team and everyone involved for that. It’s still important to me to do music my own way, and I wouldn’t want to be on a label that dictates so specifically how their artists should behave — especially when the word ‘talent’ is notably never mentioned.”

The announcement came with a cartoon image depicting Morrissey burning at a stake, unfortunately repurposing lyrics from the great Smiths song “Bigmouth Strikes Again” for a comic book caption of “Now I know how Joan of Arc felt.” The post also reminds us that Morrissey’s 2021 Vegas residency is planned to continue as scheduled.

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