Morrissey - Claims he's been dropped over "diversity" by record label.

Photo: By Raph_PH

Morrissey came to fame as the front man for The Smiths during the eighties who had five top selling albums between 1984 and 1988. He then launched a solo career and has continued to have hits oin the album charts up to and including this year with I Am Not A Dog On A Chain which reached No 3 in the Charts. 

Morrissey has never been one to shy away from controversy and his militant veganism has been at the forefront of his outbursts over the years. Of course that's not not all he has mouthed off about but then occasionally other musicians have been known to put their foot in it including David Bowie and Eric Clapton.

Bowie and Clapton both expressed sympathetic comments towards the right and were rightly admonished for doing so. Morrissey however has been more than just being foolish and has placed much support behind the For Britain party led by Anne-Marie Waters. This organisation was founded after Waters lost her bid to lead UKIP and is considered to be on the extreme right.

Morrissey has issued the following statement on his website:

BMG Records have dropped Morrissey. Following the March 2020 release of I AM NOT A DOG ON A CHAIN (#1 Scotland, #1 Poland, #3 Britain, #3 France, #10 Spain, #13 Germany, #2, #9, #17, #18 U.S.A. - depending on which official chart you follow), BMG have appointed a new Executive who does not want another Morrissey album. Instead, the new BMG Executive has announced new plans for 'diversity' within BMG's artist roster, and all projected BMG Morrissey releases/reissues have been scrapped.

"This news is perfectly in keeping with the relentless galvanic horror of 2020," said Morrissey, "we would be critically insane to expect anything positive."

Morrissey is once again in search of a new label willing to release his music.

"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."

Of course one does not have to support or even sympathise with Morrissey's politics but it does raise a concern about freedom of speech and expression which is central to a functioning democracy. Anne Marie Waters was driven out of the Labour Party (see Anne Marie Waters Rresigns from the Labour Party) back in 2013 and has moved on an ever further rightward trajectory with For Britain forming alliances with far-right groups across Europe. 

I don't know Morrissey but did have some contact with Anne-Marie around the time she was in Labour and until she formed For Britain. Her politics are distinctly right-wing but she is not a fascist and certainly not antisemitic. Trouble is antisemitism does exist within her party, but then it still exists on bigger and more dangerous scale inside Labour and on the far-left. 

If we allow Marxists and Communists the right to propagate their ideas then Morrissey has the same right after all which ideology killed more people Fascism or Communism. I would suggest the latter is at least double yet we allow followers of Lenin a respectability they do not deserve. 

Given Morrissey still sells lots of records I'm sure he'll find a new label.

Website: morrisseycentral.com