Morrissey has refused to self-release his new album despite his growing frustration with record labels. The ex-Smiths singer is currently unsigned and has said he won't release the follow up to 2009's 'Swords' until he has a record deal. He ruled out any chance of releasing the record himself in t...
Morrissey has refused to self-release his new album despite his growing frustration with record labels.
The ex-Smiths singer is currently unsigned and has said he won’t release the follow up to 2009’s ‘Swords’ until he has a record deal.
He ruled out any chance of releasing the record himself in the same way Radiohead did with ‘In Rainbows’ in 2007.
“I don’t have any need to be innovative in that way,” he told Pitchfork. “I am still stuck in the dream of an album that sells well not because of marketing, but because people like the songs.
“Once it becomes public that you aren’t signed, you assume that anyone who wants you will come and get you.”
The singer believes the reason he hasn’t been signed yet is because record labels are more interested in new artists.
“I think labels for the most part want to sign new discoveries so that that label alone is seen to be responsible for the rise of the artist,” he added. “Not many labels want bands who have already made their mark, because their success is usually attributed to some other label somewhere else at another time.”
Morrissey also slammed the current state of the music industry and said it had been “destroyed in a thousand ways”.
“The internet has obviously wiped music off the human map – killed the record shop, and killed the patience of labels who consider debut sales of 300,000 to not be good enough,” he explained.
He added: “There are no risks taken with music anymore – no social commentary songs, no individualism. This is because everyone is deemed instantly replaceable.”
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