Morrissey has spoken about his unreleased album ‘Bonfire Of Teenagers’ and why it still hasn’t seen the light of day, describing the record as “the modern version” of The Smiths‘ 1986 album ‘The Queen is Dead’.
‘Bonfire Of Teenagers’ was recorded between 2020 and 2021 and had been announced for a 2023 release on Capitol, but still hasn’t been released owing to his departure from the label in 2022. Earlier this year, he said he bought back the rights back to that record, as well as his 2014 album ‘World Peace Is None Of Your Business’.
Morrissey claimed in September in an interview with The Telegraph that he had been “gagged” over the release of the album, blaming what he called “Idiot Culture” for the extensive delays.
“There is no arts media anymore in England, therefore there’s no one to whom I can sit and talk about this,” he claimed. “The fact is, genuine artists in England are now being held hostage by people who object to any manner of alternative opinion.”
The artist gave a rare interview with the writer Fiona Dodwell on Medium where he went into more detail about why ‘Bonfire Of Teenagers’ still hasn’t come out.
“There are two albums, as you know,” he said, the other being ‘Without Music, The World Dies’. “The second one was re-recorded in France in late 2023, and given a new title. We scrapped half of the tracks and we recorded six new ones, and so it is not the album from the beginning of 2023.”
Morrissey. Credit: Joe Maher/Getty
Morrissey then said: “Labels say that they are both fantastic high-quality pop albums but they say that they can’t release them because they don’t want the wrath of The Guardian making their lives hell. The harassment campaign against me by The Guardian is worldwide knowledge now, and it is effective in the sense that labels do not want to become involved with this Gotcha! Journalism.”
Asked what he means by ‘Gotcha! Journalism’, he explained: “It is a form of very annoying student politics where certain publications choose their enemies and they then decide that everything that is said by Morrissey, or whoever, must look like a problem. For this reason alone I am somewhat blacklisted in England.
“I think it was early 2020 when my mother heard a Radio 4 interview with the editor of The Guardian in which the editor said ‘We have a big problem in the U.K. with harassment,’ and my mother screamed at the radio: ‘Yes! created by YOU!'”
He continued: “The problem is that I have always been an exponent of free speech. I can’t actually speak any other way. But now that free speech has been criminalized throughout England and Ireland the people who rely on it are being shut down…
“To be cancelled is the modern version of lynching, isn’t it? And behind the scenes, your livelihood, your ability to survive, your relationships with whomever you work with, are all quietly attacked so that you can no longer function. There hasn’t ever been a proper study of the extent of cancel culture and how deeply and viciously it goes. It is not a dramatic exaggeration to say that people who are cancelled are privately pushed to the point of suicide.
“And for what? In the hope that the entire country loves the same music, the same books, the same comedy, the same politics, the same films? This can never happen! ‘Bonfire of Teenagers’ is the modern version of ‘The Queen is Dead’, but the fact that no label will release it is an indication of how childlike and frightened the music industry has become.”
In the same interview, Morrissey explained why he wanted The Smiths to reunite for a live tour, claiming that it wasn’t to do with “any emotional attachment” he has to his former bandmate Johnny Marr despite the pair’s ongoing feud.
Over the summer, the former frontman of the iconic Manchester group said he had agreed to a “lucrative” 2025 Smiths tour – but alleged that Marr “ignored” the offer.
Later, a representative from the guitarist’s management team called Morrissey’s comment “incorrect” in a statement on X/Twitter. “I didn’t ignore the offer – I said no,” Marr wrote in his own message.
“I agreed because it felt like the last time such a thing would be possible,” he revealed.
“We’ve all begun to grow old. I thought the tour that was offered would be a good way of saying thank you for those who have listened for what suddenly feels like a lifetime. It wasn’t because I had any emotional attachment to Marr. I have absolutely none.”
When asked how he viewed Marr today, Morrissey replied: “He seems to me to be just as insecure and fearful as he was during the 1980s.
“But he gains more press adoration by pretending to be the Smiths gatekeeper and custodian in isolation, and as long as he is sitting in a corner complaining about me he has a pedestal which would disappear in the event of a reunion.”
Morrissey continued: “He claims to find me completely indigestible, but whenever he walks onto a stage he sings my lyrics, my vocal melodies and my song titles. Is this hypocrisy or self-deception?
“He has forced people to choose between Morrissey and Marr, and I’ve had just about enough of his bitchslap comments. I’ve quietly put up with them for over 30 years.”
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