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Morrissey seemingly signs new deal with Sire Records – three years after leaving Capitol

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Morrissey

A new update from Morrissey has seemingly indicated that he’s now signed to Sire Records, notably three years after he left Capitol.

  • Read More: The Smiths: every song ranked in order of greatness

A post shared today (Friday December 19) on his website featured a picture of the label’s logo with no further context added. However, many of his fans are now convinced he’s inked a deal that will see the release of his long-awaited album ‘Bonfire Of Teenagers’.

Issues with the album date back to December 2022, when Morrissey revealed that he had “voluntarily withdrawn from any association with Capitol Records” – despite announcing that he would be releasing the LP with them just two months earlier. He also revealed that Miley Cyrus had asked to have her backing vocals removed from the ‘Bonfire…’ track ‘I Am Veronica’, which they’d recorded in 2020.

Both severed partnerships came in relation to the musician’s political stance and his support for the controversial far-right party For Britain, whose badge he sported during a 2019 television appearance.

Despite provoking controversy with his political views – something which former bandmate Johnny Marr said “cast a shadow over The Smiths” – the frontman has insisted that he is not far right.

Last summer, the vocalist shared a statement on his website around the status of ‘Bonfire…’, accusing Capitol Records of “fascism” and having a “creeping culture of censorship”. He further said he was “quickly coming around to” the belief that the company only signed ‘Bonfire Of Teenagers’ “in order to sabotage it”.

Later allegations from the ‘Suedehead’ singer included that the CEO of Capitol was trying to derail his career. He also took to his website to say he was being “gagged” over its release. Blaming the “idiot culture”, he said: “There is no arts media anymore in England, therefore there’s no one to whom I can sit and talk about this. The fact is, genuine artists in England are now being held hostage by people who object to any manner of alternative opinion.”

Last year, he said he had bought back the rights to the album, as well as his 2014 record ‘World Peace Is None Of Your Business’. He later told Medium that “there are two albums” that he has completed but is unable to release, 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.”

He added: “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.”

The now amplified speculation about the status of the album follows Morrissey recently announcing his sole UK gig for 2026, which is set to take place at The O2 in London on February 28 – find any remaining tickets for that show here.

He went on to add 11 new dates across Europe for that month, as well as in March. Kicking off in Denmark on February 13, the upcoming tour will see him perform in Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands before hitting London on February 28. From there, he’ll hit France, Switzerland, Italy and Spain – you’ll be able to buy your tickets here.

News of the European run arrives shortly after Morrissey appeared to quietly cancel his South American tour earlier this month. According to ticketing sites and concert promoters for the South American leg of the ‘Nude’ world tour, all dates for November were cancelled because the singer’s “extreme exhaustion”.

The latest set of cancellations come only days after Morrissey axed two shows in Mexico for the same reason. Following those cancellations, he shared a simple update on his website, writing, “I know it’s gonna happen someday” alongside several emojis of the Mexican flag.

These are far from the first Morrissey shows to be cancelled or postponed in recent months – in April, he called off two US shows after being hospitalised with “a severe sinusitis attack”, while a show in Stockholm in June was cancelled after the singer said his band were “travel-weary beyond belief” and had received “zero music industry support”.

The post Morrissey seemingly signs new deal with Sire Records – three years after leaving Capitol appeared first on NME.