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And Finally Artist News
Morrissey christens new blog with attack on The Independent
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 4 April 2018
Morrissey is yet again peeved about people having opinions about him having opinions. Just let him have his opinions, OK? And stop assuming that those opinions mean that he has opinions on anything.
With his former mouthpiece, fansite True-To-You, seemingly now defunct, the musician has launched a new website, separate from various other official channels, upon which to pump out information. And last week, he published a blog post on it attacking a nearly two week old piece in the Independent, which likened being a Morrissey fan today to “a drawn-out divorce”.
In his response, Morrissey denies claims that he thinks Brexit is a good thing or that he doesn’t like Nicola Sturgeon. He also adds that a reply to an email sent by his manager to the newspaper’s editor Christian Broughton asking why the opinion piece had been published had just revealed “The Independent’s dog-yapping will to destroy anyone with a view that doesn’t match their own”.
“I believe I have mentioned Brexit twice in my entire life, and neither comment expressed love”, writes Morrissey. He did call it “a victory for democracy” in that Der Spiegel interview though. But that’s doesn’t count. He goes on: “I had explained how Brexit had been a strike for democracy because of the disgust that the political elite had shown towards the people who did not vote the way that they were warned to by media bullies”.
He does, however, admit that rebuttals such as this don’t always come across so well. “I confess that my life in music has been stunted by shyness, and this remains”, he says. “I am too interior, and this can often seem like bone splitting arrogance. But it is not. I do not want to be like anyone else in music because there is no point. I want to bring something different into view. When I attempt to clarify, I will admit that it often sounds like an attack”.
“I am neither loony left nor far right”, he adds. “I am a humanitarian. I have not ever once voted in a British election because I have not ever discovered a party that represents my views. My main social concern is the abolition of the abattoir, the continued existence of which in modern times is beyond sane belief”.
Still, you can bring on the criticism all you like, it doesn’t both him in the slightest, as regular rants such as this will attest.
“I have been criticised in the UK for so long (nowhere else!) that anything said about me no longer strikes me as a threat because I am still, after all, here”, he concludes. “We should, I think, be striving for something more morally useful than whatever The Independent vomits out by way of spite”.
Elsewhere on the new website, it is revealed that Morrissey has recorded a cover of The Pretenders’ ‘Back On The Chain Gang’ for a summer single release. No word yet on what The Independent makes of that.
