Morrissey attacks music industry following Sinéad O’Connor’s death
Morrissey has written a scathing critique of the music industry’s response to the death of Sinead O’Connor.
The Irish singer’s family announced yesterday she had passed away at the age of 56, sparking a wave of tributes from across the music industry.
However, in a new blog post titled ‘You Know I Couldn’t Last’, Morrissey criticised the wider industry’s response to her death, arguing that it was hypocritical when they “hadn’t the guts to support her when she was alive and she was looking for you”.
“She had only so much ‘self’ to give,” the former Smiths frontman began. “She was dropped by her label after selling 7 million albums for them. She became crazed, yes, but uninteresting, never. She had done nothing wrong. She had proud vulnerability … and there is a certain music industry hatred for singers who don’t ‘fit in’ (this I know only too well), and they are never praised until death – when, finally, they can’t answer back.
“The cruel playpen of fame gushes with praise for Sinead today … with the usual moronic labels of “icon” and “legend”. You praise her now ONLY because it is too late. You hadn’t the guts to support her when she was alive and she was looking for you. The press will label artists as pests because of what they withhold … and they would call Sinead sad, fat, shocking, insane … oh but not today!
“Music CEOs who had put on their most charming smile as they refused her for their roster are queuing-up to call her a ‘feminist icon’, and 15 minute celebrities and goblins from hell and record labels of artificially aroused diversity are squeezing onto Twitter to twitter their jibber-jabber … when it was YOU who talked Sinead into giving up … because she refused to be labelled, and she was degraded, as those few who move the world are always degraded.”
Morrissey continued: “Why is ANYBODY surprised that Sinead O’Connor is dead? Who cared enough to save Judy Garland, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, Marilyn Monroe, Billie Holiday? Where do you go when death can be the best outcome? Was this music madness worth Sinead’s life? No, it wasn’t.
“She was a challenge, and she couldn’t be boxed-up, and she had the courage to speak when everyone else stayed safely silent. She was harassed simply for being herself. Her eyes finally closed in search of a soul she could call her own. As always, the lamestreamers miss the ringing point, and with locked jaws they return to the insultingly stupid “icon” and “legend” when last week words far more cruel and dismissive would have done.
“Tomorrow the fawning fops flip back to their online shitposts and their cosy Cancer Culture and their moral superiority and their obituaries of parroted vomit … all of which will catch you lying on days like today … when Sinead doesn’t need your sterile slop.”
Morrissey also recently hit out at Jet2holidays for its links to marine parks that continue to use captive orcas and dolphins for public entertainment.
Addressed to Steve Heapy, the chief executive of Jet2, the musician expressed that the animals at the zoo belonged in the ocean and should have the ability to socialise and find food — something they are unable to do while kept in a “cramped, concrete tank”.
The post Morrissey attacks music industry following Sinéad O’Connor’s death appeared first on NME.
Emma Wilkes
NME
