A little over a year after telling a live audience that “nobody will release my music anymore because I’m a chief exponent of free speech,” Morrissey has indeed found a label willing to release his new LP, Make-Up Is A Lie. The album will arrive Feb. 27 via Sire/Warner Bros., and the title track is available right now.
The album was cut with producer Joe Chiccarelli, who Morrissey previously worked with on 2020’s I Am Not a Dog on a Chain, 2019’s covers collection California Son, 2017’s Low in High School, and 2014’s World Peace Is None of Your Business. They recorded it at the Studio La Fabrique in the Saint-Rémy-de-Provence region of Southern France with help from musicians Jesse Tobias, Camila Grey, Carmen Vandenberg, Juan Galeano, Alain Whyte, Gustavo Manzur, and Brendan Buckley.
Eleven new songs were written for Make-Up Is a Lie, and they also recorded a cover of the 1973 Roxy Music classic “Amazona.” He’s never performed the song in concert, but Morrissey is a lifelong Roxy Music fan, and he sang their 1973 tune “Street Life” on his 2006 summer tour of Europe.
Morrissey originally called the new album You’re Right, It’s Time. Production was completed three years ago, but Morrissey said he was unable to find a distributor. Throughout that time, he toured throughout Europe and America, playing sets packed with Smiths classics and solo tunes. But in typical Morrissey fashion, many of the shows were canceled at the last minute.
He was supposed to kick off an American tour on Jan. 3 in Rancho Mirage, California. It was postponed a day before due to “an adverse reaction to a prescription medication.” Not long afterward, he yanked a planned Jan. 6 show in San Diego for reasons that weren’t explained. As of now, the tour is supposed to begin on Jan. 10 in San Antonio. But nothing will be official until the lights dim and Morrissey walks onto the stage. (And even then, there’s always a chance he’ll call things off midway through the night.)
In 2024, Morrissey said that he agreed to a Smiths reunion tour, but guitarist Johnny Marr “ignored the offer.” Marr usually ignored Moz’s provocations, but he responded to this one. “I didn’t ignore the offer,” he said. “I said no.”
The track listing for Make-Up Is a Lie:
1. “You’re Right, It’s Time”
2. “Make-Up Is a Lie”
3. “Notre-Dame”
4. “Amazona” (Roxy Music cover)
5. “Headache”
6. “Boulevard”
7. “Zoom Zoom the Little Boy”
8. “The Night Pop Dropped”
9. “Kerching Kerching”
10. “Lester Bangs”
11. “Many Icebergs Ago”
12. “The Monsters of Pig Alley”
