Morrissey has finally found a new record label after spending several years in the musical wilderness.
On Instagram and his website last night (Dec. 18), Morrissey revealed that he’d signed a new deal with Sire by sharing a photo of the label’s logo. Moz didn’t make any additional remarks beyond some celebratory emojis, but a rep for the singer did confirm the signing is official.
There’s no word yet on when Morrissey will drop new music on Sire, but it could happen soon. The singer-songwriter hasn’t released a solo album since 2020’s I Am Not a Dog on a Chain, but he’s repeatedly teased two follow-up albums, which have yet to be released.
One effort, Bonfire of the Teenagers, was recorded between 2020 and 2021 with producer Andrew Watt, and was set to feature an array of big-name guests, like Miley Cyrus, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith and Flea, and Iggy Pop. The album was originally supposed to be released through BMG in Nov. 2020, but the label dropped him. He later found a new home for the LP at Capitol Records, and though a single (“Rebels Without Applause”) was released, the album was ultimately shelved and Morrissey ended his association with Capitol.
Last year, Morrissey claimed in an interview that the album had been “gagged” and “idiot culture” was preventing its release. He appeared to alluding the backlash he’s faced for some of his far-right political views, especially over immigration. Cyrus, at one point, requested that her contribution the record be removed. (Morrissey also said he was able to buy back the rights to Bonfire from Capitol.)
Eventually, Morrissey announced another new album, originally titled Without Music the World Dies, and now known as You’re Right It’s Time. Morrissey reportedly recorded this album in 2023 at La Fabrique Studios in France with producer Joe Chiccarelli. You’re Right, It’s Time has missed multiple release dates since Moz first announced it, most recently a scheduled September 2025 drop.
As for Moz’s new label home, Sire, it’s actually something of a return for the singer-songwriter. The longtime Warner Music subsidiary released the Smiths’ music in the United States during the Eighties, and they also helped push some of Morrissey’s first solo releases, too. But the relationship, as Morrissey wrote in his book Autobiography, wasn’t always the most fulfilling.
For instance, in one section, Morrissey described the label as “eternally absent” and disinterested in the Smiths, despite their growing fandom: “Even selling 40,000 tickets in California doesn’t budge Sire’s constipation, and the label remains clueless as to what exactly the Smiths were,” he wrote. Elsewhere, Moz lamented Sire’s inability to get “How Soon Is Now?” onto the Billboard Hot 100, despite national airplay and “fantastic attention from coast to coast”; he also called the the promotional video the label created for the single “predictably vomit-inducing.”
