Photo by Heather Kaplan
Morrissey has never been one to shy away from making controversial statement, and he offered up a (meat-free) platter of them in a recent interview with FasterLouder. When asked about his views on the post-Brexit political climate in Britain, Moz first noted that America is just as hopeless and called the media’s coverage of the Clinton-Trump election “grotesquely stupid.” He then came out as seemingly in favor of Brexit, a movement that’s been tied to the decidedly non-progressive values of racism, xenophobia, and isolationism:
“As for Brexit, the result was magnificent, but it is not accepted by the BBC or Sky News because they object to a public that cannot be hypnotised by BBC or Sky nonsense. These news teams are exactly the same as Fox and CNN in that they all depend on public stupidity in order to create their own myth of reality. Watch them at your peril!”
Later in the interview, Morrissey was asked about his legacy and immediately brought up the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, for which he’s never been nominated. He blamed this on the fact that voters fail to distinguish his solo career from his time with The Smiths, and said that he’s more deserving of other solo artists such as fellow Brit PJ Harvey:
“I’ve taken the position of serious analyst on this issue for quite some years and I now think that The Smiths are listed as, for example, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominees, because people generally think that The Smiths also covers Morrissey – which it doesn’t. Consequently we have PJ Harvey as a Hall Of Fame nominee yet it can’t be argued that she has ever meant more than Morrissey in the USA, and needless to say I have never been a nominee.”
While they have been nominated in previous years, The Smiths were in fact not nominated this year. It’s also odd that Moz singled out PJ Harvey, as she has never been nominated for the Hall of Fame (though this is her first year of eligibility).
