\n<\/p>\n
There is a well-trodden line about assessing the trustworthiness of online bargains: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. It comes to mind when looking at the extremely unusual way in which Morrissey is apparently seeking to offload his business interests in the Smiths. This is not like the forensic and formal processes behind huge catalogue sales in recent years such as Sting, Bob Dylan, Queen, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd or Paul Simon.<\/p>\n
A post on Morrissey Central \u2013 the outlet for all official Morrissey communiques \u2013 says the singer has \u201cno choice but to offer for sale all of his business interests in \u2018the Smiths\u2019 to any interested party\/investor\u201d and that he wants out. Maybe psychologically this is the closure he needs \u2013 the band will never reform, given bassist Andy Rourke\u2019s death in 2023 and Morrissey\u2019s clear personal and political differences with guitarist Johnny Marr \u2013 but, in straight business terms, this is shockingly cavalier.<\/p>\n
It all has the musty whiff of a yard sale. There is a Gmail address listed as the only channel of contact for prospective bidders. Except when you email it, you get a bounce back saying no such address exists.<\/p>\n
\u201cPutting a rights sale on a free email account feels like the corporate equivalent of scrawling \u2018guitar for sale\u2019 on a lamp-post,\u201d says Cliff Fluet, a partner at legal firm Lewis Silkin, a highly respected veteran of catalogue sales. \u201cSerious investors will expect data rooms, warranties and proper disclosure. A Gmail pitch says none of that is coming, so heavyweight bidders will either steer clear or mark the price down heavily to cover the risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most of Morrissey\u2019s Craigslist-style post is vague, talking about \u201call\u201d Smiths recording and publishing rights, merchandise rights, trademarks and so on being bundled up for sale. Yet he does not own any of these outright and even turned down an offer from Marr to share control of band-related trademarks. Uncertainty reigns. Will he sign a deal with Marr ahead of this sale to clear obstacles for potential new owners? That is the great unanswerable question. Marr\u2019s management declined to comment when asked by the Guardian.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Morrissey and Marr pictured in happier times.<\/span> Photograph: Brian Rasic\/Getty Images<\/p>\n There is an argument that bitter in-fighting, non-communication and Morrissey\u2019s own controversial political pronouncements in recent years have seriously damaged the Smiths brand. Repairing and reviving it is perhaps never going to happen under current ownership, so something has to change.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the face of it, Morrissey is simply cashing out of a partnership that appears to be long past \u2018irretrievably broken down\u2019,\u201d suggests Fluet. \u201cIt feels less like a strategic play and more like a desire to walk away with whatever value he can still extract.\u201d<\/p>\n Alan Wallis is CEO of Dynamite Songs and previously ran the music transactions practice at Ernst & Young in the late 1990s and early 2000s, so has seen the changing dynamics of catalogue sales up close for more than a quarter of a century. He says selling a major stake in a commercially and culturally significant music catalogue in this idiosyncratic manner is utterly without precedent.<\/p>\n How such sales normally happen, he says, is that \u201cyou put together a pack with all the information that someone who is buying it would need to make a non-binding offer. Then you go into a diligence process with financial information for the last three to five years.\u201d After that, the seller needs to put all related contracts in place. \u201cThis is to show that you\u2019ve got title for whatever these assets are and that you own these assets,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n From there, the process is typically to solicit a small number of serious bidders. \u201cNormally, you wouldn\u2019t go out far and wide,\u201d says Wallis. \u201cYou\u2019d do it to a limited number [of potential bidders]. You pick who the likeliest are. What you want is a little bit of tension between the two or three [bidders] to try to maximise the price. I don\u2019t think this is going to achieve that.\u201d<\/p>\n Wallis\u2019s concern is that offering a sale in this way could be read by the market as a sign of desperation. Its unconventional nature and structure may scare off serious bidders such as record companies or major rights investors. This could mean more mercenary players step forward, ones who are equally mercenary in their bids. \u201cWhen you look at it and you read how he just wants to get away from [the Smiths], bidders would low ball,\u201d suggests Wallis.<\/p>\n Quick sales can happen, but invariably they are dramatically below market value.<\/p>\n <\/span>Rourke, Marr, Morrissey and Joyce pictured in 1987.<\/span> Photograph: Andre Csillag\/Rex Features<\/p>\n The Smiths were originally signed to Rough Trade in 1983 but their catalogue of recordings is now owned by Warner Music Group. The collapse of the Rough Trade distribution network in 1991 saw the Rough Trade label sell off its entire catalogue to help pay off debts on the distribution side. A source with inside knowledge told the Guardian that Warner paid \u00a31m for the Smiths\u2019 recordings in this fire sale (equivalent to \u00a32.3m today). \u201cIn retrospect,\u201d they say, \u201cit was far too cheap.\u201d As such, any plans for the band\u2019s recordings would need the full involvement of Warner. Buyers will be getting an important share, not total autonomy.<\/p>\n Then there is Marr himself. As co-writer of all the Smiths\u2019 songs, he controls 50% of their publishing. He is also currently the sole owner of their associated trademarks, which will directly impact anything related to merchandise. Anyone scooping up Morrissey\u2019s stake will still have to find common ground with Marr and he will have the power to overrule any commercial plans if he feels they are inappropriate or potentially detrimental to the band\u2019s legacy and earning potential.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019d be buying into joint ownership with a co-writer who holds the trademark \u2013 on behalf of them both \u2013 and who has veto power over most commercial uses,\u201d explains Fluet. \u201cWithout Marr\u2019s nod, you don\u2019t get control; you get a near-permanent negotiation.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Get music news, bold reviews and unexpected extras. Every genre, every era, every week<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Morrissey had full creative control over the record sleeves for all Smiths releases on Rough Trade. As their creator or creative director, he technically would have owned the IP in them since Rough Trade was not as obsessed as the major labels with nailing everything down contractually. The sale of the catalogue to Warner, however, is likely to have contained a clause whereby ownership of artwork and promo videos would be rolled into the sale of the master recordings.<\/p>\n One resolution, of course, would be that Marr and his team buy out Morrissey\u2019s stake, meaning all the creator rights sit in a single pot and there are no complications or fraught negotiations needed to clear uses such as synchronisation deals. Yet given Morrissey\u2019s terse statement (\u201cI am burnt out by any and all connections to Marr, Rourke, Joyce\u201d), it may be the case that he would peevishly refuse to sell to his former creative and business partner.<\/p>\n <\/span>The artwork for Meat Is Murder, one of Morrissey\u2019s designs for the Smiths\u2019 record covers.<\/span> Photograph: Album artwork<\/p>\n There is, argues Fluet, too much financial uncertainty here for any potential purchaser. \u201cThe only dependable cash for a buyer lies in Morrissey\u2019s receipts of publishing and master recording royalties \u2013 the receivables that come in every quarter,\u201d he says. \u201cBut even that income depends on the seller standing behind his paperwork and staying willing to cooperate on audits and future clearances. Right now, buyers can\u2019t be sure of either.\u201d<\/p>\n With politics and relationships being as curdled as they are, and the impact this has had on the band\u2019s legacy management in both creative and commercial terms, the asking price could be significantly lower than one might expect for such an important catalogue.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a perfect world \u2013 clean chain of title, no arguments, full cooperation \u2013 a Smiths catalogue could fetch tens of millions,\u201d estimates Fluet. \u201cThis is not that world. Overlapping claims, years of legal sparring and the hint of fresh litigation mean any bidder will apply a chunky discount.\u201d<\/p>\n This is, even if everything is as it claims to be, undoubtedly the most unusual tactic to sell a significant catalogue and bundle of rights.<\/p>\n Wallis, wincing at the fact bids have to be submitted via a Gmail address (functioning or otherwise), says Morrissey really needs hardened professionals around him to strike an equitable sale price. \u201cSomeone\u2019s going to have to help him do this deal,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t know who\u2019s going to be looking at the offers that come in.\u201d<\/p>\n This, frankly, is just not how music rights sales are done. \u201cIt might be a pathetic attempt at trying to get attention,\u201d sniffs one highly knowledgable music industry source.<\/p>\n Another well-placed industry name is partly sanguine and partly drily cynical: \u201cIt will be interesting to see if he actually means it.\u201d<\/p>\n This article was amended on 5 September 2025. Morrissey\u2019s notice was posted on Morrissey Central, not Morrissey Solo as an earlier version stated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is a well-trodden line about assessing the trustworthiness of online bargains: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. It comes to mind when looking at the extremely unusual way in which Morrissey is apparently seeking to offload his business interests in the Smiths. This is not like the forensic and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[11775,2402,11774,11772,545,5087,1376,11776,5644,11773],"class_list":{"0":"post-19236","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-attempting","9":"tag-catalogue","10":"tag-morrissey","11":"tag-musty","12":"tag-sale","13":"tag-sell","14":"tag-share","15":"tag-smiths","16":"tag-whiff","17":"tag-yard"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}