Morrissey has claimed that Johnny Marr is opposing the release of a new Smiths box set and reissue programme.
The Smiths frontman posted a statement to his website, claiming that a greatest hits album called Smiths Rule OK! was being planned, alongside reissues of the band’s 1983 debut single Hand in Glove and follow-up This Charming Man, plus a deluxe box set of their self-titled debut album.
“Warner approached Morrissey and [sleeve designer] Darren Evans to assemble artwork for all four releases, all of which were rejected and halted out of hand by J Marr,” Morrissey wrote.
The Guardian has contacted Warner Music and representatives for Marr for comment.
The proposed design and jaunty title of Smiths Rule OK!, featuring the words in spray-paint lettering above a picture of the band, would be out of step for a group whose album covers invariably feature sober, mostly serif fonts. Aside from 2008 best-of The Sound of the Smiths, they do not feature images of the band, instead using iconic street photography or film-star portraiture.
It’s the latest claim from Morrissey regarding divisions between him and Marr, who formed the Smiths in 1982 with bass player Andy Rourke (who died in 2023) and drummer Mike Joyce. They became the defining British indie band of the decade, with Marr’s distinctively jangling guitar, Morrissey’s variously waspish and romantic lyrics, and Rourke and Joyce’s dynamic rhythm section ensuring their catalogue remains hugely popular today – the band have 17 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
In August, Morrissey claimed that promoters AEG “made a lucrative offer to both Morrissey and Marr to tour worldwide as ‘The Smiths’ throughout 2025. Morrissey said yes to the offer; Marr ignored the offer.”
Since the Smiths split in 1987, both Morrissey and Marr have enjoyed successful solo careers, and the group have never reformed, with Morrissey once saying: “I would rather eat my own testicles than reform the Smiths, and that’s saying something for a vegetarian.”
Earlier this week, Morrissey claimed that he was being “gagged” over the release of his completed new album Bonfire of Teenagers, whose title track is about the 2017 terrorist attack on an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester that killed 22 people, saying the “madly insane efforts to silence the album are somehow indications of its power”.
“We are still in the grip of Idiot Culture, it’s everywhere you look,” he told the Telegraph via email. “Naturally I’m one of the first to be gagged since my entire life has relied on free speech. No, I wouldn’t remove the title song because I wouldn’t abandon the murdered kids of Manchester. Their spirits cry out every single day for remembrance and recognition.”
Morrissey was dropped from his previous label BMG in 2020, and signed to Capitol for a planned release of Bonfire of Teenagers in 2023. He voluntarily left the label before the release, saying on his website that while he didn’t initially think Capitol signed him “in order to sabotage [Bonfire of Teenagers], he is quickly coming around to that belief”. In April he claimed on his website that he bought the album back from Capitol, but told the Telegraph he didn’t intend to self-release it.
