One of pop’s longest, coldest wars flickered with heat again this month, as Morrissey fired off a series of messages on his personal blog.
First, he claimed that concert promoters AEG offered him and Johnny Marr “a lucrative offer” for a world tour, saying that he agreed to it but Marr ignored it. Then he claimed that Marr had blocked the release of a new Smiths best-of and reissue programme proposed by Warner Music, who had approached Morrissey and a sleeve designer “to assemble artwork for all four releases, all of which were rejected and halted out of hand by J Marr”. You can understand why Marr might have demurred, given the cover art featured the words Smiths Rule OK! in bright faux-painterly daubs above a photo of the band, and thus looked like a flyer for a soft play centre themed around 80s indie.
