The gloves come off in Morrissey vs. NME spat :: Music News :: Articles

Uh-oh. It looks like we have another headline-monopolizing U.K. tabloid dust-up on our hands. And this one involves two of the biggest entities in Britain's music universe: Morrissey and the NME. The only way this row could get any bigger would be if Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen picked sides on the issue. Stay tuned for that next week.

In the meantime, let's get you caught up on all the details. The feud between the Moz and the magazine concerns an interview published in the new NME, entitled "Has the World Changed or Has He Changed?" In the story, Morrissey was quoted as having made several statements deriding England's immigration policy. Namely, that incoming ethnic groups were diluting and destroying the British identity.

"The gates of England are flooded," Morrissey's money quote reads. "The country's been thrown away."

Morrissey promptly moved to sue over the article. The singer's manager Merck Mercuriadis accused the magazine and writer Tim Jonze of character assassination by way of rearranging and reconstructing Morrissey's quotes.

Jonze responded, Mercuriadis posted e-mails from Jonze online, the NME issued a terse and non-committal statement... you know the drill. Things graduated to a new level yesterday, with Morrissey posting an acid-tongued little diatribe about the NME, its editor and Jonze on his blog. But first he took the opportunity to make a clear, unequivocal statement about racism:

"I abhor racism and oppression or cruelty of any kind and will not let this pass without being absolutely clear and emphatic with regard to what my position is," Morrissey wrote. "Racism is beyond common sense and I believe it has no place in our society."

Morrissey also mentioned that he's now working directly with the NME-affiliated "Love Music Hate Racism" campaign, and will carry the program as a sponsor during his 2008 U.K. tour schedule. As for all of the defamatory material... well, there's plenty of those juicy little turns of phrase that Morrissey has mastered over the years. The NME and Jonze receive quite a few prickly barbs to the face from Mr. Moz. Click the "blog" link above if you're interested in that sort of thing.

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