Morrissey has dropped a teaser of his upcoming single ‘Make Up Is A Lie’, and is expected to share information about his new album later this week.
The preview of new material comes as the soloist and former Smiths frontman confirmed last month (December 19) that he had signed with Sire Records, and then dropped the tracklisting for a new album on his official website and social media platforms on Christmas Day (December 25).
Initially, some fans suspected that the record would be his long-delayed album ‘Bonfire Of Teenagers’, however, based on the new tracklist, it is an entirely new body of work, containing songs with titles including ‘The Monsters Of Pig Alley’, ‘Headache’, and ‘You’re Right, It’s Time’.
While exact details about the upcoming release remain vague – including the title and release date – Morrissey dropped more hints online earlier this week.
These included a picture shared to Instagram on Monday (January 5) that simply read “January 9”, and a post made yesterday (January 6) that had the cryptic message: “By midnight came an outburst so much louder than a cloudburst”.
Now, he has shared another post that simply reads “new music”, and it comes with a snippet of a currently-unreleased song.
In the preview, Morrissey’s distinctive vocal style can be heard alongside an upbeat, optimistic vocal melody. “She said, make up, make up is a lie,” he sings, repeating the latter line before the melody drops. After a simple instrumental flourish, he then returns with a more downtrodden tone, singing: “I soon return to Paris”.
Based on the lyrics, it is safe to assume that the song in question is ‘Make Up Is A Lie’, which was featured on the tracklist update and is the third song on the 12-track LP.
With this in mind, it seems likely that “By midnight came an outburst so much louder than a cloudburst” could be referencing more lyrics in the song, and January 9 – this Friday – may be the day that the new track is released. Check out the preview of new material in the post below.
Although little else is known about the upcoming album, back in 2025, Morrissey did tell Medium that he had completed another album outside of ‘Bonfire Of Teenagers’, but had been unable to release it.
“[It] was re-recorded in France in late 2023, and given a new title,” he told the outlet. “We scrapped half of the tracks and we recorded six new ones, and so it is not the album from the beginning of 2023.”
Issues around ‘Bonfire Of Teenagers’ extend back to December 2022, when Morrissey told fans that he had “voluntarily withdrawn from any association with Capitol Records”.
That move came on the heels of him confirming, just two months earlier, that he would be releasing the LP.
Originally, Miley Cyrus featured on the album, providing vocals to a song called ‘I Am Veronica’. She and Morrissey recorded the song together in 2020, but Cyrus later asked to have her backing vocals removed.
It appears that the decision was made in relation to the former Smith star’s political stance, and his support for the controversial far-right party For Britain. The frontman has insisted that he is not far right, and former bandmate Johnny Marr said previously that the topic is something he thinks has “cast a shadow over The Smiths”.
Controversy around the ‘Bonfire…’ album continued in 2023, when Morrissey shared a statement on his website, accusing Capitol Records of “fascism” and sharing that he was “quickly coming around to” the belief that the company only signed ‘Bonfire Of Teenagers’ “in order to sabotage it”.
He doubled down on this stance later too, alleging that the CEO of Capitol was trying to derail his career, and then claiming that he was being “gagged” over its release.
“There is no arts media anymore in England, therefore there’s no one to whom I can sit and talk about this. The fact is, genuine artists in England are now being held hostage by people who object to any manner of alternative opinion,” he said at the time, before later revealing that he had bought back the rights to the album.
As for live appearances, Morrissey will be heading out on a European tour later this year. Dates kick off in Denmark on February 13, and the tour also includes a headline date at The O2 – his only scheduled UK gig of the year.
Find any remaining tickets to those tour dates here.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nme.com ’
