Bigmouth will strike again: Morrissey has returned with the announcement that his new album, Make-Up is a Lie, will be released on 6 March.
The controversial former Smiths frontman, 66, has been attempting to release a new record under different iterations for the past few years, while teasing recent updates in a series of online posts.
In 2022, the “This Charming Man” singer announced that he had completed a 12-track project titled Without Music the World Dies, and offered it to any record labels or private investors willing to distribute it.
Half of the tracks were then scrapped and six new ones recorded, with the new project titled You're Right, It’s Time confirmed in December 2024.
This now appears to be the album Morrissey is releasing under a different name, Make-Up is a Lie. It is being released by Sire/Warner Records, who signed Morrissey three years after he left Capitol.
It was produced by Morrissey’s long-term US producer Joe Chiccarelli, whose other credits include Grammy-winning collaborations with the White Stripes and The Raconteurs, as well as work with The Strokes, Alanis Morissette and Spoon.
Make-Up is a Lie – Morrissey’s first album since 2020’s I Am Not a Dog on a Chain – also features appearances from collaborators and bandmates such as Jesse Tobias, Camila Grey, Carmen Vandenberg and Alain Whyte.
Among the songs featured are a cover version of Roxy Music’s 1973 song “Amazone” and the track “Notre-Dame”, about the fire that almost destroyed the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris.
Morrissey debuted “Notre-Dame” during a live performance in 2023, revealing lyrics such as: “Notre-Dame, we know who tried to kill you/ Notre Dame, we will not be silent… Before investigations, they said: ‘This is not terrorism!’”
The song appears to peddle a right-wing conspiracy theory that emerged at the time of the Notre-Dame fire in 2019, which claimed that it was “deliberate” and linked to “anti-Christian attacks”.
The Independent has contacted Morrissey’s representative for comment.
Other track names listed include the title song, “Make-Up is a Lie”, “Lester Bangs”, “The Night Pop Dropped” and “The Monsters of Pig Alley”.
A press release for the album states: “With poetic and provocative lyrics, evocatively unpredictable instrumentation, and a title that can be read as an explicit call for unvarnished truth and expression, the 12-song set is poised to further cement Morrissey’s status as one of the most acclaimed and potent voices of the last four decades.”
“Provocative” and “unpredictable” goes some way to describing the musician’s headline-generating outbursts in recent years. He has been a vocal supporter of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and of the far-right, anti-Islam party For Britain.
Asked in 2019 how he felt about being called a racist, he responded: “If you call someone racist in modern Britain you are telling them that you have run out of words... Everyone ultimately prefers their own race, does this make everyone racist?”
In 2021, he claimed he invented “being cancelled” and compared pandemic society to slavery, two years after describing the media’s treatment of Tommy Robinson as “shocking”.
He also made a number of inflammatory remarks around the MeToo movement, suggesting that some of the women accusers of convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein were just “disappointed” that they hadn’t been given a “great career”.
When the musician was dropped by his record label BMG in 2020, he blamed the move on the label’s “new plans for diversity”. BMG declined to comment.
Morrissey has also announced the continuation of his world tour, with shows in the US taking place ahead of a string of concerts around Europe, including a night at the O2 Arena in London next month – his only scheduled UK show.
Last September, he took at swipe at his ex-bandmates in The Smiths, the band he co-founded in 1982, claiming he was “burnt out by any and all connections” with guitarist Johnny Marr, drummer Mike Joyce and the late Andy Rourke.
“I have had enough of malicious associations,” Morrissey continued, while announcing that he was putting the entirety of his business interests in The Smiths up for sale to “any interested party”.
“With my entire life I have paid my rightful dues to these songs and these images. I would now like to live disassociated from those who wish me nothing but ill will and destruction, and this is the only resolution.”
That same month, he cancelled two upcoming shows in the US due to a “credible threat on his life”. Further shows were cancelled earlier this week due to Morrissey having an “adverse reaction to prescription medication”.
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