Morrissey teases big announcement for the UK

Morrissey has teased a big announcement for the UK, set to be announced later today (February 10).

The promise of a new announcement was made by the soloist and former Smiths frontman on his social media pages earlier today, when he took to his official Facebook page and shared a photo of himself performing on stage.

No caption was shared for the post, although the photo did have writing on the top of it that read: “Announcement. 5pm. GMT”, indicating that details will be arriving this afternoon.

Although it isn’t clear what the announcement will be, it is likely that the singer is hinting at an upcoming UK tour. This comes as last week saw him announce plans for a North American run of live shows, set to take place between April and May.

Those shows come following a brief stint of Los Angeles gigs to round off 2024, as well as a sold-out tour of North America in late October and November.

If the announcement does turn out to be a tour of the UK, it’ll be Morrissey’s first since abruptly cancelling a show at London’s Crystal Palace in April 2023. The gig was set for July 9, and around that same time, the singer announced a tour of the UK and Ireland, including a replacement date for July 9.

The second July 9 show – which was set for Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall – was then cancelled, with the venues hosting the shows citing “unforeseen circumstances”.

The announcement will also arrive following Morrissey sharing new updates over new material in recent months – namely the long-delayed album ‘Bonfire Of The Teenagers’.

He recorded the album between 2020 and 2021, although it has remained shelved by Capitol Records due to controversies around the artist. Issues with the record stem back to 2022, when the singer revealed that he had “voluntarily withdrawn from any association with Capitol Records” – despite announcing that he would be releasing the LP with them just two months earlier.

He also revealed that Miley Cyrus – who recorded backing vocals for ‘Bonfire’ track ‘I Am Veronica’ in 2020 – had asked to have her vocals removed from the song.

Previously, the vocalist shared a statement on his website around the status of ‘Bonfire’, accusing Capitol Records of “fascism” and having a “creeping culture of censorship”. He also said that he was “quickly coming around to” the belief that the brand only signed ‘Bonfire Of Teenagers’ “in order to sabotage it”.

Later, he took things one step further and alleged that the CEO of Capitol Records was trying to derail his career, before then taking to his website to say he was being “gagged” over the release of ‘Bonfire Of The Teenagers’.

The album is one that Morrissey has previously described as being “the best album of my life”, and the title track on the LP is said by Morrissey to be about “England’s 9/11” – the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017.

The debacle continued into 2024, and in April the singer bought back the rights to two of his albums, after a long-running dispute with Capitol Records. He told fans that the ordeal felt like “a long, hard, bloody war.”

In November, he told a crowd in the US that he was being prevented from releasing new music due to a war on “free speech”. “You cannot speak freely in England,” he said. “If you don’t believe me, go there. Express an opinion, you’ll be sent to prison. It’s very, very difficult.”