This charming fan

The more you adore me the closer I get

What?: Morrissey is to release a Greatest Hits package spanning his 20-year solo career. The album follows on from previous greatest hits compilation in the 1990s such as the EMI album Suedehead. (Ah what fun EMI and Morrissey would have if still partnered up today.) The former frontman of The Smiths is inviting his fawning and mildly obsessive fans to send in photos of their Morrissey adoration – whether it’s memorabilia or a tattoo of Morrisey’s quiff adorning a bizarre body part – which will then make up the advertising campaign for the forthcoming album.

Fans are invited to send “high quality jpeg images illustrating their devotion” to morrisseyadvert@googlemail.com in order to cement themselves in a little part of Morrissey history.

So what?: “Be in a Morrison’s advert? What like LuLu?” No, it’s the notoriously grumpy granddad of indie, milking his fanbase. Morrissey certainly affords cult-like adoration, but this UGC campaign is limiting itself to an audience that has already got this album on pre-order surely? Sycophantic marketing like this is somewhat less endearing towards possible new converts.

“‘Re-issue! Re-package! Re-package! / Re-evaluate the songs / Double-pack with a photograph / Extra track (and a tacky badge),’ groused Morrissey on the anti-label ‘Paint A Vulgar Picture’. But he has to pay for that playboy LA/Rome lifestyle somehow. So if he’s so quick to change his mind, maybe fans should send in sculptures of him made from raw meat.”
Eamonn Forde, Editor, Five Eight

www.morrisseymusic.com