Morrissey has accused HMV of trying to “freeze sales” of The Smiths’ recently reissued single ‘The Queen Is Dead’, which went on sale on Friday, June 16.
Posting a picture of HMV stickers that state sales of the single are limited to one per customer, the Smiths frontman said the sticker was “not unlike a Smoking Will Seriously Damage Your Health warning” and called it an “overwhelming insult to The Smiths”.
He added: “Over thirty years since their death, and the Smiths are still thought too radical for the slow reader! It is evident, to me at least, that music audiences must only feel and think the very same thing at all times. Freud: ‘There is no such thing as an accident.'”
Encouraging fans to equip themselves with “seven variable wigs” and other disguises, he said: “we urge you to use them now and buy as many copies of The Queen is Dead at HMV as you desire.”
As HMV’s Twitter account notes, the surprise 7″ and 12″ single reissues are “very limited” and only available in-store.
In our consumer culture, the Smiths new release of The Queen is Dead single was oddly racked at HMV with a sticker on…
Posted by Morrissey Official on Saturday, June 17, 2017
A surprise release today for Smiths fans – a special 7" & 12" single of The Queen Is Dead! Very limited & in-store only! pic.twitter.com/Lhwo427t6E
— hmv (@hmvtweets) June 16, 2017
Russell Brand recently described Morrissey as “hard work”.
He said: “Everyone that knows him, even the people you think are as famous to him, really kowtow to him. He’s got some sort of gravitas. People are properly affected by him.”
