Morrissey’s latest album World Peace is None of Your Business has been removed from iTunes and Spotify in the US, as the dispute with the singer and his former label Harvest Records continues.
It hasn’t been made clear whether it was Morrissey or Harvest’s decision to remove the LP, a move which comes after the singer very publicly criticised the label for their handling of the album’s release.
According to the former The Smiths frontman, Harvest wouldn’t put forward the money required to develop fully-fledged music videos for any of the albums tracks, instead focusing upon short, weird spoken word pieces to promote the LP. These videos have now all been removed from YouTube.
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He also stated that the label had dropped him, though Harvest reportedly released a statement saying that was not the case. Morrissey has refuted these claims, stating that he and his lawyer were in possession of emails from head of Capitol-Harvest Records Steve Barnett, who had allegedly confirmed that the label’s relationship with Morrissey had been concluded.
Complaining about Harvest’s handling of the release of World Peace is None of Your Business, Morrissey released a statement to his fan site True To You, which reads: “I believed that the rich soil of the album had several strong hit singles.
“Frayed tempers began when Harvest arranged the ’spoken word’ films, none of which gave any clue as to what World peace is none of your business intended to be, or is.
“The films were OK, but they went nowhere and stayed there. With every nerve alert, we pushed the label for a proper video for Istanbul to precede the album, not least of all because a single ahead of the album release might inch the album to a higher chart position.”
However, now there is no promotional material for the LP on the Internet, as all of the criticised spoken word videos, including ‘Earth is the Loneliest Planet’ which featured a cameo appearance from Pamela Anderson, have been pulled from YouTube.
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