Johnny Marr honoured with huge Record Store Day accolade
Manchester has honoured hometown hero and musician Johnny Marr with the title of "Record Store Legend".
A plaque commemorating the 61-year-old's global support of independent record stores was unveiled at Piccadilly Records, a fitting location in the city where Marr co-founded the iconic band The Smiths in 1982.
The transatlantic accolade, bestowed jointly by Record Store Day US and UK, follows Sir Elton John who was the inaugural recipient in 2017.
Marr said: 'Going out to a record store, it's a nice pastime.
'It's a part of the culture, if they were to completely disappear the high street or the city centre would be a much worse-off place. There's something about the presence of a record store.
'It's a magical thing. I've known the staff in Piccadilly Records for 20 years … this plaque is a very nice thing to be associated with.'
For Record Store Day 2025, Marr will release a special edition of album Look Out Live! which captured his Hammersmith Apollo show in London 2024.
The track listing includes hits such as Hi Hello and The Smiths classics This Charming Man and How Soon Is Now?.
Andy McQueen, of Piccadilly Records, said: 'Johnny Marr is our favourite living artist and his music has soundtracked our lives for over forty years.
'To be associated with him in this beautiful way; well, the pleasure, the privilege, is ours.'
In 1982, Marr and fellow Mancunian Morrissey formed The Smiths, also comprised of bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce.
Enjoy unlimited access to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music
Sign up now for a 30-day free trial
Sign up
The band had hits with songs including Bigmouth Strikes Again and There Is a Light That Never Goes Out, but Marr walked out to undertake other projects in 1987.
In 2024, following news of the Oasis reunion, he revealed he had turned down the chance of a reunion tour with The Smiths.
Marr's solo career has seen him collaborate with US pop star Billie Eilish and rock bands Modest Mouse and Talking Heads as well Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer.
The 18th annual celebration of Record Store Day 2025 will take place on Saturday April 12 and will see thousand of record shops take part with parties, in-store performances and limited-edition releases from more than 300 artists.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BreakingNews.ie
2 days ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Sea Sessions confirms there will be no festival this year
The popular music festival Sea Sessions has announced there will not be a 2025 edition. After starting back in 2008, Sea Sessions has grown into one of Irelands top music festivals. It is the only festival that brings together the unique lifestyle aspects of music, surf, sports over three days. Advertisement The event usually takes place on Tullen Strand in Bundoran, Co Donegal. A post on Facebook on Thursday said: "Sorry for having been so quiet on here. But we have some news. "Sea Sessions is taking a break in 2025. The crew are working away on exciting plans and hope to be back to you with more information soon. "Thanks for your support, the good wishes and all the messages." The 2024 edition had a lineup that included the likes of Cian Ductor, Johnny Marr, Jazzy, Jake Bugg, Amble, Kingfishr, Jerry Fish and Lea Hart. The event also featured b each volleyball in the sun, knockout soccer and rugby as well as morning yoga and swimrise on the beach. It also featured l iquid therapy which provides a supported environment that enables young people to experience the physical and therapeutic benefits of surf and the ocean, through child led and individual tailored programmes.
The Herald Scotland
2 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
Why must I whisper so quietly about my love for Morrissey?
Yet, in a rush to "cancel" Morrissey, we risk discarding one of the most brilliant and idiosyncratic lyricists and vocalists of modern music – an artist whose contribution will arrive in history as more important than any polarising or contrarian statement he is so eager to express. Read more: Morrissey is not a politician or someone with any institutional power, so to hold him or any artist to the same standard is a strange allocation of moral righteousness. He is certainly saying the opposite of what I believe, some of which I find rather vile, but then I also realise that the personal opinion of an artist matters little in the grand scheme. That's not what he's here for, ultimately, and not what should be judged at the end of it all. The ability to judge art on its own terms further eludes us, and many are happy now to rewrite the narrative of Morrissey and his contributions. Detractors who cannot help but give The Smiths their due credit have no issue reducing the critical role he played in the group, as if doing so assuages the guilt of their enjoyment from any controversy of his they might not like. Johnny Marr, Morrissey, Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke of The Smiths (Image: Getty Images) 'I listen to The Smiths for Johnny Marr's guitar' is a sentence often banded about to distance the band and their significance from their main figurehead. With all due respect to the intricate, melodic guitar lines of Marr, the personality, substance and concept of the group was fully the brainchild of Morrissey. The emotional tilt? Morrissey. The artistic direction of faded soap opera actors, Warhol freaks and classic film stars that adorned the group's iconic covers and aesthetics? Morrissey, through and through. The mindset that informed the well-revered artistic impulses of The Smiths remains in his recent work, yet this turn towards right-wing controversy has tainted and perhaps blinded the perception of it. 'Spent the Day in Bed', a single from 2017, features the chorus refrain of 'Stop watching the news because the news contrives to frighten you, to make you feel small and alone', a sentence that would not be surprising loudly proclaimed from the mouth of Alex Jones. Yet it is the same kind of definitive cultural statement that could be seamlessly placed on The Queen Is Dead or any other beloved record, where its inclusion would not raise eyebrows at all. Read more: His past work, seemingly once perfectly understood at some point in time, sees unfair re-interpretation through his recent views. 'Bengali in Platforms', from his 1988 debut solo album Viva Hate, is a classic Morrissey character sketch of a Bengali boy struggling to fit in after immigrating to the UK. What was once a song that seemed highly empathetic to the plight of the outsider is now highlighted as an example of Morrissey's racism perpetuating through his art. But one wonders if those staking that claim have even bothered to listen to the song and have considered the slightest bit of nuance within it. 'He only wants to embrace your culture and to be your friend forever,' he sings, very unlike a man who would eventually sport a For Britain pin on his blazer. The contentious climactic line of its chorus, 'Shelve your Western plans and understand / because life is hard enough when you belong here', could very well be the artist extending sympathy to the further alienation that immigrant status creates for life in the UK, where the grass is not necessarily greener per se, and where moving in the world cannot fix the inherent contradictions, despair and loneliness of the human condition. Yet taken at face value, the song goes from a considered and nuanced portrait to just a flat confirmation of Morrissey's boorish proclamations. That is a shame. Read more: Morrissey is currently happy to play the provocative villain surrounded by pitchforks, something that he has always done in different ways, and it's obviously not helping his case. His record deal with Capitol Records ended in 2022, with an unreleased album called Bonfire of Teenagers stuck in purgatory while his former label holds onto the rights. Perhaps this is what being cancelled is, but to think someone like Morrissey can be in any way a victim in this scenario is hyperbole. He is a figure that can exist rather comfortably outside of the mainstream music industry, where he does not have to answer for any of his beliefs or opinions. Regardless, he is still the holder of quite an artistic legacy, and attempts to rewrite this will essentially be in vain once the cultural moments shift yet again.
The Herald Scotland
2 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
'A head-scratching evening': Review: Morrissey, 02 Academy, Glasgow
Three stars 'There's so much destruction all over the world and all you can do is complain about me …'. Wednesday night in Glasgow and Morrissey - Narcissus with a quiff - is reminding us that we are all still obsessed with him. Is that the case? I guess we all know where we stand on where Morrissey stands these days. But behind all the sturm und drang, behind all the vexing, contentious statements, the more apposite question tonight might be, is there still an artist behind the provocateur? Wednesday night's show - the first of two sold-out gigs at Glasgow's 02 Academy - emphatically suggested there was. But who is that artist for? This was a head-scratching evening. On the up side the former Smiths front man still sounds amazing; that voice remains a thrilling instrument, even if he doesn't break out his falsetto on The Smiths' classic Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me during the encore. And it helped that he has a largely American band around him who are more than up to the task; lean, tight, urgent. For the most part, they rattled through songs like they were trying to catch a bus, only to slow things down now and then, stretching songs out as far as they would go (and sometimes beyond as on Life Is a Pigsty, though it's possible I was the only one in the audience who thought so). Read more Some of the song choices did seem tailored to the band's strengths. The Smiths songbook was ransacked for the noisier, brawnier cuts; Shoplifters of the World Unite and How Soon is Now, notably. Other inclusions just seemed eccentric. Solo single You're The One For Me, Fatty hardly felt essential when it was first released back in 1992, never mind now. As for Morrissey himself, he was on his best behaviour this evening. In fact, he didn't talk that much between songs, though there was the odd mention of long-gone Scottish soap Take the High Road. And he seemed to be enjoying himself, playing maracas or wiping the sweat from his bare chest. The moments where he did that 'old man hoicking up his trousers' movement (it happened more than once) were sweetly human. It comes to all of us. But I can't deny that I found much of the evening slightly dull. The first half of the show in particular saw him essay songs from the 21st century - I Wish You Lonely, One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell - and obscure cuts from his back catalogue, like 1995's Best Friend on the Payroll, most of which felt like placeholders for better songs. When he did sing Everyday is like Sunday - that still exquisite slice of Britannia Moribunda - I did wonder if maybe when he moved away from the UK he left his muse behind him. But the song choices did answer the question, who this show was for? His fans, obviously, those ardent true believers who have remained faithful to him all these years, despite everything. And maybe they do know something. Because the highlight of the evening was not a Smiths throwback, but Bonfire of Teenagers, the title track of the album he can't find a label for and which Morrissey himself has called 'the best album of my life'. It's a torch song and he sang it beautifully.
