Sam Smith

Morrissey laments the dearth of spontaneous, uncontrolled musicians, citing Smith and Sheeran as examples:

There are no bands or singers who become successful without overwhelming marketing. There are no surprise success stories. Everything is stringently controlled, obvious and predictable and has exactly the same content. So, we are now in the era of marketed pop stars, which means that the labels fully control the charts, and consequently the public has lost interest. It’s very rare that a record label does something for the good of music. Thus we are force-fed such as Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith, which at least means that things can’t possibly get any worse. It is sad, though. There’s no spontaneity now, and it all seems to be unsalvageable.