Morrissey and Sparks: A Sourced Timeline, 2008 to 2025
Morrissey and Sparks went from a tribute song in 2008 to a public insult in March 2025, seventeen years apart. I have mapped both discographies, 19 stations for Morrissey and the Smiths and 28 for Sparks, and the thing the two maps have in common is a very small core holding a long run of records together.
What follows is the timeline with the sources named, because most of what gets written about this ends up quoting the wrong outlet or stopping in 2021, before the sharpest line was said.
The timeline, with sources
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Sparks release "Lighten Up, Morrissey" on Exotic Creatures of the Deep | Album credits |
| 2017 | Ron Mael says Morrissey "really loved our song Lighten Up Morrissey, and so much so that he's used the video we made in a montage before he goes on stage" | Ron Mael, The Guardian |
| 2018 | Russell Mael says he is "totally in agreement with anybody being disillusioned" and calls Morrissey's positions "just stupid, dumb kind of things" | Russell Mael, Press Association |
| July 2021 | Morrissey replies that he is not hurt, "Amazingly, no, because I'm quite used to it", and adds "they were famously people without opinions so I was surprised that they kicked me in the teeth" | Morrissey, reported by NME |
| March 2025 | Morrissey calls them "headless Palisades savages who threw their old friends into hot molten lava for sexy kicks" | Morrissey, reported by NME |
Two corrections to what is usually repeated about this. Russell Mael's 2018 remarks went out through the Press Association rather than NME, and Ron Mael's account of Morrissey using the video was given to The Guardian in 2017. I have left out the frequently repeated claim that the two parties discussed making an album together, because I could not source it.
Why Sparks mattered to Morrissey in the first place
Morrissey has cited Sparks as a formative influence since the 1970s, alongside the other glam and New York acts he wrote about as a teenage fan in Manchester. When I drew the Sparks map that early period is the part that looks least like the rest of it. The Sparks print runs 28 stations, from Halfnelson in 1971 to MAD! in 2025, and the first two of those are the only ones that carry the original Los Angeles line-up.
Earle Mankey on guitar, Jim Mankey on bass and Harley Feinstein on drums are on Halfnelson in 1971 and A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing in 1973, and then their lines stop. Martin Gordon plays bass on Kimono My House in 1974 and appears nowhere else on the print. After that the pattern that holds for the next fifty years sets in: Ron and Russell Mael run through all 28 stations and almost everyone else is a branch line.
Two of the 28 are not studio albums, and I would rather say so than round it off. The map carries Two Hands, One Mouth: Live in Europe from 2012, and FFS from 2015, the record the brothers made with Franz Ferdinand.
Tony Visconti bridges the Sparks map by 22 years
The longest reach by anyone other than the Maels belongs to Tony Visconti, who did the orchestral arrangements on Indiscreet in 1975 and then came back for the orchestral and choral arrangements on Plagiarism in 1997. Two stations, 22 years apart, with nothing in between. On the print that reads as a line that leaves the map and rejoins it two decades later, and it is the kind of shape I only ever find by going through credits one album at a time.
The Morrissey map has the same small core
My Morrissey print runs 19 stations, four with the Smiths from 1984 to 1987 and fifteen under his own name from Viva Hate in 1988 to Make-up Is A Lie' in 2026. One of those fifteen, California Son from 2019, is a covers album rather than a studio record of new songs, which is worth naming rather than glossing over.
Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce run across exactly four stations each and then stop dead at Strangeways, Here We Come. Nothing on the solo side touches the Smiths side. Boz Boorer is the long line: he appears on twelve consecutive stations, from Your Arsenal in 1992 to Bonfire of Teenagers in 2022, with the last of those a songwriting credit rather than a playing one.
Alain Whyte makes the other shape I like on this print. He runs six consecutive records from Your Arsenal in 1992 to Ringleader of the Tormentors in 2006, disappears for twenty years, and turns up again on the 2026 album. That gap and return is exactly what a tube map draws well and a discography list cannot show you at all.
What the 2018 criticism was actually about
Russell Mael's remarks followed Morrissey's public support for the For Britain party and a run of interviews in which he made comments on race and on halal slaughter that drew wide criticism. Mael's objection, as he put it to the Press Association, was to the inconsistency of the positions rather than to the music.
Morrissey's 2021 answer was closer to a shrug than a rebuttal. The 2025 line is not a shrug, and anyone writing that this settled into an uneasy peace has not read the last four years of it.
Sizes and prices
Both prints are sold in A3, A2 and A1, plus the three inch formats, which are separate formats rather than conversions of the metric ones. A3 is 420 x 297 mm at £35, unframed only. A2 is 594 x 420 mm at £45 unframed or £125 in a black wood frame. A1 is 841 x 594 mm at £65 unframed or £175 in a black wood frame. Printed as museum-quality Giclées on 230gsm acid-free matte fine art paper.
Take a closer look: Morrissey discography art print and the Sparks discography art print. If you are buying for someone else and would rather let them choose, there is a gift card for music fans.
Related music maps
The full chronology on the Morrissey side is set out in Morrissey albums in order. For the other half of the Smiths story, and a career that went the opposite way on collaboration, there is Morrissey and Johnny Marr after the Smiths.
Morrissey and Sparks: common questions
What is the Morrissey and Sparks feud about?
Russell Mael publicly criticised Morrissey's political statements in 2018, calling them "just stupid, dumb kind of things" in remarks to the Press Association. Morrissey answered in 2021 and again, much more sharply, in March 2025. Before that the relationship was friendly in both directions.
Did Sparks write a song about Morrissey?
Yes. "Lighten Up, Morrissey" is on Exotic Creatures of the Deep, released in 2008. Ron Mael told The Guardian in 2017 that Morrissey liked it enough to use the video before going on stage.
How many albums are on the Sparks map?
28 stations, from Halfnelson in 1971 to MAD! in 2025. Twenty-six are studio albums, one is the 2012 live record Two Hands, One Mouth, and one is FFS, the 2015 album with Franz Ferdinand.
How many albums are on the Morrissey map?
19 stations: the four Smiths albums from 1984 to 1987, then fifteen releases under his own name from Viva Hate in 1988 to Make-up Is A Lie' in 2026. California Son from 2019 is a covers album rather than a record of new songs.
What is not on either map?
Compilations, singles, B-sides and soundtracks are left off both prints, and the Morrissey map does not carry his live albums. Anyone whose only credit is on a non-album release does not get a line, which is why neither map shows the 2005 remix work or the covers played only in concert.