Johnny Marr Announces Fifth Solo Album 'The Age Of Everything', Out October 2
Johnny Marr will release his fifth solo album, The Age Of Everything, on Friday, October 2, 2026. The former The Smiths guitarist wrote the songs in London while "watching people" around him, then recorded back home in Manchester. The result is ten bright, propulsive, pop-leaning tracks that Marr says approach 2026's social issues from the human side. He told NME the album's starting point was perception — not just how you perceive the world, but how you perceive your own emotions and those of people around you, then turning that into songs.
Made on the road before it was made in the studio
Marr said this record was built with a clear intent: eight of its ten songs were performed live on tour before they were formally recorded. He noted that almost every band he's been in, and guitar bands generally, talk about road-testing songs before recording the next album — but says it almost never actually happens.
He describes himself as not impulsive, but decisive: once he decides an idea is good, he sees it through unless something else knocks him off course. He compares that trait to Brian Eno and Damon Albarn. On sonic direction, his line is that if you have your own sound, you should make it and make it loud — while also acknowledging that reinventing yourself is a separate consideration when entering a new phase, something he says has happened to him several times in his career.
Gorillaz's 'The Mountain' and a listening list
While making the record, Marr's listening included old-school ambient music, Boards Of Canada, Fontaines D.C. and Gorillaz, alongside revisiting his own back catalogue. He contributed to Gorillaz's 2026 album The Mountain, and says working with Damon Albarn taught him to stay open, let things happen naturally, keep working discipline, avoid waiting around, and not force anything.
Camden, Manchester, and a generational read
The NME interview took place in Camden, London. Marr recalled that when he first arrived there in 1984, he'd frequent a bookshop called Compendium Books, which stocked culture and occult titles and the rare music books of the era; the shop has since closed. He also pushed back on being lumped into the 1990s Camden scene — at the time his band Electronic was working a Manchester sound, with Marr and Bernard Sumner hunting for chords and Kraftwerk samples in a basement studio in Manchester.
On how the music landscape has shifted, he pointed to The Prodigy's "Firestarter" hitting No. 1 in the UK as an example of a radical, non-industrial-sounding record topping the charts — something he says would be hard to imagine happening today. In the same NME interview, Marr also discussed the thawing of old tension between Cure and Smiths fans, how he handles people with questionable views, and his take on younger generations, whom he described as "very switched on."