• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

they can be, how narrow-minded and lacking in reference points. porate all those different styles without making it sound like It becomes wearying! karaoke,’ she continues. ‘In the last couple of years, that has ‘The great thing about radio in the old days, when I was young really come together and I’ve found a way of taking apart the in the 1970s, was that you’d get these really bizarre mixes songs to give them a flow. Having thought more about song, and of music – something cool next to something preposterous – the construction of song, I’m able to deconstruct them and re- and yet there was something [creative] that just seeped through. form them in different ways, as opposed to just reproducing the The music made by young people then was a really interesting album. I’ve been enjoying it infinitely more than I ever have amalgamation. Now, everything is about target markets and before and feel more able to bring in more of the old songs than it all becomes separated so you don’t get that great cross-refer- I used to. So in my live work I will sing songs that go right back encing. I think that’s why pop music is becoming so dull now. to the beginning of my career and draw them together in a cohe- It’s all streamed and pure-bred, and there’s nothing worse sive sound rather than trying to replicate electronica or those than that!’ very programmed 1980s records.’ As The Turn amply demonstrates, Moyet has reached a ‘To hell For an artist so articulate and passionate about her craft, it comes with it’ stage in her own career that is based on a certain rec- as a surprise to hear that one of her bugbears is being misquoted ognition of and coming to terms with the necessary battles in – not because journalists put untruths in her mouth, but because the life of any singer who values their artistic integrity. She is in she is surprised at the language they attribute her with. She’s control now, but it hasn’t been achieved without a fight: at one recently taken up blogging (check out www.alisonmoyet.com) and stage she was effectively silenced for several years through the her take on the world is refreshingly candid and honest. late 1990s, fighting her record company Sony to release her from ‘I blog because I find it so difficult to be articulate in the spo- a contract that she found creatively stultifying. ken word,’ she explains. ‘I stutter and stumble. But when I’m Today’s equilibrium seems light years away from the frenetic writing, words and sentences become very clear to me. I know activity of those early Yazoo hits – the earth-shaking ‘Don’t Go’ the dialogue that’s going on in my head is completely articulate and the emotionally resonant ‘Only You’. Blessed with such a and together – it just doesn’t come out verbally! So I can be voice, Moyet’s neat solo segue into the polished, thuddingly well- really upset with a journalist for misquoting me. Then I’ll look produced torch-songs like ‘Invisible’ and ‘All Cried Out’ which back and they haven’t! There’s just been this nervous stumbling gave her tremendous success was practically seamless. But per- – and delight that there’s been any shape to the sentence, even haps the most telling moment was when she covered Billie Hol- if there’s no content!’ iday’s ‘That Old Devil Called Love’ in 1985 and started exploring Much was made in Moyet’s early career about her Essex roots. a wider musical field. ‘I try to do that with my albums, which Nicknamed ‘Alf’ – which later provided the title of her eponymous makes it difficult for people,’ she says. ‘When you don’t limit first album – she was born in Basildon the daughter of a French yourself it’s far harder to make an album that people can under- father and English mother, and grew up in Billericay. Home today, stand – which I do find bizarre in an iPod world where we’re all when she’s not on the road, is in leafy Hertfordshire. But her phi- listening to lots of different threads of music at the same time. losophy, delivered with blunt good humour and not a little self- Why should anyone find it strange when you do it on one par- deprecation, is still clearly influenced by a childhood that didn’t, on ticular record?’ the face of it, promise great things. ‘I grew up on a council estate,’ Despite gaps of musical inactivity – apart from the drawn-out she says, ‘I left school at 16 and I’ve seen women who come from feud with Sony, Moyet has also raised a family of three children my background do well; how having money made them change and more recently has ventured into acting, most notably their lifestyle. But it’s funny. Mentally – but not really, we do live in as Mama Morton in the West End production of Chicago – quite a posh road – I just kind of live in a bigger council house now! her work has been characterised by a determination to keep I never cared for shopping and buying stuff so I wonder when that exploring until she finds a sound and material that are both pride in possession will ever kick in!’ contemporary and personal. The Turn is surely just the While she’s away, Moyet’s husband David, a social worker, will latest staging post on a route that includes post-Sony albums look after youngest daughter Caitlin (son Joe and oldest daughter Hometime and Voice which were also notable for a new edge and Alex are both at university in Cambridge) as well as the family’s rawness. flock of hens. ‘Yes, I keep chickens!’ she says. ‘Actually, I’ve just Moyet has sold more than 20 million records to date, but suc- inherited my neighbour’s four, so I had to go and buy another hen cess on that scale was never part of a grand plan. ‘The funny thing house. We get loads of eggs and they just wreck the garden. There with me is that I never had professional ambitions,’ she explains. are all these beautifully manicured lawns, then you come to my ‘The Yazoo thing kind of fell upon me. I wasn’t aspiring to be a house which you can recognise because it’s falling to bits and the pop star, it just happened. Then at the height of it, it was the time garden’s full of hen shit! But they do give me joy.’ I least enjoyed making music. Things only started to change when Like all the best storytellers – and what is Moyet, if not one I became determined to find pleasure in it. Now, the only thing of the great troubadours of our time? – she always saves that drives me is the desire to make quality work and improve a piquant twist for the tale. With the kind of voice that just gets my craft. That’s my ambition: to write the perfect song. Which I better with age, and song-writing on her latest album of think is an impossibility, so I can always aspire to it.’ such sublime quality, could it be that only now, after 25 years Given her ambivalence about that early success, Moyet’s fans in the business, we are we starting to see the very best of her? will be delighted to hear that on her current national tour, she Step forward, Miss Moyet, 21st-century singer. It’s definitely your is mixing some of the 1980s solo and Yazoo material with the turn now. latest work. This, she says, is thanks to the maturing of her own musicality as well as finding a band of musicians who appreciate Alison Moyet is on tour throughout January and February. See where she’s coming from. ‘Playing live has been a pain in the arse website for venues and dates: www.alisonmoyet.com in some ways, because you’re trying to find a band that will incor- The Turn was released in October on the W14 label. 11 singer 08 feb mar alison moyet.indd 5 24/01/2008 10:36:02.

Load more

  1

Copy Link