Alison Moyet: ‘Why I won’t do Invisible’
‘‘I’m a cheap date – I don’t need a lot of money,’’ says singer Alison Moyet.
Sometimes, statements like that are punctuated with a chuckle, the same throaty laugh that featured on her cross-Atlantic club hit Situation and was subsequently sampled dozens of times by others.
We’re discussing the opening tune from Moyet’s new album, Other, which could well be the lucrative title track for a James Bond film. Has she ever been asked to do a 007 theme? Seems like a no-brainer. Her voice would make the sky fall sooner than Adele’s and she can channel danger and glamour equally.
‘‘No,’’ she says. ’’I think with those things they’ll always go for a frontline artist and I’ve long been a fringe artist. That completely suits me because one of the things that I found difficult about the origins of my solo career was the fact that when you are very successful you are expected to replicate that success. I fell upon hit records – it wasn’t like I was deliberately trying to write one.’’
Moyet’s hit records came early, when, in the duo Yazoo, with Vince Clarke, the public first heard that remarkable voice and debut singles Only You and Don’t Go. The album these appeared on, 1982’s Upstairs At Eric’s, was certified platinum, while its follow-up, You and Me Both (1983), went gold on the back of memorable single Nobody’s Diary.
Along with women like Annie Lennox, Moyet seemed to be challenging the musical status quo of the time, dressing, behaving and sounding unlike the female pop stars who normally topped the charts.
‘‘The thing about the 80s that is different from today is that in those times we had no stylists, no choreographers,’’ Moyet says. ‘‘Everything you saw was down to the artist. The freak was more evident.’’
Freak is a label Moyet has long associated herself with, referencing it in the Other album title. Only now, though, aged 56, is she fully embracing that outsider status.
‘‘Some of us have always felt other. I no longer wish it were otherwise,’’ she says.
‘‘I grew up in a French peasant family in this new town in [Essex County] in the 70s. I just never fit in with the locals. There was too much scratch in our family. We were out there, verbal and verbose. We were hardy, fighter types. I was built to pull a cart! I was physical. I never had a doll. I just didn’t seem to get all the rules.’’
Musically it was the same. Yazoo’s unlikely melding of icy electronics with bluesy vocals was revelatory. Later, as Moyet went solo, there were more expansive sounding sing-along pop tunes (Love Resurrection, All Cried Out, Invisible), plus jazz covers and strummed ballads such as 2002’s Should I Feel That It’s Over.
For Other, and its 2013 predecessor, The Minutes, Moyet has worked with producer Guy Sigsworth (Bjork, Goldie) and is largely back to what she calls an ‘‘electronic palette’’. Touring with two synthesiser players who also add bass or guitar, it’s good news for Yazoo fans.
‘‘I’ve readdressed the fact that I like playing with electronica,’’ Moyet says. ‘‘I have such a bur in my voice, that sometimes when you work with organic instruments – which also are woody – the edges of the sound you’re making seep into them. The nice thing about electronica is it creates this formica and [my voice] is water on top of it, so you see every shape of the puddle.’’
Audiences can expect tunes from across her whole career, including Yazoo, but ’’I haven’t sung Invisible for 30 years and I won’t sing it any more…’’ she says.
Why? ‘‘It’s the whining. I can’t be doing the whining. It’s a f...ing bloke! Kick him into touch!’’
What about Yazoo classic Midnight?
‘‘That was a song that I wrote when I was 16. I mean, I was making records before I was having sex with anyone,’’ Moyet laughs.
‘‘I was a Janis Joplin fan so this whole idea of having your heart broken seemed far more romantic than ever being in love. I was always far more attracted to the torment than the glow.’’ – Fairfax ❚ Other is out now. Alison Moyet plays Wellington’s Michael Fowler Centre (October 13), Auckland’s ASB Theatre (October 14) and Christchurch’s Isaac Theatre Royal (October 16).