Fuck Yeah! Alison Moyet is Touring New Zealand!

Friday is fun cos it's music so there's links and playlists. Today: Alison Moyet, y'all!

It was a pretty exciting day this week when the news dropped that Alison Moyet would be touring New Zealand in May next year. I’m a huge Moyet fan. Her music was part of my childhood, and held me in its sway all through my life to date really. It was often deeply uncool to be into Alison Moyet. But as with my love of Enya and Cyndi Lauper and, erm, The Spin Doctors, I really don’t give a fuck what anyone else thinks. Never really have. Now never ever will. And it’s not as if listening to, or liking Alison Moyet is going out on a limb, right?

She was huge in the 1980s. Massive. And it was part of the soundtrack of our house, and most places we went.

My aunty had the albums on cassette tape, and vinyl. And that — along with the fact that the big hits were all over the radio was enough.

She was perfect middle-ground too, I loved Cyndi Lauper, but mum found that a bit ‘screechy’. Mum loved Tina Turner. I did, but wanted something for myself, so never went all in on the Tina Turner thing (until I found her 60s and 70s soul and country music). So Alison Moyet was middle ground for us between Cyndi and Tina.

Debut album Alf, named for Moyet’s punk nickname, started with a banger.

A few years later there was Raindancing.

It, too, started with a banger. Same format really, maybe not quite as good all up, but the hits made it worth it.

And if Alf was close in timing and comparative to Cyndi Lauper’s solo debut, She’s So Unusual, then Raindancing was comparable (in timing and sound) to Suzanne Venga’s sophomore record, Solitude Standing.

All of this grown up, sophisticated pop, and it has aged rather well. Some of it impeccably.

Of course, I’m forgetting that Moyet was part of the duo, Yazoo. Except I’m not. I just didn’t (really) know that at the time. I knew a couple of the big singles from this fantastic synth-pop duo, but their name, and the realisation that Moyet was the other part in it (alongside Vince Clarke, formerly of Depeche Mode, and then, briefly The Assembly, and more permanently, Erasure).

Yazoo’s music would arrive much later for me. And I’m glad I found it when I was old enough to hear it as part of the great wave of synth-pop and its lasting lineage. Two albums, a handful of perfect singles, it’s still all there. It still (all) works.

Moyet kept making music after Alf and Raindancing, and though I didn’t care quite as much, I still really loved the covers she did of old chestnuts, That Ole Devil Called Love and Love Letters. I also cared enough about that first compilation from 1995, Singles. To me it’s still the very best compilation of her golden material. And it plays like an album, in a way most Greatest Hits sets do not.

I also dug the 2004 album of covers, Voices. Because I love Moyet’s voice, and taste.

And there’s always been something on any album I’ve heard that I’ve dug into. I am no completist, but I’ve stayed listening. And that contralto voice means she’s a dab hand with a ballad, always.

I missed her when she last played here. I’ve never seen her. So this week’s announcement hit me hard, and out of the blue, and in only the very best way.

She has a new album due in a couple of months. It’s called Key. She is covering herself. A few of the hit singles, a few deeper cuts, a couple of unreleased gems, all re-recorded in the voice she has now. She has had a half decade away from music, earning a degree in printmaking. I love that for her. How cool for someone to be at that stage to pick and choose, to not force it if there’s nothing there. To return when ready.

You can hear a little sample of what’s to come here:

Key arrives just as Moyet celebrates 40 years as a solo artist. That’s the reason for next year’s tour — the new album, the career milestone. She’s talking about that, and some of the highlights along the way, in a 40-episode podcast

They’re short episodes. So worth checking out.

I had Alf and Raindancing on vinyl, and I still have Alf, though I left my copy in Hawke’s Bay, along with one of my turntables, in case my mum ever wants to listen to it again. It was one of the albums we bonded over the most. That and Lou Reed’s Mistrial, Icehouse’s Man of Colours, Huey Lewis and The News’ Fore! And Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D’Arby.

My brother took my mum to Tony Bennett. She still talks about that. I reckon I better get her a ticket for Alison Moyet, eh…

So, are you a fan? Will you go to the show? Have you seen her before? Got favourite songs or albums or eras?

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Now, it’s a Friday, so that means PLAYLIST. We are up to Vol. 182. And I even gave this one a testdrive all the way through, and I really like this one. I don’t always get to listen to them through until after I share them. But please enjoy this weekend’s selected listening: