Written by Lily Moayeri |
In conversation with Alison Moyet, before you finish your thought, she picks up what you’re in the middle of putting down and runs away with it. This characteristic can feel like a tornado through your brain, but as she speaks, at top speed, her clipped accent sharpening the edges of her words, what feels like a stream of consciousness forms into a thoughtful and wonderfully detailed response.
Moyet has come a long way, professionally and personally, from her start in the U.K. chart-topping duo Yazoo (or Yaz in the U.S.) with whom she appeared on Top of the Pops when she was only 20. After two U.K. chart-topping albums with Yazoo in quick succession (Upstairs at Eric’s and You and Me Both), Moyet embarked on her solo career. This year marks its 40th anniversary.
To commemorate the occasion Moyet released Key, a career-spanning collection of reworks of select tracks from her extensive catalog of nine studio albums. These reimaginings were created alongside her live show musical director, Sean McGhee, who took his duties to the next level as producer and arranger. Additionally, Moyet has penned two new songs that are included on Key, “Such Small Ale” and “The Impervious Me.” The album is available in multiple physical formats as well as an extended digital edition with commentary from Moyet and McGhee.
“I always thought singing would end and it never did,” says Moyet. “One of the things I hope for Key is somebody finding a song that hasn’t crossed their path before. If they find it interesting, they’ll then source the place it came from, and it will open up my deeper cuts to my more casual fan base.”
In June 2024, Moyet launched a podcast, “40 Moyet Moments,” where she speaks to her media manager Steve Coats-Dennis about “key” moments in her career. In the podcast, Moyet is candid, even if it means she doesn’t always come out looking her best. Her vulnerability is tangible, particularly when she speaks of the early days of her career.
“You are a few different people in your lifetime,” says Moyet reflectively. “How I would have thought or reacted when I was 20 is not how it works in my 60s.”
It’s a gift to speak to Moyet at this point when she’s released herself from a lot of the shackles that she either put on herself, or, more often, were put on her by outside entities.
“When you’re young, you always imagine there should be someone coming to save you. And if they’re not saving you, they’ve been remiss. When you get older, you understand there is no one that saves you from yourself. Everyone is dealing with something. It gives you greater understanding and greater compassion for how everyone is fucking struggling. You become more forgiving. The things that hurt you become a part of your history and your memory, but you don’t feel it on your skin anymore. You see the scar, but you have no connection with the pain.”
Why did you want to do an album of reworks of your songs?
When you’ve been going for 40 years, your career is like a sine wave. There are times you come into the fore and other times you drop out and people aren’t interested. There’s this assumption that what sells best is your best work. What I consider to be my best work has not always been released at a time when I’m garnering any attention. I have to direct my career in a way that I can stay engaged. So there are songs on albums that were completely lost that I wanted to give another chance. Also, when you record a song, it’s often straight after you’ve written it, so you don’t really know the meat of it. Your muscle memory isn’t set. You can be singing it, concentrating hard, trying to remember the words, not knowing the shape of it and what really resonates. There’s something significant and useful about recording songs after they are part of the meat of your body.
How did you choose which songs to rework?
Because so much of it is about me singing live, it’s about pulling that work together in a way that has cohesion. If you were being faithful to the recordings, it can be very schismatic. It can end up as really nasty karaoke, which would be hideous. It’s about fitting my live aesthetic as a 63 year old. When I’m on stage, pure repetition doesn’t really work for me. I have to really engage. I have to be moved by what I’m doing. There’s an element of compromise in the sense that, given the choice, I would not add hits. Not for any other reason than I know them so well.
Did you have an idea of how you would reimagine the songs?
The songs I did with Guy Sigsworth feature less, not because they’re less significant, but because they are the closest to the aesthetic that I have now. There’s no reason for me to revisit them. With the other stuff, we were looking to bring it into the more electronic sound I’m working with now so they fit together as a body. Also, on early tracks, there are certain sounds I don’t enjoy very much, or certain hooks that start getting on my tits. That can drive you a bit mental. It’s about modifying the aesthetic so when I’m on stage, I don’t feel like I’m just doing a “hits set.”
What is your hardcore fanbase’s reaction to making changes to their favorite songs?
Nothing changes your relationship with a record. That has nothing to do with me. Even though I’ve made it, it’s completely between you and the song. Whatever I do now, it doesn’t change that. I don’t have the need to be validated by other people anymore. I like affirmation, but I have lived long enough without it to run my life not needing it. I’ve come to the place where I trust my own voice. So often with music, people are waiting for somebody else to tell them it’s okay to like something. When you’re a younger artist and you’re going into the zeitgeist, you can have that feeling of, “Oh, fuck, I’m getting it so badly wrong.” You don’t find out who you are unless you make mistakes. I’ve made plenty of mistakes, and I’m not scared of them at all. Getting shit wrong, that’s just life.
It must be freeing to get to a place where you trust your own opinion over others.
Yours is the only voice that you can trust, because you’re the only one that knows your intent. You’re the only one that knows whether something has landed for you. When you’re a creative, it is constantly about questioning. Without questions, you’d have no purpose, and other people won’t ask you the right questions. Most people are not going to tell you something isn’t as great as it could be, or they can have different priorities. I’ve never aspired to possessions. I like being comfortable. The reason why I like being comfortable is because I like to be able to say no. That’s the privilege of having comfort, you don’t have to respond to everybody else’s wants for you.
Are you finding it creatively freeing to mature with your art?
Music is the only art form where people struggle to give credibility to an older artist still developing and making creative choices. Their vocabulary and their language has become much richer. Their life experience has become richer, their understanding and empathy for other human beings, their understanding of themselves, all of this stuff that resonates when you are seeking your truth, when you have more lived experience, you can have a greater richness, a great roundness to your language and the ways you communicate. What makes an artist interesting is if the audience has to come to them. They can discard the artist, that’s absolutely reasonable. It shouldn’t go the other way. You can’t start second-guessing what other people want from you. This has happened to me in the past, when you’re standing on the stage and you can’t stand the set list, and you’re counting the minutes, or in your head, you’re saying, “Great, only another chorus.” That’s terrible. You are cheating the people coming to see you, and God, you’re wasting your life. I have to truly rip myself open, otherwise, it has no purpose for me.
Are you feeling as free in your public-facing life?
I wasn’t aspiring to be a pop singer. It happened completely overnight. I was a small-town girl who liked the town I lived in. I’ve always been a bit other and not particularly socialized. I wasn’t prepared for that world. A couple of times I tried to socialize with other people in the music industry. I felt so gauche and didn’t understand the language, right down to the shops or the cafes or the restaurants or the clubs they went to. I didn’t recognize myself in it. I always felt like a complete freak. I couldn’t bear it. It was nothing I wanted. Nothing I ever got to enjoy. My life felt really curtailed and I was really unhappy. I got agoraphobic.
Celebrity and attention are the downside of this job, that I’ve learned to navigate and deal with it a bit more graciously than I did when I was younger. The idea of wanting to be famous for famous’ sake, seriously, be careful what you wish for. A lot of people who want to be artists and want people to hear what they’re making, don’t realize that once a significant number of people hear what you’re making, then you become famous. Can I have one without the other?
That changed with getting older. I’ve loved it since my 40s, I loved my 50s and in this decade, I get so much more done. I’m so much more proactive and inquiring.