Alison Moyet - Key (1 Viewer)

I hadn’t known she co-wrote Is This Love with Dave Stewart. I might order The Key too seeing as she took the time to do these podcasts.
 
I've gone for the Amazon version as well. More so for the alternate cover, though.

Tempted by the webstore version with the phonetic t-shirt, but I feel a little wary of that...
 
I think So Am I is absolutely MARVELLOUS now - so much better than the Essex original. Really intrigued to see what she does with Filigree, This House and My Best Day particularly, although if So Am I is anything to go by, it may well be another of what I'd consider the also rans which is elevated beyond anything I was expecting.
 
Your collaboration with Tricky “…that’s a great great track”…. “No…that’s one I struggle with.” :D

I preordered the signed Amazon edition just now, the borderline curmudgeonliness has won me over.
 
Your collaboration with Tricky “…that’s a great great track”…. “No…that’s one I struggle with.” :D

:D

It's gone past the point of irritation now and become something I'm actively finding quite funny.

"So Live Aid? That must have been an incredible honour to be invited to perform alongside so many legendary artists"

*long pause followed by a deep, world weary sigh*
 
Listening to the podcasts, and I really wish she didn't feel the need to pour cold water on ALL of her early solo work. It makes me feel sort of wrong for loving it so much!
 
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"We've reached 1987 and you're embarking on your first world tour to support the Raindancing album. It's a year long tour that takes you across the globe, including a first visit to Australia. How was the tour?"
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"Oh God. It was ... such a difficult time for so many reasons..."

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Sixteen episodes in and I've got a feeling we've got a few more to go before she starts really enjoying herself.
 
I was a little surprised to hear her say she prefers Love Letters over Devil. Of course the arrangement felt inauthentic though...

I've been revisiting Raindancing this week. I always leant towards Alf for childhood nostalgia reasons but Raindancing is the better album. Without You and When I Say (No Giveaway) are so bright and breezy.
 
I'm gutted that Ordinary Girl didn't even warrant a mention, let alone an episode. It's always been one of my absolute favourites by her.
 
Is she still mates with French or Saunders?

Posted on Alison's Facebook in 2020:

D is for Dawn French

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Alison has been best mates with Dawn since she was 21. Dawn has made guest appearances in Alison's videos for Love Letters and Whispering Your Name before working together on the play with music, Smaller.
Dawn went on to present Alison with her Nordoff Robbins' Icon Award in 2013, introducing Alison as "a lush, a purveyor of foul profanities, my wedding singer and an utter gobshite".
Alison speaking of Dawn in 2017 said "we are such confidants and I love the bones of her. Any time around her never feels long enough"
 
I'm gutted that Ordinary Girl didn't even warrant a mention, let alone an episode. It's always been one of my absolute favourites by her.
Ordinary Girl is a favourite of mine, and I remember being quite upset when it flopped at the time. It does have a horrible video, though - totally wrong for the song.

I do remember hearing her talk about the song a while back. I think she said she thinks it's a good song, but it got lost in the production. Which presumably explains why she reinvented it for The Minutes tour.

 
I've been revisiting Raindancing this week. I always leant towards Alf for childhood nostalgia reasons but Raindancing is the better album. Without You and When I Say (No Giveaway) are so bright and breezy.

Glorious Love is my album track of choice.

The only misstep the album contains for me is Sleep Like Breathing, and that's largely due to thinking those two voices do not work well together at all.
 
Ordinary Girl is a favourite of mine, and I remember being quite upset when it flopped at the time. It does have a horrible video, though - totally wrong for the song.

I do remember hearing her talk about the song a while back. I think she said she thinks it's a good song, but it got lost in the production. Which presumably explains why she reinvented it for The Minutes tour.



She did a track by track commentary for the 25 Years Revisited compilation in 2009. She mentions Ordinary Girl specifically (and briefly) just after 5 minutes in.

The Moyet Moments podcast treads a lot of the same ground and expands on it.

 
It was quite a sharp drop off from the previous two singles, wasn't it? Would she have been on her apparent nightmare of a world tour at the time and unable to promote it?
 
I remember her performing it on French and Saunders, and according to Wikipedia she also performed it on The Roxy. So I don't think underperformance was due entirely to lack of promotion.

From looking at the OCC, the first two singles were both pre-album release though, whereas Ordinary Girl was released six weeks after the album, while the album was still in the Top 10. So perhaps it's a little unfair to label it a flop, considering the album had three months in Top 10 and was the #13 of the year, and after the success of Alf she was arguably an album act rather than a singles one. The album was double platinum by the end of the year, even if it fell a little short of Alf.
 
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I can see why she thinks the production doesn't fit the song, as much as I loved it then (and now) - the lyrics are pretty lost in it. But this video (particularly from the second verse) is dreadful.
 
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I would probably say if forced to choose that ‘Ordinary Girl’ is my favourite song of hers. In my head it and Kirsty MacColl’s ‘He’s On The Beach’ are (fab) sister songs.
 
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I’ve been listening through Alison’s back-cat since this podcast started and it led me down a Kirsty wormhole too. They definitely have certain parallels, despite Kirsty never achieving the kind of success Alison did in her lifetime.

He’s On The Beach is one of my faves of her early releases too. Deserved far more chart action than it got.
 
I’ve been listening through Alison’s back-cat since this podcast started and it led me down a Kirsty wormhole too. They definitely have certain parallels, despite Kirsty never achieving the kind of success Alison did in her lifetime.

He’s On The Beach is one of my faves of her early releases too. Deserved far more chart action than it got.

I think He's On The Beach is probably my favourite Kirsty song. It definitely should have fared better.
 
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That one is not doing anything for me at all. I got bored halfway through and put the original on.
I'm persevering, but it's not clicking for me. I'm sure it's in no small part because it's a song that already speaks a great deal to me lyrically, and hearing her deliver it in quite a different vocal style is somewhat jarring.

Incidentally, my favourite version of it is this one from the Live At Bush Hall EP, which was I think a promotional date for the album.



Hopefully she may cover why she chose the songs she did in later Moyet Moments, or give us nice liner notes.
 
The vocal mixing on that version of Filigree really isn’t doing it for me either.
 
I never knew that Kirsty MacColl offered her Walking Down Madison.

I enjoy Alison's version of it from the tribute concert, but I'm very pleased we weren't denied Kirsty's version.

 
^ news to me too but also glad Kirsty ended up doing it herself, though I can see it sitting well with Alison too.
 
Talking of songs being offered elsewhere I’m surprised to hear she wrote ‘This House’ and offered it to Erasure but Andy vetoed it unless it was done as a duet but Alison felt it was a loner’s song so didn’t want to do it as a duet.

I have often thought there were some similarities in Andy and Alison’s vocals though obviously she can go extra places with hers.
 
Talking of songs being offered elsewhere I’m surprised to hear she wrote ‘This House’ and offered it to Erasure but Andy vetoed it unless it was done as a duet but Alison felt it was a loner’s song so didn’t want to do it as a duet.

I have often thought there were some similarities in Andy and Alison’s vocals though obviously she can go extra places with hers.
I see the similarities, but interestingly (well, to me), she's probably the female singer I find it easiest to sing along with, whereas I really struggle sometimes with Erasure - I nearly always start too low and then Andy Bell will go lower to a place I simply cannot reach :D

She's completely right about This House not being a duet though.
 
I really would have been crushed had she not still thought highly of This House, and pissed all over it like some of the others. It's lyrically one of my favourite songs ever.
 
There was one early question in a previous episode when it sounded like a fairly positive question and there was a pause then “well….unfortunately…” and another spiral developed.

In fairness she has said she views about half her catalogue as key. She should make up a Spotify playlist of those so we know.
 
I was pleased to hear how highly she regards Dorothy.

The Essex original of So Am I sounds really rather unpleasant to me now, and was one of my least favourite tracks on that album, so that kind of proves the value of this Key project to me, as the new version one of my standout tracks of this year.

The story of My Best Day not getting released (which I longed for back in the day as a big fan of both) is quite something.
 
I quite enjoyed the detour on the latest episode into her younger Essex new town days. She sounded really engaged reflecting on that time.

Is it just me that notices barely any swearing despite the sometimes dramatic warnings at the start of each episode?
 

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