There comes a time in any veteran artist’s career when she starts to assess her work and legacy and revisit some of her past. On her latest album, Key, Alison Moyet seems to be just in such a nostalgic mood. As the voice of the New Wave outfit Yazoo, Moyet’s voluptuously soulful voice brought warmth and humanity to the chilly, icy soundscape of the 1980s. An obvious disciple of Dusty Springfield, Moyet saw her legend flourish in the work of 21st-century British blue-eyed thrushes like Amy Winehouse, Duffy, and (especially) Adele.
Moyet’s work with Yazoo only lasted two studio releases and a couple of years before she stepped out on her own with her 1984 solo debut, Alf. The album was a huge success, spawning one of her biggest hits, the classic “All Cried Out”. For the rest of her solo career, she gathered several more UK top-20 hits and gold-and-platinum-selling records. After a hiatus from recording, Moyet launched a second career in the 2000s, enjoying a return to commercial success (all of her post-2002 releases peaked in the top 40 on the UK album charts).
More UK top-20 hits and gold-and-platinum-selling albums marked the rest of her solo career. After taking some time away from recording in the mid-1990s, Moyet launched a successful second career in the 2000s, enjoying a return to her commercial successes (all of her post-2002 albums peaked in the top 40 on the album charts). For her latest record, released seven years after her previous studio LP, Moyet returns to her own songbook. It’s an impressive discography that gets a welcome 21st-century makeover.
Moyet released ten studio albums in her career, and Key looks back fondly at eight of them: she leaves out tracks from her previous LP, 2017’s Other, and her 2004 covers album Voice. The rest of her records get at least two tracks, and she’s also included two new songs and a song she recorded with the Lightning Seeds. The sequencing is smart, starting with a couple of tunes from Alf. While popular and enduring, the original album is timestamped, with telltale signs of its era, including loud synths, programmed beats and drums, and studio flourishes like atmospheric reverb and echo. Songs like “Where Hide Sleeps” and “All Cried Out” recall the neon-bright sound of the early 1980s. Alison Moyet’s voice – a melancholy wallop of a wail – cuts through the tech.
Instead of abandoning the synthpop of her previous work, Moyet simply revisits the sounds. So much of current dance-pop is influenced by New Wave, so she doesn’t have to stretch too far when re-recording the tunes. There is an elegant sleekness to the remakes. “When Hide Sleeps” feels streamlined, eschewing some of the excess of the original and transforming the song into a dark, lean synth-torch ballad. “All Cried Out” benefits similarly with its similar tighter arrangement. Moyet’s voice – free from the gauze of the 1980s production from the previous incarnations of the songs – is far more in focus.
What a voice. It remains remarkably powerful and supple. The husk in Moyet’s singing gave it a slightly androgynous tone, which is still there. Aging has given her a vibrato a slight tremble that adds a poignance. In “Such Small Ale”, one of the new songs recorded for this set, Moyet’s slight vocal wear adds a gorgeous vulnerability.
In a relatively recent song like “Can’t Say It Like I Mean It” from her 2007 album The Turn (a noted departure from her dance roots), it’s interesting to see how her voice and artistry grew after her salad days in the 1980s. On the original song, Alison Moyet grooves to a somewhat bland 2000s pop-rock ballad, enlivening the track with her distinct voice. The new version is superior, and the song works so much as a moody Depeche Mode-style synth ballad.
Moyet’s current sound as a bluesy electropop balladeer improves on other songs in the collection. “Is This Love”, a single from her 1987 sophomore album, undercuts the plaintive tear of Moyet’s singing with a fussy, dated production that makes the track sound like any random track found on one of the endless Now! series CDs. On Key, Moyet reimagines the song as a slow-burning, pensive number, jettisoning the jaunty bounce of the original for a slow-dance tempo that allows the singer to emote beautifully. The synths are still present, but they waltz around Moyet’s singing.
Finding a jewel of a heartbreak anthem in “In This Love” is one of the many reasons Key works so well. It’s a textbook example of how to do these kinds of records right. Instead of lukewarm rehashes of past triumphs, Alison Moyet’s approach to her oeuvre is to treat the songs like a new batch of tunes, divorced from any baggage or expectations.