Top 25 Alison Moyet Quotes

The press Yazoo were receiving were focused on the voice, This obviously was about trends.

I threw away the whole of my working history, my photograph albums, diaries and stage clothes. Shoving big, ugly discs on walls is a bit like rubbing people’s faces in it, saying ‘I am considerably richer than you.’ It is completely unnecessary.

My soul desires a pre-industrial world, and since I can’t have that, I don’t really care for anything material.

When I saw Adele, I thought: ‘I’ll give it an hour before people say I was her,’ just because I was fat. When you watch ‘X Factor,’ you can bet your bottom dollar, every single fat singer sounds like me as far as the judges are concerned. Can you imagine if they did that with every black artist?

I was socially awkward for many years. I stuttered, stammered, talked rubbish. I never take up invites to parties, and I’ve been invited to very glamorous things, but I never go.

I had been with the label since I was 21. The label wanted shiny pop but I didn’t. I found a little independent and we’ve got all these great reviews in England and now it has gone gold.

Personally I think women look better with a bit of chub on them.

It was always important to me that I made a record where I really sang well, and I don’t think it’s happened yet. There’s always a possibility with each album that I might not record again, and I wanted to produce one that I could feel was mine.

I’m a bit multifaceted in the sense that I’ve got many more than one musical taste. If you think about it, I started out playing in a punk band and ended up doing electro-pop. That was more an accident than a plan.

My idea of hell is a girlfriend ringing up and saying, ‘Let’s go shopping and have cocktails.’ I’d rather play cards.

Becoming famous is a really shocking thing, especially when you don’t have aspirations to it. It got to the point where I would try and avoid making eye contact with anyone. It was freaky, and it just happened overnight. I couldn’t handle it.

Instead of thinking that’s a nice tune, you start thinking is it the right pace, is it the right tempo? That is the death nell for artists.

When you have a creative mind it doesn’t stop going.

I went through a string of A&R men who all thought I should be doing something different. One thought I should be a dance diva; another thought I should do Rock n’ Roll; and one thought I shouldn’t even be singing at all!

I have never had another job and I don’t have a mortgage.

Yazoo was Vince’s sound ultimately. At the time Vince and I got together he had only recorded one album with Depeche and Depeche were to go on to greater things.

I was writing and I have three kids. I was occupying my time with them but it was difficult.

In the early days, myself and my friends were into punk because we had no money, just very basic instruments and skills. It was more about the ethos and the energy.

My big chip is that I never had an education. I wanted my children to get one so they didn’t fall into the same trap as me.

Within three months I had gone from being this black sheep of the town to suddenly becoming a pop star.

I have lost and put on big batches of weight in my life many, many times. But what concerns me is the idea of being an obese old woman, because I don’t like the idea of being physically incapable in someone else’s hands.

The money has always been wasted on me. I don’t care for beautiful things, funnily enough. I am my father’s daughter. The things that excite me are the smell of a wood-burning stove, uncultivated fields. My house is decaying and falling to pieces. It’s not had the love it deserves over twenty years.

Of all the soul divas, Gladys Knight was the one for me. Knight’s always been about tone and heart, none of the big showboating or extraneous doodling. She nailed a melody and only played a little around the edges like Ma Staple.

Psychologically, I’ll always be a fat girl because that’s what my character is built on. I always got a buzz out of people telling me I was ugly. I went out of my way to un-beautify myself. I didn’t want anyone’s approval.

I love being middle-aged in general. I’m more at peace with myself now. I still have tormented times, but they are few and far between. You don’t feel you have to be the centre of your world when you get older. Becoming a mother had been a turning point which stopped me from being the centre of my world.