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Artist: Alison Moyet
Label: Sony Category: Music Average customer rating: Format: Import Media: Audio CD Number Of Discs: 1 EAN: 5050159179527 ASIN: B0000AM78K Release Date: 2003-10-02 |
Essex
Tracks:
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Album Description
2003 digitally remastered reissue of 1994 album, that's unavailable domestically, includes the hit 'Whispering Your Name'. 13 tracks. Castle.Album Details
2003 Edition of Alf's 1994 Album that Came Three Years after "Hoodoo". Alison Moyet's Unique, Bluesy Voice First Catapulted her to Fame as One Half of the 80s Synth-pop Duo Yazoo. After They Split her Solo Career Flourished. By the Late 80s, Marriage and Motherhood Kept her Out of the Recording Studio, but by 1991 that all Turned around in the 1990's. Features "Whispering Your Name" and her Retake of "Ode to Boy".Customer Reviews:
Excellent follow-up to Hoodoo!.......2005-06-06
Stamp of approval for this Essex girl.......2004-07-07
Having washed her hands of calculated commercialism (to Sony's dismay), Moyet stuck firmly to her artistic guns. There would be no boyband fodder or over-wrought Celine Dionesque balladry. Some gritty guitar-based arrangements on "And I Know," "Ode To Boy," "Another Living Day" and "Boys Own" toughened up her trademark melodic pop sensibilities. Elsewhere, touches of sexy funk warmed "Getting Into Something", playful rhythms drove the hugely catchy "So Am I" and swooning strings added drama to a beautiful and poetic "Satellite." Lyrically, Alison was on top form, shredding a treacherous ex in "And I Know" before working her way towards "Boys Own,"a smart j'accuse in the direction of a sexist, image-fixated music industry. But it wasn't all twisted bitterness. Alison Moyet has a wicked sense of humour and while "So Am I" might upbraid a spineless lover, it does so with a wicked cackle ready to erupt. Overhauling Jules Shear's "Whispering Your Name," Alison enters fun central (and the UK top 20) with panache and a hint of levity. Then you have "Dorothy," a gorgeous acoustic eulogy for a beloved grandmother that neatly sidesteps the mawkishness typical of such songs by lesser artists.
Alison Moyet is not an artist for luddites or the impatient. She doesn't repeat herself and she doesn't pander to the imperious whims of labels or style snobs. Over the course of only five albums to date, she has produced a canon of work with remarkable scope. "Essex" marks a very definite point in her artistic trajectory. That it would take eight years for the next album - the glorious "Hometime" - to see the light of day is, on the one hand, a damning indictment of the music industry but, on the other, a statement of the clear-minded determination of an important artist.
What CD did the rest of you listen to?!?!.......2004-07-06
Disappointing.......2004-03-29
Exasperating, surely, and.... it shows.
Hard to pinpoint the main problem here. The wishy washy jangly production (by Lightning Seed Ian Broudie) drags the whole collection down, and seems at odds with Alison's fantastic voice from start to finish.
There's a strange, totally unnecessary re-take on the fantastic Yazoo track 'Ode to Boy, and the rocky new version wipes the brooding, menacing claustrophobia from the song. Horrible.
There are several highpoints. The lilting, folky Dorothy is a breath of fresh air and was surprisingly overlooked as a single, the first single, the trippy, psychedelic 'Falling' is just fabulous, and the bass-heavy soulful Getting into something is Ms Moyet getting very horny indeed. We like it.
Highlight is the glorious 'Satellite', a perfect slab of power pop that so should have been the first single - soaring chorus, beautiful melody and superb lyrics. Stands head and shoulders above the rest of this record.
Even a reunion with ex-Yazoo cohort Vince Clarke on the flimsy 'Whispering your name' doesn't come off. It all sounds a bit lukewarmm and half hearted. Thank the lord Alison discovered Bristol and the joys of the city's music..... Essex is a die hard fans-only purchase, for the completists among you. The following album, 8 years later, Hometime.... now that's where the lady found a pair of shoes that REALLY fit. A simply must-have in any collection.
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