Alison Moyet

The inspired partnership of soul singer Alison Moyet with the developing electronic talents of Vince Clarke proved to be a huge and swift success on Yazoo's debut album Upstairs At Eric's. Quite quickly after the departure of Vince Clarke from his former band Depeche Mode, the founding member started to record songs with Moyet. Upstairs At Eric's was released, via Mute records, less than a year after Depeche Mode released their debut album, and the only album to feature Vince Clarke, Speak And Spell. Whilst that album had been a relative success Clarke had become frustrated with the band's direction and chose to leave to form Yazoo. His choice, whilst not wholly appreciated by DM at the time, was to prove very fruitful as Yazoo quickly eclipsed the successes that Depeche Mode had experienced up until that point.

The unlikely pairing of the The Screamin' Ab Dabs singer Alison Moyet with "pretty boy" pop pioneer Vince Clarke may have been something of an "arranged marriage" at the time but it was one that fused the undoubted strengths of both artists to produce some spectacular results. Yazoo's first single, Only You, had already been penned by Clarke by the time that both he and Moyet joined forces whilst the soundtrack for the emotive ballad had also been laid down by VC in advance of them meeting. The song was recorded only three months after Clarke had left DM in the same studios that would come to reference the album's title. It was released on 15th March 1982 as the band's debut single and peaked at number two on the UK charts a month later. (An  a cappella version of this song, by the Flying Pickets, went on to reach number one in Christmas 1983).

Continue reading: Album Of The Week: The 39th Anniversary Of 'Upstairs At Eric's' By Yazoo

As Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman 1984 seems to be everywhere at the moment we thought we'd take a look back at the wonder women of music back in 1984. DC Comics inspirational character is strong, independent and driven, a quality possessed by our top ten female artists from 1984. Back then the UK had a woman PM (Let's not get into whether she was ever wonderful), the women of Tenko were still plotting their escape, Juliet Bravo was keeping the streets of Hartley safe and Miss Ellie, Sue Ellen and Pam were still keeping the men folk of Dallas in check. 1984 was also the year of Band Aid, Footloose, Ghostbusters and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. All girl groups were more popular than ever with Sister Sledge, The Pointer Sisters, The Weather Girls and Bananarama all making a significant contribution to the music of 1984. Other acts to feature a female lead also made their mark; Annie Lennox as part of Eurythmics, Alannah Currie as part of The Thompson Twins and Elizabeth Fraser (arguably the voice of a generation) with The Cocteau Twins. Today though we are focusing on the individual and wow what an incredible cast we've assembled.

  Madonna in 1984. Picture by James Colburn.  

Madonna. 

Continue reading: Wonder Women 1984: Musical Icons Of Their Age.

Dawn French has married her partner Mark Bignell at a lavish eco-hotel, with Alison Moyet providing entertainment for the guests. The comedienne has been dating Bignell for just over a year, following the break-up of her marriage to fellow comedian Lenny Henry three years ago. The ceremony took place at hotel on the Cornish coast, The Daily Mail reports and guests included the screenwriter Richard Curtis, as well as Jennifer Saunders, Sue Perkins and Kathy Burke.

Scarlet Hotel, near Newquay, played host to the happy couple and their guests and the 37 bedrooms were reportedly decorated with custom-made floral jam jar arrangements of Lily of the valley and peonies. After the ceremony, the guests attended a firework display on the beach in the evening. A source told the newspaper “The wedding was up in the lounge with the white leather seats, looking out over the water. At about 9.30pm everyone went outside and watched fireworks from the hotel. They were on the beach below, big shells that went up to 400ft high in all different colours. Inside in the hotel garden there was a red heart, five foot wide and high, with the letters M and D in white in the heart. They all let off lanterns later. It was quite small – probably about 100 people there – but it was a proper celebrity wedding.”

French and Bignell began dating just over a year ago and the comedienne has claimed previously that he did not know who she was when they met. “I'm not boasting, but you'd actually have to have not watched television for the past 20 years to have avoided me, and he'd managed to do just that,” she joked. 

Continue reading: Dawn French Marries New Beau Mark Bignell