Alison Moyet

Basildon, and a voice that arrived in the wrong genre

Geneviève Alison Jane Moyet was born on 18 June 1961 in Basildon, Essex, to a French father and an English mother, and went to Nicholas Comprehensive at the same time as Andrew Fletcher and Martin Gore. That school-gates geography matters, because it is how she ended up in a room with Vince Clarke, who had written Depeche Mode's early singles and then left them.

Clarke and Moyet formed Yazoo in 1982, when she was 20. The duo had to trade as Yaz in North America for trademark reasons. In roughly eighteen months they made two albums, Upstairs at Eric's and You and Me Both, and the singles that still carry the name — Only You, Don't Go, Situation and Nobody's Diary. Then it stopped: the duo split in 1983, before the second album had finished doing its work.

Alf, the gap, and the long second act

Her solo debut Alf went to number one in the UK in 1984, and she won the Brit Award for British Female Solo Artist twice, in 1985 and 1988. Raindancing followed in 1987 and Hoodoo in 1991, the latter bringing a Grammy nomination for It Won't Be Long. Essex arrived in 1994, and then the record-making stopped for eight years during a contractual dispute with Sony.

Hometime, released in 2002 on Sanctuary, restarted things, and Voice followed in 2004. The Turn came in 2007. The most consequential partnership of her later career began with Guy Sigsworth, who produced and largely co-wrote the minutes in 2013 — it entered the UK chart at number five — and Other in 2017. All ten studio albums and three compilations have charted inside the UK top 30, two of them at number one.

She moved to Brighton in 2013 and, in 2023, at 62, took a fine art printmaking degree at the University of Brighton. She was appointed MBE in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to music.

Key, and what it set off

Key, her tenth studio album, came out on 4 October 2024 through Cooking Vinyl, recorded in 2023 and produced by Sean McGhee. It is an unusual object: 18 tracks and 73 minutes, of which 16 are reworkings of singles and deep cuts drawn across forty years as a solo artist, plus two new songs, Such Small Ale and The Impervious Me. Such Small Ale was premiered on BBC Radio 2's Vernon Kay show on 13 June 2024.

It reached number eight on the UK albums chart — her first top ten placing in eleven years — and number three on the independent chart. A world tour followed through 2025. The album's commercial success is the stated reason for what has happened since: the campaign around it sent listeners back into a catalogue that had been drifting out of print.

That catalogue is now being put back. Five albums — Hometime, Voice, The Turn, the minutes and Other — are reissued on 25 September 2026 through Cooking Vinyl, each on heavyweight coloured vinyl and as a deluxe 2CD digipak. The the minutes set adds Guy Sigsworth remixes and live recordings from Bush Hall; the Other set absorbs the 2018 live album The Other Live Collection.

North America, for the first time in a long time

On 20 January 2026 The Human League announced The Generations Tour, a 21-date North American run with Soft Cell and Moyet, from San Diego's Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre on 2 June to Fallsview Casino Resort in Niagara Falls on 2 July. It took in the Hollywood Bowl on 4 June, Atlanta's Fox Theatre on 19 June, the Grand Ole Opry House on 21 June, Radio City Music Hall on 26 June and The Met in Philadelphia on 27 June. "I am honoured to have been invited to share a stage on this tour with The Human League and Soft Cell," Moyet said at the announcement. For Soft Cell it was the first American tour since the death of co-founder Dave Ball in October 2025.

Her guest slot ran to about twelve songs, opening with Footsteps from Hoodoo in nineteen of twenty-four logged setlists and closing with Don't Go every single night. In between: Nobody's Diary, Changeling, It Won't Be Long, Mr. Blue, Midnight, Winter Kills, Only You, Love Resurrection, Situation and Goodbye 70's. Reviewing the Philadelphia date on 27 June, The Pop Break described her three-piece band as strong throughout and the singing as undiminished, and singled out a moment where she stepped back from the microphone and let the band carry a melody while the crowd sang.

"A palate refresher"

The headline tour was announced in March 2026, with artist presales on 11 March and general sale on the 13th. Its billing is literal: Songs of Yazoo, the minutes & Other. The set draws exclusively on the Yazoo catalogue plus selections from her two Sigsworth albums, and nothing else. "Many years touring the same pool of songs and I am keen for a palate refresher," Moyet said. "Specifying which years I will be fishing from too, I think is a grand way to serve pot luck for specific tastes."

Twenty UK and Irish shows sold out within days, along with Gothenburg, Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. On 20 March ten further dates were added — Cardiff, Wolverhampton, Bradford, Basingstoke, Truro, Bath, York, Ipswich, Leicester and a second London night at the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire on 23 November — taking the run to the 34 dates now listed. As of this week, almost every date on the itinerary is marked sold out, with only Frankfurt showing limited availability.

The premise carries some weight for anyone who followed the original duo. Beyond a handful of hits that have long been fixtures in her solo sets, most of the Yazoo material has barely been performed live outside the band's brief 1982 touring and the 2008 Reconnected reunion. Vince Clarke is not involved; this is Moyet with her own band, and it is not a Yazoo reunion.

Where it stands this week

The autumn leg opened at Sentrum Scene in Oslo on 15 September 2026 and moved through Cirkus in Stockholm on the 16th, Gothenburg Konserthuset on the 18th, Operaen in Copenhagen on the 19th and the Kuppelsaal in Hannover on the 20th, with the Tempodrom in Berlin on 22 September next. Leipzig, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Amsterdam and Brussels follow before the UK and Ireland dates begin in October and run to Shepherd's Bush in late November.

The band is Sean McGhee — who produced Key — with Brendan Cox and Paul Jones. The reissues land on 25 September, four days into the run, which means the tour and the physical catalogue arrive together for the first time in years.