Alison Moyet - The Essential Alison Moyet

Amazon.co.uk Review

The Essential Alison Moyet is a long overdue video retrospective of one of Britain's finest modern pop singers. To many ears, she has the best vocal equipment of any female pop singer to grace the charts in the last 20 years: a range that can soar from throaty blues to crystalline elegance in a key change.

This collection is indeed essential. But it also traces the less satisfactory aspects of Moyet's career. The early videos expose how inept the music industry is at creating an image for a unique and visually unconventional talent. Moyet's talent hasn't always been best served by her choice of material. Still, all those well-produced greatest hits are here: "Love Resurrection", "All Cried Out", "Invisible" and "Is This Love". However, her version of "That Ole Devil" is curiously soulless. Far more interesting are the later songs which reflect her greater input and satisfaction and a palpable relief at leaving the obligations of formulaic pop stardom behind.

On the DVD: you can choose between PCM Stereo and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound (by far the best) to enjoy this wide-ranging set. Moyet's commentary, presented in interview format, offers plenty of insight into the stages of a long career in the business. Of the multiple extras (photo gallery, Web site link and bonus tracks), the most interesting is a BBC guest appearance by Moyet singing a pared-down "Cry Me A River". --Piers Ford

Customer Reviews:

Britain's finest.......2004-02-06

This is the DVD Alison never wanted to release... and, looking at some of the videos here, it's not hard to see why.

Virtually ALL the early videos are pretty awful.... the clips for Invisible, All Cried Out and Love Resurrection all looking really dated, and with Alison looking less than comfortable with the whole afair.

Things pick up with the Hoodoo tracks - finding soulmates in the Douglas Brothers, the videos for the sublime This House, Hoodoo and It Won't Be Long are darker, artier and far more appealing.

Even some of the Essex-period videos are not that bad.... the Dawn French appearance in Wishing You Were Here is worth the price of the DVD alone (not forgetting Ms French AND Ms Saunders appear in the hilarious Love Letters video).

The commentary, by Alison and her manager Debbie is rib tickling stuff... her mortification over the early stuff is apparent, and she pulls no punches. Wonderful stuff from a refreshingly self deprecating lady.

It's hard listening to any of these songs now without thinking of Alison's 2003 comeback triumph album Hometime... which is undoubtedly the lady's finest work - a gorgeous collection of superbly written and produced (and of course, sung) songs... which was, for me, the standout album not only of her long career, but of the whole year. A masterpiece.

Missing from here are the Yazoo videos, which certainly would've been nice (come on, Mute, pull your finger out on that one....), but the extras are nice. Alison's rendition of Julie London standard Cry Me A River shows all the other wannabes how this song SHOULD be sung.

A long overdue collection from a wonderful talent.... this is worth having, but don't expect any revolutionary ideas with the videos...except the Douglas Brothers ones.

Brilliant!.......2002-08-28

Showstopping performances by "Alf" Moyet. This work truly shows her personal and musical development. This collection should be called a "Rocumentary", since it shows the talent in her career as it developed. Also, unusual videography takes.
The early material showcases her voice as an "Entity" as if to be featured. As the songs progress, a gradual blending of style matching the vocal quality occurs, as an evolution would occur.
Alison shines through as her gracious and beautiful presence is the highlight of the work.
I would HIGHLY recommend this for all nostalgic and current Moyet Fans!

That Ole Devil Called Alf.......2002-03-20

This DVD covers Alison Moyet's solo career to date from the earliest songs from "Alf" (Love Resurrection, All Cried Out etc) to the present.

Unfortunately, unlike the CD version of this, the songs recorded when Moyet was part of Yazoo are missing. This is a great shame as songs such as Only You and Nobody's Diary would have made this DVD a lot stronger.

Having said that, there is some classic stuff including That Ole Devil Called Love and Weak in the Presence of Beauty. Some of the less well known tracks such as Hoo Doo and Falling aren't bad either.

The videos themselves are fairly standard fare, mostly Alison singing the songs with a variety of backgrounds and camera angles. This is fair enough though as they were not filmed specifically for a video release but to play on programmes such as Top Of The Pops.

Most music DVDs tend to be a bit sparse on the extras front. There are three bonus live performances here (although as the CD has 20 tracks, this isn't much of a bonus as the DVD still only has 18) plus some photos but overall, there is plenty of empty space on this disc. When you think of what feature films have on their discs, maybe a documentary or something might have been expected.

So, not bad but could be a lot better.

Average customer rating:
England's Greatest Ever Matches - The 70s
England's Greatest Ever Matches
Manufacturer: Green Umbrella Productions
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000H7ZYWU
Release Date: 2006-10-16

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