Chart entered : 23 June 1984
Chart peak : 10
Number of hits : 16
We could have said OK to Alison earlier of course but, as I've covered both Yazoo LPs on Clarke Chronicler's Albums, there seemed little point in that.
Genevieve Alison Moyet was born in Billericay in 1961. She was involved in a number of punk and pub rock bands in Essex in the late 70s including The Vandals, Screamin Abdabs and The Vicars, none of whom made a record. In 1981 she advertised in Melody Maker for musicians to form a "rootsy blues band". Her only reply came from Vince Clarke latterly of Depeche Mode who she vaguely knew from school. Having quit Depeche Mode he needed a singer on a song called "Only You" to reassure Mute that he still had something to offer. They became Yazoo and had immediate and massive success but it proved to be too much too soon for a duo who found it difficult to get on at a personal level. They announced their split before the second album came out in the summer of 1983.
Alison was quickly snapped up by CBS and got to work with Banarama writer / producers Swain and Jolley. They co-wrote all the tracks for her debut album and I think that's why many , including myself, were disappointed by her solo career; there seemed less of her personality on her solo stuff than on the Yazoo records.
"Love Resurrection" was her debut solo single. To anyone familiar with Yazoo songs like "State Farm" and "Good Times " where Alison casts herself as a latter day Big Mama Thornton it shouldn't have come as a great surprise that she's singing about erections here - "I want you to grow in my hand" indeed. However raunchy the lyric , the single isn't bluesy at all but straight ahead eighties pop , slick and tuneful but dated , particularly that ringing mock-Oriental keyboard sound. It's a reasonable song but it hasn't aged well.
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