Growing older suits Alison Moyet far better than fame ever did. Kathryn Tye chatted to the 1980s icon about Yazoo, No.1s and surviving three decades in the music industry.

During a career spanning 30 years, Alison Moyet has sold more than 20 million records, both as a solo artist and half of influential duo Yazoo.

The 52-year-old found chart success yet again this year with new album The Minutes, her eighth studio album and her first featuring new material since 2007.

It hit No.5 on the UK Albums Chart in May, yet Alison admits that it almost wasn’t released.

She said: “I have wanted to do it for ages. The problem is that the record companies all want cover albums. So my producer Guy Sigsworth and I made it on our own, then we approached a record company with the finished thing. I had no expectation, as the only thing we could control was the output, but the gamble paid off.”

Featuring the single If I Was Your Girl, Alison describes The Minutes as her most cohesive album, as a result of the way in which it was created.

She said: “I had complete creative control. So many albums now have a myriad of producers and writers working on them, but this was just myself and Guy and one other, Cass Lowe. I avoided listening to anything during the process of writing and recording this album, choosing instead to be led by my own voice.

“We made an album mindless of industry mores that apply to middle-aged women and shunned all talk of audiences and demographics. This has easily been my happiest studio experience.”

And mother-of-three Alison is looking forward to performing tracks from the album during a UK tour which stops off in Kent this week.

She said: “I love performing live and touring, although I never look too hard at the diary as it panics me! I will be returning to the stage with computers and screens and programming a go-go. So in addition to highlighting my new material, I will take advantage of that to re-approach songs from Yazoo and my early solo synth years. Ballads will be in short supply.

“The industry is so changed now from when I started out. You used to tour to promote a record, now you record to promote a tour, as music sales have fallen so significantly. You can reach No1 with 12,000 albums now, when in the 1980s you were looking at 250,000.

“But the changes also mean there are so many more mediums now where you can put your music out there and let people hear it, which is a great thing.”

Alison’s own image has also undergone a major transformation during the past three decades. During the 1980s she was renowned for her plus size figure, but in recent years the singer has lost a significant amount of weight, slimming down to a size 10 and admits to feeling more confident than ever.

She said: “When I was younger, I was more neurotic. I never dreamed I would have a pop career. But I have always been my own person. And I’m lucky that I have done well enough to not have to work now. I can just choose to do things I feel passionately about.”

Alison Moyet’s The Minutes tour will be at Folkestone’s Leas Cliff Hall on Thursday, October 17. It starts at 7pm, with tickets from £29.90. Call 01303 228600.