Alison Goldfrapp

Alison Elizabeth Margaret Goldfrapp (born 13 May 1966) is an English musician and record producer, best known as the vocalist of British electronic music duo Goldfrapp, consisting of her and Will Gregory.

Early life
Alison Goldfrapp was born in the London suburb of Enfield, the youngest of six children. The surname of Goldfrapp is of German origin from her father, Nick, who was an 'eccentric, romantic' man from an upper-middle-class family who had been forced to join the Army as an officer straight from school. When he married Alison's mother, a working-class nurse called Isabella but known as Pat, the family ostracised him for years. He left the Army and ended up working for the Spastics Society and English Heritage, writing and painting in his spare time. The family moved around a lot, living in cities and on farms and 'lots of different places', before moving to Alton in Hampshire when Alison was small.

Her parents sent Alison to a conventional school (opposed to her siblings), where she discovered her strong soprano voice. According to her, she was bad at everything else apart from singing, and only that felt good for her. at the age of 12, Alison failed the entrance exam for the convent's senior school. She was sent to the local comprehensive, where she developed a very closed personality, hiding her likes and costumes to fit in, including working out a way to talk opening the mouth as little as possible, because she hated her teeth.

At 16 she moved out of home to live with her friend who had been given a council house in the next village, and at 17 she fled to live in a London squat. She had lessons with some singing teachers whose advertisements she had seen in newspapers, but she did not like this experience because they were always odd.

Starting on music
Eventually, after a series of low-paid jobs and a couple of years singing with a dance troupe in Belgium, she enrolled as a mature student on a fine-art degree course at Middlesex Polytechnic. Her final show involved a performance piece in which she milked a cow while yodelling - the idea being to make the mundane iconic by presenting it as art. The yodels caught the attention of a visitor who happened to be in a successful band called Orbital, and he signed her up as a singer. After sessions with various other bands and musicians, she spent the mid-1990s singing with Tricky, a former colleague of Massive Attack, and then tried making music of her own.

She was featured on two tracks from the 1994 album "Snivilisation" by Orbital. She also recorded the songs "The Good" and "The Bad" with trip reggae outfit Dreadzone, for their 'best of' album "The Best of Dreadzone – The Good The Bad and the Dread". Performing with them live resulted in two songs on the limited edition "Performance" album released in 1994.

Initially, Alison could not get to the sound she heard in her head, until a mutual friend gave a tape of one of her unfinished songs to Will Gregory. When Alison and Will met, they swapped ideas about the sort of music they wanted to emulate, and began collaborating in the studio; although at first Gregory did the string and brass arrangements, they both play keyboards. Usually, when making music, Alison writes the lyrics while Will is in charge of the melodies. As for the live shows, Alison initially made the costumes herself, adapting clothes she found in secondhand shops, and ironing the dancers' outfits in the dressing-room before she went on stage.

Music career: Goldfrapp

 * Main article: Goldfrapp

The pair began recording their debut album over a six-month period, beginning in September 1999, in a rented bungalow in the Wiltshire countryside. The band's debut album Felt Mountain was released in 2000 and featured Alison's synthesized vocals over cinematic soundscapes.

Goldfrapp released their second album Black Cherry in 2003. The band recorded the album in Bath, England. This album focused more heavily on dance music and glam rock-inspired synths than its predecessor. Black Cherry peaked at number nineteen on the UK Albums Chart and sold 52,000 copies in the US.

Supernature, Goldfrapp's third album, was released in 2005. The album comprises pop and electronic dance music prominently featured on Black Cherry, but focuses more on subtle hooks instead of the large choruses that made up its predecessor. It has sold one million copies worldwide and earned the duo two nominations at the 2007 Grammy Awards for Best Electronic/Dance Album and Best Dance Recording for the song "Ooh La La".

Seventh Tree, Goldfrapp's fourth album, was released in 2008 and debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart. The album is a departure from the pop and electronic dance music featured on Supernature, featuring ambient and downtempo music. The band were inspired by an acoustic radio session they had performed, which led the duo to incorporate acoustic guitars into their music to create "warm" and "delicate" sounds.

In 2009 she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Music degree by the University of Portsmouth.

The following album was "Head First" in 2010, a work that comes back to the dance music but taking a big inspiration on music from the 80s. Describing their previous album Seventh Tree as an "intimate, dreamy, more introspective album" which was created in response to deep unhappiness with her personal life following the tiring Supernature tour, Head First was a reaction to wanting "to get out the synths again, put your hands in the air" and "set about making an 'up' album." It received a nomination for Best Electronic/Dance Album at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards.

After more than a decade of career, the group released a compilation album called "The Singles", which, as the title suggests, recollects every single released from all Goldfrapp albums from "Felt Mountain" to "Head First", apart from two new songs.

The sixth studio album was released in 2013, titled "Tales of Us". On 20 January 2014, Goldfrapp announced a one-off screening of their thirty-minute film anthology "Tales of Us", which was shown by Arts Alliance Media in select theatres. Co-created by Alison Goldfrapp and Lisa Gunning, the film follows five characters—Stranger, Laurel, Jo, Drew and Annabel—and spans themes of love, loss, madness and identity.

Goldfrapp have released seven albums, most recently "Silver Eye" in 2017. Hits include "Strict Machine", "Ooh La La", "Lovely Head" and "A&E". The multi-platinum selling band have been nominated for the Mercury Prize, multiple Grammy Awards and won an Ivor Novello for "Strict Machine".

Goldfrapp scored the films "My Summer of Love" and "Nowhere Boy".

In recent years, Alison has dedicated more time to her role as a photographer and director. She created and photographed the album artwork for Silver Eye and directed videos for singles "Systemagic", "Everything is Never Enough" and "Ocean".

Article bibliography
The following is a list of web pages from where the information on this article was taken.
 * The Telegraph UK - Alison Goldfrapp: ethereal girl
 * The Telegraph UK - Alison Goldfrapp interview
 * Goldfrapp: The Idolator Interview