Few musicians have ever seemed as brooding or impervious as Alison Goldfrapp. The band named after her, which produced sweaty Noughties hits including “Strict Machine” and “Ooh La La”, helped craft the image of Goldfrapp as an electropop ringmaster with Rocky Horror hair, or a torch singer gone berserk. No one could possibly intimidate her. Well, almost no one. “Bloody whatshisname – Simon Cowell!” Goldfrapp recalls, her voice strikingly deadpan for someone who sounds so sultry on stereo. “He was very polite but I just found him so unnerving.” Goldfrapp remembers when they met: a shared appearance on a US talk show in 2005, the talent show maestro in a “fluffy pink cashmere jumper” and standing arms folded and beady-eyed as Goldfrapp sang and vamped on stage. “I thought, ‘this man’s gonna fail me – he’s gonna boot me off.’”
After the performance, Cowell stomped on over to a flustered Goldfrapp and offered some words of industry wisdom. “He said, ‘This is gonna be really big.’ And I just wanted to cry. All I could say back was, ‘I really like your pink jumper’. Anyway…” Goldfrapp sighs, grimaces and hugs her knee. “That was a weird little story I just told you.”
