Olly Alexander is talking about the fallout from his bruising Eurovision experience in a very Olly Alexander way: openly, with lots of smiles and self-deprecating laughs in that charming, buoyant manner of his. Alexander’s performance of “Dizzy” at last year’s contest in Malmö, Sweden, received a mediocre 46 points from the judges and – unfairly, brutally – zero points from the public vote. He finished in 18th place, out of 31. The discourse was unforgiving. “People think I came last,” he says.
It had seemed like such a good idea. Alexander – now 34, dressed today in a black bomber jacket, dark T-shirt and a black bobble hat – is one of the most interesting and unguarded pop stars of the past decade. After winning BBC’s Sound Of 2014, his band Years & Years had a number one single with 2015’s “King” and recorded two number one albums of bright and bold pop-facing electronica on their way to 1.5 million sales, with Alexander winning the patronage of Elton John and Kylie Minogue.
His advocacy for mental health and LGBTQIA+ rights – he’s talked directly about struggles with depression and bulimia – made him a poster boy for progressive issues. And thanks to his sensational turn in Russell T Davies’ award-winning Aids crisis-era drama, Channel 4’s It’s a Sin, he became a recognisable star beyond the pop charts. Who better to represent the UK at Europe’s annual extravaganza of glitzy high-camp pop?
“Everything in Eurovision is mad and dialed up to 11,” he says. “This was my version of turning something to 11.” The presentation of “Dizzy” – set in a rotating post-apocalyptic gym shower room with sexually charged backing dancers in boxing shorts – was cleverly, stylishly, evocatively, and expensively staged. (“I went into debt with the label to pay for it!”) But it was seen as divisive. He rejects the criticism that it was vulgar, though.
“It’s playful, right?” he says. “I was quite shocked by some of the reactions. I didn’t think it was explicit at all. I wasn’t trying to offend anyone, but there was some insane pearl clutching.”
He knew to brace for the worst as the final public votes were announced. “My director told me: ‘Buckle up, we’re probably about to get zero.’” They agreed to celebrate regardless, as the camera panned to Alexander’s team with 163 million people watching at home. “And then they went ‘United Kingdom, zero points…’” He does a very funny impression of him waving his little UK flag with a fake smile. It was a cruel moment. “It’s kind of iconic to bomb,” he says.
Alexander’s new album Polari, the first released under his own name, is his best yet: a set of pulsing 80s-inspired modern-sounding synth-pop, taking cues from “gay heroes” like Pet Shop Boys and Erasure.
And he’s clearly still a mainstream draw: after our interview at a cinema’s upstairs café in Crouch End (Alexander is living nearby while the house he shares with his boyfriend and cats is renovated) he went to record a performance of new song “When We Kiss” for The Graham Norton Show. When Norton asked him what advice he’d give to this year’s UK Eurovision entry, Alexander tellingly replied: “Get a good therapist.”
Releasing Polari under his own name is giving Alexander conflicting feelings. After bandmates Mikey Goldsworthy and Emre Türkmen left Years & Years in 2021, Alexander kept the band name and released the last Years & Years album, 2023’s Night Call, as a solo project – mainly, he says, on his label’s insistence. “It doesn’t feel right anymore” to trade off the band name. “[Years & Years were] quite mainstream,” he says, “but I always felt: ‘Am I really that artist?’ I don’t know if I could really sustain that, or why I would even want to.”
The change has been liberating, too. In the past, the label would force him into unenjoyable songwriting sessions with writers and producers. Polari was different. He decided early he wanted to make an album about being a gay, British musician, and carrying on that heritage. “The 80s was such a joyful and instinctual era of music. The dance floor was a refuge for gay communities to celebrate through so much pain.”
He worked closely with just one producer, Danny L Harle (Dua Lipa, Caroline Polachek), at Premises Studios in Hackney, east London – close to the gay bars and clubs Alexander frequented in his youth. It made him nostalgic. He’d relay Harle stories about his (mis)adventures and conquests -“funny conversations about hook-up culture and cruising.”
He wrote “Cupid’s Bow” as an ode to gay lust and desire, with a nod to George Michael’s “Fastlove”. “Historically, gay men are pushed into secretive places when looking for love and intimacy,” he says. “So cruising becomes part of the subculture. There’s something really beautiful in that exchange.” Songs like “I Know” and “Shadow of Love” deal with the emotional consequences of that lifestyle, and the “embedded toxic relationships” Alexander was stuck in.
By the album’s end, tracks like “Beautiful” and “Heal Me” pay tribute to his boyfriend and a hard-won domesticity. “They are fraught, but they’re so optimistic about the possibilities of loving someone.”
The title fits into the narrative. Polari – meaning “to talk” – is a now-largely defunct coded language that has roots in Romani communities of the 16th century. It was adopted by British gay men until the late 60s as a secret means of communication when homosexuality was still illegal. Alexander came across the term when preparing for It’s a Sin, reading The Journals of Derek Jarman – the writer and gay rights activist. It became directional shorthand for the album, akin to Brat. “Any decision, I’d ask: ‘Is it Polari?’”
One can’t help but draw parallels between Polari and It’s a Sin. “I resisted it at first, because I wondered if it was too obvious – but I decided to lean in.” Alexander was a promising actor before Years & Years – notably on Channel 4’s Skins and as Peter Pan on West End production Peter and Alice, alongside Judi Dench and Ben Wishaw – but he still startled as It’s a Sin’s flamboyant, vulnerable Ritchie Tozer.
The story of a group of wide-eyed, young gay men finding their way in 80s London, only to be devastated by the Aids crisis, was emotionally crushing amid its joyful defiance. It affected Alexander deeply. “I hadn’t really believed actors who said how much it can take for them to do a role,” he says. “But Richie felt really close to me. I could have been him, in a way. And it felt like I had a lot of grieving to do about this lost generation. That’s what the experience really gave me, this way to engage with this painful part of our history, but in this really tender and beautiful way.”
He still gets people coming up to him talking about the show. “They’ll go straight to: they lost a friend, or how it was really meaningful to them. It’s always meaningful to me. But sometimes it’s like, ‘Oh God. I’m just trying to buy a sandwich.’” He hasn’t acted since – “it set the bar very high” – but is manifesting another role.
His immediate focus is Polari, though. Creatively content, he’s less concerned about commercial success than ever – in that respect, Eurovision has been freeing. “The expectation has been reset,” he says.
‘Polari’ is out now
