Even though I’ve been a Years & Years fan since their debut album “Communion” came out in 2015, I’d never seen frontman Olly Alexander perform live until last month.
When I walked into the Avant Gardner Great Hall at the Brooklyn Mirage for the band’s first New York show since the beginning of the pandemic, the energy of the crowd was electrifying.
Held in the middle of Pride Month, the concert seemed more like a spiritual seance of queer expression than a typical music performance. A vast swath of the LGBTQ community and beyond was packed in the warehouse industrial space, from teenagers to those in their 50s.
Alexander — with his eyebrows bleached blond and his hair buzzed with lines in it —was belting his hits in front of a massive screen projecting visuals depicting a raucous night out at the club. Since his dancers had to stay behind in the United Kingdom, this montage was an opportunity to include their artistry while also telling the type of queer story Alexander wants to portray with his work.
Many of his own pop icons were referenced in the footage, including Madonna, Prince and the film “Showgirls.” In one scene, Alexander is seen cruising in a public bathroom. In another, paying homage to Madonna's "Justify My Love" video, he’s running down a hotel hall looking back like he just did something mischievous.
“The visual is quite dark, twisted and cinematic,” Alexander told TODAY. “Just to sort of show a different side to me and the music, to then tie it together with the theme of a wild night out.”
“I got my entire life,” Alexander said of that Brooklyn show. “New York definitely always has a real energy to it, especially Brooklyn. But yeah, it surpassed my expectations. I’m just so grateful to be performing again and to be able to take the show to an audience in America. I wanted everyone to have the best night.”
The now 31-year-old has been in the spotlight since 2015, when “Communion” became a massive hit for his band. The song debuted at number one in the United Kingdom, selling over one million copies worldwide, becoming the fastest-selling debut of that year from a UK-signed band.
Since then, two more albums have been released —”Palo Santo” in 2018 and “Night Call” in 2022 — with the latter serving as Alexander’s first project of his solo endeavor after former bandmates, Mikey Goldsworthy and Emre Türkmen, left Years & Years.
Years & Years' sound has evolved. The one constant, undeniable through-line in Alexander's music and artistry is that he’s queer. In his lyrics, Alexander uses pronouns that align with his sexuality —so he's singing love songs to "him."
Some pop stars — burgeoning or established —keep their sexuality out of their art. Alexander centers it. This has become his mission, one that he explores with work on the screen and stage.
“I’d always been writing songs and expressing myself in that way, but it became just like the most important thing to me,” he said. “I got so much satisfaction and liberation out of doing that. In the very beginning, I never felt like I was gonna set out on this explicitly gay journey. But that’s what I’ve been on.”
But in the beginning, Alexander struggled with coming out, and said he was even was pressured by industry execs to stay closeted.
"I felt really uncomfortable with anybody thinking I was gay ... because I thought it would close doors for me.”
Olly Alexander
“At 16, I still didn’t have any idea what my sexuality was,” he said. ”I knew I wasn’t straight, but I was definitely not ready to accept that I was gay yet. That would take a few more years. I felt really uncomfortable with anybody thinking I was gay, in terms of people in the industry, because I thought it would close doors for me.”
He added, “When I got signed in 2014, I got advice from a media trainer who said to me it might actually be better for me to not come out."
Alexander didn’t quite listen. Instead, he used the ambiguity of his music and the lyrics to tell his story without ever explicitly having to come out. When so many others refused to infuse their queerness with their art, this was a simple yet radical approach for an up-and-coming pop star to take.
