Years & Years’ Olly Alexander makes his mystical fantasy a dance-pop reality - Chuyên Trang Chia Sẻ Kiến Thức Thời Trang Mới Nhất

What is it about that particular brand of pop that feels most liberating to you?

I guess I associate it so much with a communal experience. Dance music, it’s meant to make you move. I discovered so much about myself in clubs and going out and just a lot of the soundtrack to those moments was dance music. Even being a musician, you get to do the songs live, you have that connection with other people in the audience. That communal experience can be very transcendental. It’s a language, not to be super corny, but it really is. It really is a language that everybody can speak. And it’s so important to every culture, every subculture, it’s just there within. Each one has its own expression, it’s beautiful. And dance music really is such a broad church for so many marginalized communities throughout history. It really just congregated and created the most incredible dance music. I think it’s that blend of electronic and acoustic and BPM and genres that just feels exciting and draws people to it.

When writing an album inspired by encounters with other people and reflecting on those moments, what do you reveal or learn about yourself?

You have to be careful what you say in a song sometimes, because it’s the power of the words. As soon as you say it, the words are out there and you can be really accusatory in songs. But when I look back at my lyrics from my older songs there’s all these hidden clues. I know where they come from or a lot of them are words that I like and I’ll have used it for another song. I saw I was often in songs really just pleading for the other person to resolve the situation. I felt like it was just much more of a passive dynamic that I was writing about. That dissolved a bit and I didn’t wanna write like that anymore. I just had something new I wanted to say. When it felt different, I was like, oh, well that’s good. If it feels different, I’ll do that.

Working on a television series is a much more communal process than writing an album, which can become quite solitary in its nature. And with It’s A Sin in particular, that role required you to tap into something really visceral and emotional. What do you take away from creating on a set like that that you later carry into your music?

Like you say, they’re both such different experiences. So that alone, I really valued being able to experience both in such an intense way. Making It’s A Sin was such a profound experience. The fact that I had been on the road touring, singing in Years & Years, that made me a much more confident performer and I felt like it helped me be able to play Ritchie. I was taking off all my jewelry and my nose ring and dying my hair brown and becoming this character and then when it finished, it was like, okay, I’m gonna dye my hair red and put on my jewelry. And, I guess I’m playing this other character now.

But they both have similarities for me in the sense that when I’m making music or I’m on stage singing, it’s like I slip into a different state of reality. The time feels different. I’m really addicted to that feeling, it’s very calming. I’m totally turned off from distractions., I’m in the moment just making music or singing. And acting is the same, hopefully, when it’s right. Because you’re just in the moment playing a different character, the time feels different. It also reveals stuff to yourself about your identity in a way that you’re like, huh, does that come from me? Or does that come from a character? That’s interesting. I hadn’t thought about that.

Especially in turning someone’s creative vision and idea into this profound thing that spoke to so many people, and drew attention to something that’s so important… We lost so many of these pioneers in music and fashion to the AIDS epidemic. Having that connection must feel special.

It was the most profound experience of my life. I learned so much and put my own upbringing into a context I hadn’t realized before. It is such a deep shadow, um, for many people, this moment in history. It’s so misunderstood and so much happened in silence, so much was brushed under the carpet. It’s not surprising, but obviously there’s a deep need to bring it out into the light and talk about it even though that is so painful for many people. That was really the takeaway, just how meaningful it can be to and how long of a shadow it had left for so many people and it still impacts us all today. It’s not over, but this opportunity unlocked something in the people that watched it and I’m still processing it.

What are you most proud of in having shaped the identity of Years & Years in such a way that, even in the split, it became so inseparable from your own that you couldn’t just carry on as Olly Alexander?

At so many points along the way, I felt like I can’t do this. I look back and I was just so uncertain at so many junctures. It’s easy to think, oh yeah, I was just so sure of myself and in some ways I was. I really stuck to my, guns about just being as gay as possible. There were many, many times where it would’ve possibly been a smoother road if I had been a little less outspoken about my identity. But it really helped me understand the kind of art I wanted to make and the kind of person I wanted to be. I didn’t really understand that at first. I was just like, oh, I’m gonna be honest about myself. And I think that’s a really good policy, usually. I get really overwhelmed and I look at other artists like, how do they cope with this? But obviously everybody struggles. I get the same thing and I’m like, I shouldn’t be an artist, it’s not the right place for me. But then I’m like, no, no, no. I’m so proud of what I’ve done and I’m still here doing it.