Latest news with #YearsandYears
Perth Now
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Olly Alexander 'wants to take his foot off the gas' as a musician
Olly Alexander doesn't enjoy the "intensity" of the music business. The 34-year-old singer has put his music career on hold in recent months, in order to focus on acting, and Olly admits that the industry has been overwhelming at times. The Years and Years star told the BBC: "With music, there's an intensity to the way I've been working and putting albums out, promoting and touring. "I definitely want to take the foot off the gas in terms of that intensity." Olly announced his departure from his record label earlier this year, and the singer is currently preparing to star in a West End production of 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. Olly is relishing the stability that acting has given him. He said: "I spent a lot of my previous years moving around, touring, which is so fun and amazing. But I also very much appreciate staying in one place now. "Having a home in London with my partner, my cats, just trotting off to the theatre every night - that just sounds like the most wonderful existence." Meanwhile, Olly previously revealed that he turned to Sir Elton John and Kylie Minogue for advice on how to deal with fame. The pop star - who has also enjoyed significant success as an actor - told the Evening Standard newspaper: "Working with Elton and even Kylie, two of the most iconic legends, they both told me how they've struggled as an artist to feel like at times they knew what they were doing, feeling really dark. "Elton talks a lot about how depressed he was and how difficult things got for him and hearing them talk about that you just go 'wow'." Olly actually found their advice to be really reassuring. The award-winning star said: "I'm someone who is constantly questioning why the hell I'm here and doing what I'm doing like 'oh my God' - I'm totally that person. But to hear that from people I really, really respect that it's normal and you just get through it somehow. That was good advice and good to hear."
Perth Now
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Olly Alexander bemoans music industry's 'antiquated' approach
Olly Alexander thinks the music industry has "not kept pace with the times". The 34-year-old star - who is best-known as the lead singer of Years and Years - feels the music industry is using a "very antiquated" business model. He told the BBC: "A lot of the reason I think the industry has changed so much is that it's set on this model which is very antiquated now, and it's not kept pace with the times. "Lots of artists have this direct link with their audience via social media. They want their music out quickly. The whole model of promoting it - three singles into an album, then you tour the album, then move onto the next one - it's not really working like it did." Olly observed that record labels used to be able to make an album successful by pouring "a lot of money into something". He continued: "They just can't do that now. Everything has changed. But I think that is exciting for lots of reasons, and it is an exciting place for artists, even though it's harder to break through." Olly is currently focusing on his acting career. However, if he does decide to return to the music business, he won't allow himself to be dictated to by record executives. The 'Sanctify' hitmaker explained: "If I go back into it, it'll be because I think it's fun and something I want to do, and not think too much about how it's going to perform. "That's pretty much how I try to always feel, but you're in an environment where you have a lot of other stakeholders, and people telling you it needs to be this or that, and there's always that tension." Olly recently parted ways with his record label, and is set to star in London's West End later this year, when he'll appear in the National Theatre's production of 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. Looking forward to the challenge, Olly said: "I'd recently been thinking that I'd love to act again. "I'd come to the end of my record contract, and I have a bit more breathing space to try a few different things and not feel, oh, well I have to deliver an album to my record label."
Irish Independent
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Martina Devlin: Never mind the ‘liberal elites', it's Trump and his allies on the right who pose the biggest threat to free speech
Team Trump only want the freedom to say anything they like, without being prepared to allow others to express different views 'Democracy was a very nice idea for a while but now it's worn out,' says a character in a TV drama I'm watching. Years and Years imagines a dystopian near future with some eerily familiar characteristics, such as free speech under threat and extremist politicians going mainstream. The six-part series, broadcast on the BBC in 2019 but having a resurgence after landing on Netflix, follows the rise of a wealthy, populist leader. She's played by Emma Thompson, who channels Nigel Farage with a side order of Donald Trump. The politician harvests support by expressing public anxieties while using emotionally charged rhetoric to push a tribalising, polarising, radicalising agenda.
The Independent
17-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Russell T Davies says gay society in ‘greatest danger I've ever seen' after Trump win
Russell T Davies has claimed gay society is in the 'greatest danger' he has 'ever seen' following the election of Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States in November. Since his inauguration, Trump has pushed through a series of major policy changes regarding how the government treats LGBTQ+ people and has restricted access to gender-affirming healthcare. Doctor Who showrunner Davies, 61, who's also known for his Aids drama It's A Sin, has long been a vocal critic of Trump, with the businessman's first election win inspiring the dystopian series Years and Years. The TV writer said has noticed a rise in hostility towards the LGBTQ+ community not only in the US, but 'here [in the UK]' too. Speaking to The Guardian at the Gaydio Pride awards in Manchester, the writer said: 'As a gay man, I feel like a wave of anger, and violence, and resentment is heading towards us on a vast scale.' 'I've literally seen a difference in the way I'm spoken to as a gay man since that November election, and that's a few months of weaponising hate speech, and the hate speech creeps into the real world,' he added. 'I'm not being alarmist,' Davies continued. 'I'm 61. I know gay society very, very well, and I think we're in the greatest danger I have ever seen... I think times are darkening beyond all measure and beyond anything I have seen in my lifetime.' Davies said the danger the gay community now faces is greater than that in the 1980s, when 'rumours and whispers of a strange new virus' began. 'The threat from America, it's like something [out of] The Lord of the Rings,' he said. 'It's like an evil rising in the west, and it is evil. 'We've had bad prime ministers and we've had bad presidents before. What we've never had is a billionaire tech baron openly hating his trans daughter,' he continued, referencing Trump's ally, Elon Musk. Musk bought the social media site Twitter, now known as X, in 2022. Since the billionaire's takeover, the platform has seen a 50 per cent rise in hate speech. 'We have never had this in the history of the world,' Davies said, adding the gay community would nevertheless once again come together to oppose the new wave of hostility. 'What we will do in Elon Musk's world, that we're heading towards, is what artists have always done,' he said, 'which is to meet in cellars, and plot, and sing, and compose, and paint, and make speeches, and march.' 'If we have to be those rebels in basements yet again, which is when art thrives, then that's what we'll become.'
The Independent
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Album reviews: Olly Alexander – Polari and Inhaler
★★☆☆☆ It's strange to consider Polari as Olly Alexander's debut solo album, but so goes the latest career step for the former Years & Years frontman. Having first risen to fame with the band behind 2015's synth-pop hits 'King' and 'Shine', he officially ditched the moniker last year and now, here we are. Alexander's career arc has been bumpy, to say the least. Amid the split from his bandmates, he found critical acclaim as lead character Ritchie in Russell T Davies' wonderful Channel 4 drama It's a Sin, having previously dabbled with minor roles in shows such as Skins, the brilliant Keats biopic Bright Star and Jack Black's 2010 flop Gulliver's Travels. His music projects have been more scattershot. Years and Years's third and final album Night Call – made without co-founders Mikey Goldsworthy and Emre Türkmen – failed to match the success of its predecessors. Meanwhile, his valiant attempt at Eurovision with single 'Dizzy' landed the UK in 18th place, amid controversy over the presence of Israel in the annual song contest. When it comes to Polari, Alexander has the basis of some great ideas but lacks the conviction to carry it off. Occasionally (and similar to Night Call), it feels like he's grasping for the kind of queer-centric alt-pop or R&B that Perfume Genius, serpentwithfeet and Christine and the Queens excel at – or indeed the in-your-face brashness of Charli XCX. More often than not, though, this record stumbles at the first hurdle. Produced by PC Music's Danny L Harle (Dua Lipa, Liam Gallagher), it's got all the ingredients you'd expect on an Eighties-influenced record, with synths that alternately stab, buzz and sprawl in deference to pioneers such as Pet Shop Boys and Erasure. It's pastiche, a farrago of half-baked ideas, even veering into Noughties club territory on occasion, which suggests Alexander and Harle are going through a checklist rather than carrying out any clear artistic vision. With his songwriting, too, he quails when approaching themes of closeted sex, yearning, sexual tension and loneliness in the gay community. The album is named after the language created from bits of Italian, Romani, Cockney rhyming slang and Yiddish, used by travelling entertainers in the 19th century and later adopted by gay men around the Fifties and Sixties. All subjects that should thrill but in Alexander's hands manage to sound rather dull. There's an endeavour at storytelling on the Vince Clarke-produced 'Make Me a Man', delivered over a buzzy electronic beat and twee acoustic guitar riffs. The overall effect, though, is more akin to Steps' '5, 6, 7, 8' being thrown in a blender with 'Freedom!' by George Michael than Clarke's more experimental productions. Elsewhere, I'm desperate for more insight than we hear on the single 'Cupid's Bow', on which he sings: 'You've done somethin' to me/ And I love the way it feels/ But maybe I just don't know what I want.' 'Shadow of Love' is marginally better: a moody, dungeon-clank and synth-jab of a tune about craving the slightest taste of a romantic connection (I adore the deliberate stumble as he asks, 'Love me once and then fu-forget about me'), yet he's so fixated on that title refrain it sounds like he's stuck on repeat. Polari is brash and bold on the surface, but Alexander flails when searching for something truly profound to say. Inhaler – Open Wide ★★★★☆ The musical nepo baby can only get so far without talent or drive. That Inhaler frontman Elijah Hewson, son of U2's Bono, is still here, releasing his third – and most satisfying – album with the Dublin-formed band is enough proof, then, that he has plenty of both. Open Wide is indeed full of ambition, heaving with slick-sounding anthems that are ripe for a mass singalong. 'Billy (yeah yeah yeah)' cruises along a summery guitar groove and rippling percussion, backed by nice harmonies and Hewson's reverb-soaked croon. 'Even Though' deploys a dark, Cure-inspired bass line while the singer adopts a Robert Smith drawl. 'Your House' buzzes with paranoia as it explores the obsessive nature of young love. In a recent interview with The Independent, Hewson said this record reflects what he dubs his quarter-life crisis, as he starts to contemplate past decisions, both good and bad. 'Again' wrestles with the notion of parenthood, written from the perspective of someone living in rock'n'roll Neverland. Opener 'Eddie in the Darkness' careens around a piano motif before flailing into the chorus, as its title character stumbles through emptying bars. Our review of Inhaler's 2021 debut lamented that it leant too heavily on lyrical cliches and the classic rockers of old. Open Wide melds the confidence of youth with the poise that comes from experience. It's the sound of a band who've truly come into their own.
