Polari
After three Years & Years albums, *Polari* is Olly Alexander’s first release under his own name. “I’m still trying to convince people I’m a brand-new artist, like, ‘Surprise!’” he tells Apple Music. “It’s quite nerve-wracking, because it’s a slightly different feeling to having a Years & Years album out. I’m so excited—I felt like I couldn’t have done this album without the experience of making music for more than 10 years.” Danny L Harle, who’s also worked with Charli xcx, Nile Rodgers, and Rina Sawayama, handled production duties—and he and Olly pulled in their favorite influences from the 1980s for the 13 tracks. “I was taking so much inspiration from that era, with Stock Aitken Waterman, Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, Janet Jackson, and George Michael,” says Alexander. “It’s a fascinating era for music. I think that’s partly due to how it was being created, using technology for the first time. There’s a real simplicity to the complexities, where it feels exciting and elements are too loud or are sticking out in places. So I wanted to tap into that feeling in the music, but give it my own spin.” *Polari* takes its name from a form of slang with a rich history. “It’s made up of lots of different dialects and it became quite popular among some gay men as a way for them to communicate in secret, in the days when homosexuality was criminalized. It came up in discussion when we were in the studio and suddenly this lightbulb went off in my head. ‘Polari’ seemed to encapsulate so much of what I was trying to get at with this album. I love how it sounds magical, like Polaris—it’s in the night sky like a star. Because of everywhere I was taking inspiration from, it felt like the right word to contain all of this stuff that I was trying to make.” Read on, as Alexander takes Apple Music through 10 key tracks from *Polari.* **“Polari”** “I wanted to surprise people with the opening track, which acts as an introduction to kick-start this journey into *Polari*. It’s bold and unlike any other song I’ve ever put out. We’d made about eight or nine songs by this point and then Danny pulled together bits he’d been working on from different songs and put in a few synth ideas that he’d had. We thought ‘Polari’ felt like the album title, but we’d wondered if it should be a song. There are only a few lyrics, but it’s ‘Say what you’ve got to say/Tell me something/Talk to me/Polari.’ I wrote that because, after Eurovision \[Alexander represented the UK in the 2024 contest\], I felt like everyone had an opinion about me, so I was like, ‘Go on. I’m welcoming your opinion. Say what you have to say, talk to me.’” **“Cupid’s Bow”** “I’ve always been inspired by desire and the ways in which we search for intimacy with other people. I’d been pulling from different, quite random places for inspiration, and Greek mythology kept coming up. There’s a lot on the album about fate and whether you’re destined to love someone and that was in my mind because of my own relationship. ‘Cupid’s Bow’ was about that moment just as you meet someone and you think they’re the one and it’s love at first sight—and how powerful that first shot of the arrow can be. It’s propulsive and it switches between major and minor, so it gives you this slinky, ambiguous feeling that emulates the tension when you first meet someone.” **“I Know”** “‘I Know’ came quite late in the process. I felt I’ve grown up with people telling me they knew my sexuality before even I did. And even that phrase ‘I know what you are’ means you get reduced to a thing, so I wanted a song that would take some power back. It references hidden codes, so the first verse has ‘What’s in your pocket, hanging out?’ which could refer to hanky code. The song is about someone coming to terms with their sexuality and how it feels so amazing when you finally accept yourself. But it was important for it to feel playful rather than heavy-handed.” **“Shadow of Love”** “The first half of the album is very much about the chase, the push and pull, the yearnings and the confusion that come with love. ‘Shadow of Love’ encapsulates that. In a way, I’ve been trying to write the same song for 10 years. It’s about the pain and all the conflicts and paradoxes you have when you love someone. And then what those feelings make you think you deserve. It’s about someone—and I’ve been this person—who goes on a night out and just wants to meet someone, but doesn’t care who it is. It’s that desperation, when you get to a point where you think that’s all you deserve.” **“Make Me a Man”** “I had a lot of fun with ‘Make Me a Man.’ It’s a Vince Clarke \[Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Erasure\] production. We emailed him asking if he’d like to work on something, and he sent a track over and it was almost exactly how it ended up on the record. He was in New York, so we couldn’t meet up in person. I wrote it from the perspective of Adam in the Garden of Eden, asking God to provide a man for him to fall in love with. It’s such fun because you’ve got so many puns and double entendres. I was scared, thinking, ‘Can I even do this?’ but it’s one of those songs that just wrote itself.” **“Dizzy”** “I had to slightly reclaim ‘Dizzy’ from Eurovision, but I love it so much and I always intended it to be on the album. The word ‘Dizzy’ was actually part of Polari—people used to say it to mean ‘scatterbrained’ and the song’s part of this journey with these ’80s grooves and different flavors. And so I just had to keep it on there, even though it was a moment of like, ‘Oh, should I maybe take it off?’ For me, it feels like quite a good mid-album song.” **“Archangel”** “I wanted ‘Archangel’ to sound very optimistic, because I think sometimes we can be too concerned with not showing too much emotion or being too cynical. This whole album is about not hiding and being honest about even those corny feelings. It’s got a simple hook: ‘You can do whatever whenever you want ’cause everything’s yours tonight.’ That’s like a mantra for myself and for whoever’s listening. This song makes me cry when I listen to it. A lot of the album is about searching for love and returning to it, because I got back together with my partner, who I dated 10 years ago. I’m madly in love with him, but also our relationship’s been on such a journey. I can plot all these highs and lows and write songs about those feelings, but I like to imagine it slightly more dramatically, of course.” **“Miss You so Much”** “I think this song is quite Stock Aitken Waterman-style with a big, pop melody. We replaced the synth a few times and I was like, ‘This needs to be more in your face, more annoying.’ It’s pulling in a lot of different references. Me and Danny wanted to write the most joyful-sounding sad song ever, about someone that’s with you but isn’t really there anymore. Something’s gone wrong in the relationship and you’re still together, so it’s that feeling of when you’re with someone, but still feeling so incredibly lonely. So to make that into this positive-sounding song was the challenge.” **“When We Kiss”** “‘When We Kiss’ is the most in-your-face club song on the album. It’s a real crescendo. There’s been a lot of searching, the chase, and then maybe by ‘Archangel’ the two people have met and something good has happened, but then it feels like it’s gone back to longing and yearning again. I wanted this song to feel like the climax of all those emotions. And I guess that’s a theme on a lot of the songs: the opposing forces at play when you’re at that moment in relationship where you don’t know if you’re going to stay together or break up, but you love the other person so much. It’s a song that seems to resonate with people. I don’t know why, maybe they like it when I’m singing about pain.” **“Whisper in the Waves”** “The album is full-on up to this point so, by ‘Whisper in the Waves,’ we’re taking a breath. I always have to have a song like this on a record—on \[2022 Years & Years album\] *Night Call* it would have been ‘Strange and Unusual.’ The inspiration for this song is so random. It’s a Greek myth about Calypso who was banished to an island and traps Odysseus there. She falls in love with him and he’s there for seven years, but she tries to keep him there forever, before he eventually leaves. I love songs with themes about water—I’m so inspired by it. We asked Seal to be on it, but he said no.”
On his first solo album, Alexander explores fascinating themes but struggles to find much of substance of say, while Dublin rock band Inhaler make great strides on their confident third record
Olly Alexander, the former frontman of electro-pop group Years & Years, is back with 'Polari' - an exuberant and effervescent celebration of all
The actor-singer’s solo debut proper looks to 1980s gay clubland for inspiration, but plays it too safe under all the retro synths and stammered-vocal effects
Alexander blamed ‘pearl clutching’ for the vexed reaction to his risqué Eurovision performance. The judges should cover their ears