Olly Alexander: My King

Troye Sivan was my gateway into Queer Pop and Kim Petras helped raise my interest levels but it was upon discovering Years & Years, and more specifically their fabulously out frontman Olly Alexander, that I became a full blown Gay Pop addict. Troye at first seemed like he was probably an anomaly, but once I learned of Olly I realized Troye wasn't an anomaly and that in fact there was a surge of music coming from the LGBTQ community.

I discovered Years & Years through Spotify's Out Now playlist with their current single at the time All For You. The song caught my ear immediately and I started looking them up. I learned that they were a U.K. based pop group whose lead singer Olly was openly gay. I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that they were HUGE in the U.K. They had multiple hits in the U.K. top 40 including the # 1 hit King and they sold out arenas across the country. I then started watching the music videos. Much like Troye the early videos show a more reserved Olly who dresses down in sweats and doesn't move too much. Yet as the videos progressed I could see him getting more and more confident as he started flaunting his sexuality more. By the time I got to the videos for the Palo Santo album, Olly was dressing in dazzlingly colorful outfits, had his hair dyed red and was dancing across the screen like a natural born diva. He was everything I wished I could have been when I was younger.

Soon I started watching interviews with Olly and this is where I became really infatuated with him. Olly was not afraid to speak his mind on a number of topics ranging from trans rights, mental health, Brexit, homophobia, and more. He was also willing to discuss his sex life and his sexual preferences in a very frank manner which was so refreshing to see. Olly was gay and he was not holding anything back.

One of my favorite Olly moments is when he sits down on the Graham Norton show with the cast of Ocean's 8. Through most of the interview Olly cannot stop gushing about Rihanna, which is adorable since he is so obviously star struck. The best part though is when Graham asks Olly about Years & Years' soundtrack contribution to Bridget Jone's Baby. Olly said he was trying to think of what Bridget would want and the cast of Ocean's 8 says "A baby" and Olly says "Um no. I was thinking a big dick right?! Cause then I can relate." This moment epitomized what I loved about Olly. It was both hilariously frank and off the cuff but also daring for a gay pop star to speak that explicitly on a national talk show about their sexual desires. Most gay celebrities usually don't want to make straight people uncomfortable with that kind of talk but not Olly and I loved him for it!

As I familiarized myself with Years & Years music more I ran across a documentary on youtube called Growing Up Gay with Olly Alexander. It was an hour long doc about not only Olly's struggles with growing up gay but it also featured Olly speaking to different people who were still struggling due to their homosexuality. In this documentary Olly truly opens up his heart and soul for the viewer to see. He is honest about his mental health issues, eating disorder and internalized shame. Olly also shows an incredible amount of compassion and empathy for all the gay men he meets throughout the doc. Some of them have been bullied out of school, one of them has an eating disorder and another was kicked out of his home, raped and ended up HIV positive. Each of these interviews are candid & raw and are honestly hard to watch at times. The pain and suffering each of these gay men are grappling with is real and heartbreaking to watch and it's heartbreaking for Olly too. Olly cries multiple times throughout the doc and you can tell it's all from a very sincere and caring place. Olly is the rarest of stars: Someone who is incredibly talented and charismatic but yet he is also able to give so much back to his fans and the LGBTQ community. Olly knows he has been given a platform and he is using it as best he can to help as many people as possible and that is so empowering to see.

While I had not struggled with an eating disorder or HIV I had struggled with being gay and watching this documentary shook me to my core. I could see myself in all the people featured. The sense of shame, the feeling that you are less than other people, the idea that you put on a brave face and shove down your emotions in order to make people feel more comfortable around you as a gay man all rang true for me. Troye's music and interviews had been the first step towards me realizing I had internalized shame still but it was Olly and this doc specifically where all my emotions and feelings that had been bottled up for almost 2 decades came spilling out. I was not as happy as I thought I had been and in order to be truly happy I needed to address these unresolved feelings of shame.

There was also a series of photos of Years & Years going to a children's hospital in Glasgow during their tour around Christmas time. I loved these photos because in each of them you can see Olly light up every time he is around these kids and he wants to make them feel happy and special as best he can. You realize that Olly is one of the kindest people on the planet and that inspired me which had never really happened to me before with most musicians.

I had always loved music but I really only cared about the music itself. I liked learning and reading about the musicians behind my favorite songs but I never really looked up to them or thought of them as role models besides possibly a few female singers. But now with Troye, and especially Olly, I found myself not only drawn to them as people but I also looked up to them despite both of them being younger than me. They were showing me how to live better and feel better as a gay man and they inspired me to be more kind and giving. I finally had real idols in music, who were empowering me to get more engaged with the world around me instead of hiding away from it. Olly’s GQ Man of the Year speech also hit me deeply in much the same way Troye’s Speech at GLAAD had as well. Here was someone who was not only open & honest about their homosexuality, but was encouraging others to be more comfortable with their real selves. Olly was telling you to get rid of your shame and live your best and most honest life possible because denying who you are was only going to make you more miserable. Olly talked in depth too about how suicide among males is way too high and one of the reasons is because we condition men to not be more open and honest about their emotions. Olly went on to say that our culture’s definition of a man is way too restrictive, very out of date and needs to change soon so we don’t lose more men to suicide and depression. As a gay man who had been told his whole life to suppress his more feminine qualities in order to make straight people more comfortable around me and therefore like me more, this speech from Olly felt radical even if it should have been obvious to me all along. Again I was finally waking up to the fact that I had been conditioned into hiding parts of myself from a culture that was uncomfortable with homosexuality. The toll this suppression was taking on me both mentally and physically was finally becoming clear thanks to Queer musicians like Olly.

And then I discovered the Years & Years' fan base. I joined a few Years & Years groups on Facebook and it didn't take long for me to realize that Years & Years fans are just as great as the band and their music. They made me feel welcome instantly and it felt like I had joined a family more than a fan base. The Years & Years fans look out for each other and help each other out when needed. The Years & Years fans also only want the best for Olly, Mikey and Emre and don’t get upset or too critical over every little thing Years & Years does. As someone who has joined many different groups of fandom online over the years this is usually not the case as many fans of pop stars, and pop culture in general, can sometimes come across as very entitled and can be very vicious and callous at times too. Yet, there was such a huge amount of positivity within the Years & Years fan base that I had not experienced with say Grunge, Batman or Comic Book fandom online. I would soon experience in person just how great the Years & Years fan base was when I went to see Years & Years live. More on that next time.