Years & Years singer: It’s ‘sad’ that gay musicians don’t sing about men
Olly Alexander of Years & Years has hit out at other openly gay singers, who sing about gender-neutral love interests instead of men.
Sam Smith has previously explained he only sings about gender-neutral “lovers” in songs to ensure they are universal and “apply to everyone” – despite straight singers facing no problems singing about opposite-sex love interests.
Speaking to Digital Spy, Olly Alexander of band Years & Years said it was “sad” that gay singers aren’t allowed to sing about men.
He said of his debut album: “It was important for me to get some male pronouns in some of the songs, so I did it for ‘Real’ and ‘Memo’, and then one song on the deluxe.
“It is kind of sad to me that we don’t have gay popstars singing about men using a male pronoun, but that could change hopefully.”
The singer continued: “I think there are a lot of factors involved with mainstream success.
“There are loads of reasons why an artist is successful and I think what people loved about Sam [Smith] was that it felt like it was coming from an authentic place. But I think, yeah, there’s still a way to go.
“I’d like to hear a gay artist express their sexuality in a really open way. That’s something I’ve sort of tried to do a little bit on this album, but to be able to talk about sex is possibly new for gay artists, so I’d like to see that in the mainstream.
He added: “Music does feel like it’s in a much more accepted, tolerant place; even with Miley Cyrus, when she doesn’t identify with either gender, and we’re getting used to these ideas of about non-binary gender, which is a good thing.”
