WORTH A LOOK?: ***1/2

TRACKLIST: Polari; Cupid’s Bow; I Know; Shadow Of Love; Make Me A Man; Dizzy; Archangel; Miss You So Much; When We Kiss; Whisper In The Waves; Beautiful; Heal You; Language

Duets with Kylie Minogue, Pet Shop Boys and Elton John mean the groundwork has been laid and that this 1st official solo album’s predominantly uptempo, 80s-influenced musical theme makes perfect sense.

• Read on for reasons including how to see Alexander on his tour including the London Palladium this year

Lead single Dizzy was a song of the month for us and we said: ‘Co-written with Dua Lipa songwriter Daniel Harle, Dizzy isn’t quite the banger we were hoping for but it is extremely catchy and we think it’s more likely to top the charts at home than win Eurovision.’

It peaked at 42 in the UK last year and finished 18th in the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest with a performance that was criticised as too gay but was visually groundbreaking and weakened only by its adequate live vocal and the Pet Shop Boys go Melodifestivalen light of the track.

We assume it was chosen from this already recorded album and the muscular bass of Cupid’s Bow, also a song of the month for us, would have perhaps been a better representative of Polari. We said: ‘It has a thumpingly muscular bassline courtesy of Dua Lipa producer Danny L. Harle that takes aim and hits its dancefloor bullseye.’

Current single When We Kiss also hints at what might have been in Malmo with a dirtier and grungier feel that would have been more appropriately expressed by the homoerotic locker room hurtling through space vibe of the Eurovision live performance.

Polari is a form of slang incorporating Italianate words, rhyming, and Romani, used originally as a kind of secret language in England by people in theatres, fairgrounds, markets and adopted by some gay people in the 20th century.

It’s a neat idea for an album theme for an artist wishing to trumpet their homosexuality but also to remind of the coded language that had to be used in the not too distant past when to do so was to break the law.

It’s a shame then that the music isn’t as groundbreaking as an artist like Charli XCX who sought slightly more underground inspirations from the past for her highly acclaimed brat LP.

Archangel is a suitably emotional ballad but elsewhere Make Me A Man is so Erasure it was actually written by the duo’s Vince Clarke.

We’re looking forward to catching Alexander on the tour promoting this album at London’s Palladium and check out the ticket link at the bottom of this article for dates across Europe if you’d like to show him support after what appears to have been a rather bruising Eurovision.

Polari, then, is a great concept and has its moments but we suspect Alexander is still capable of penning an album with a little more emotional insight about the London gay experience in the ’20s than this collection perhaps offers.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Olly Alexander Tickets
• Have you heard an Olly Alexander song before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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