We had an instrumental that Mark had been working on, and me and Coffee just started singing over it. “We had a week in the countryside and ‘Starstruck’ was a really off-the-cuff moment at the end of one night. I had been listening to Prince and Stevie Wonder and was like, ‘What would a Years & Years song be that really referenced them?’ ‘Consequences’ is about saying ‘You really deserve to suffer for this’ to the people you wish you could say it to.” “As soon as I heard the demo of this song, I was like, ‘This is the opening track to the album.’ I felt like it was a bold statement, signaling the start of the new chapter. “But I like that you can feel all those different feelings in one moment.” Read on as Alexander talks us through Night Call, one song at a time. “There are some of the parts of the record where the optimism is dialed to 10 and then the confusion gets more prominent,” says Alexander. Mostly made in the lockdowns of 20, this is an album about bringing the dance floor to you (“Starstruck,” “Sweet Talker”), but-much like the ’80s music that inspired it-the ebullient pop here also cloaks more painful subjects, from grief (“See You Again”) to heartbreak (“Make It Out Alive”) and, most often, Alexander’s sometimes tricky relationship with intimacy and desire. The answer to those questions arrives in Night Call, Alexander’s first solo record as Years & Years, on which the singer dives headfirst into an after-hours world of dance, disco, and ’80s pop, often fused with eerie elements to produce what he’s calling “spooky pop” (see “Crave” or “Immaculate”). “I had to go back to the drawing board and think, ‘What do I actually want to make? What is Years & Years?’” “It felt like there was these really big events happening and the music I’d been making up to that point didn’t feel relevant to my life anymore or the world outside,” Alexander tells Apple Music. Davies’ intensely moving AIDS drama It’s a Sin. Years & Years-the pop trio the singer/actor had been part of since 2010-had irreparably grown apart, just as Alexander was taking time out to film Russell T. A lot changed for Olly Alexander in the lead-up to Night Call.

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