The UK has a weird relationship with Eurovision. We put forward focus-grouped no-hopers (whither “Joe and Jake”???) then get indignant when they inevitably lose. For years, although fans have suggested we follow the rest of Europe and put forward, you know, an actual pop star, that has never happened, for whatever reason – probably because the risk of losing is even higher and even more embarrassing for a known entity. Tap Management, which looks after the likes of Lana Del Rey, Ellie Goulding and formerly Dua Lipa, stepped in to run things in 2022 and steered the UK to No 2 with Sam Ryder – its highest position since 1998 – but stepped away after Mae Muller came second to bottom last year, putting the choice back in the hands of the BBC.
Step forward Olly Alexander, an extremely likable musician who sometimes seems to be on retainer at the Beeb, helming glitzy New Year’s Eve celebrations and the like. It feels as if there is more at stake for him here than just acing Eurovision: his entry, Dizzy, is his first song under his own name after ditching the Years and Years sobriquet. What was a band, on 2015’s lithe Communion and 2018’s more complex Palo Santo, became a de facto solo project after his bandmates left, and 2022’s Night Call failed to catch fire. He was excellent in Channel 4’s 2021 drama It’s a Sin, and heavily – incorrectly – rumoured to be the new Doctor Who, but hasn’t acted since. His music can seem caught between two impulses, with brilliantly heady queer aesthetics and intentions hamstrung by quite sanitised, crowdpleasing synth-pop: a bit CBBC Perfume Genius. There’s the sense that this era really needs to work.
Dizzy also seems caught between warring impulses. Sadly not a cover of Vic Reeves’s Dizzy, it was made with Danny L Harle, formerly of PC Music, who has worked on some of the most experimental pop music of the last decade in collaboration with Charli XCX, Caroline Polachek and Yeule. While Eurovision can very well handle off-its-clackers pop fantasias, Dizzy fulfils a more prosaic vision that you could easily believe as the work of AI: what if the Pet Shop Boys did Eurovision? Dizzy starts with a brazen echo of the chords that introduce their 1987 single It’s a Sin, and you might call it a knowing wink to the Channel 4 show and Alexander’s previous collaborations with Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe if there were anything knowing about Dizzy whatsoever. The chorus echoes that of It’s a Sin, right down to the church bells, the glittering verses sound like the past decade in banging Stuart Price-era PSB and the monotone spoken-word middle eight is pure Tennant. It compares poorly with the actual PSB in 2024: the 60-somethings’ comeback single Loneliness is far more punchy and alive than Dizzy.
Also at odds are the practically 1950s housewifely lyrical concept of being made “dizzy by your kisses” with references to another British synth-pop band who broke through in 1984: “Will you take my hand and spin me / Round and round until the moment never ends,” Alexander sings, invoking Dead or Alive’s sublime You Spin Me Round (Like a Record). That song is raucous, deeply queer and never passive – Pete Burns sounds as if he’s riding a bucking bronco and loving it – whereas Alexander’s delivery is a little workmanlike and supplicating, with none of the vaulting falsetto or darting come-ons that defined his best work. Dizzy isn’t a bad song – it’s perfectly fine – but beyond its very literal, nauseatingly topsy-turvy video, it’s far too safe to leave anyone reeling.
