Olly Alexander releases Eurovision 2024 song entry
Olly Alexander has released his new single Dizzy, which he will perform at the Eurovision Song Contest 2024.
The Years & Years singer, 33, will compete for the UK during the international singing competition in Malmo, Sweden, in May, following the country’s victory at the 2023 contest with the song Tattoo by Loreen.
Alexander said he and British producer Danny L Harle were inspired to write the song by music from the 1980s that they love, including from London pop duo Erasure, British DJ Adamski and the Pet Shop Boys.
“I wrote the song last summer with Danny L Harle, we started off with the word Dizzy because it just popped into my head and I liked it,” he said.
“I was thinking about fun things that could make you dizzy and I remember saying ‘dizzy from your kisses’, so the song is about feeling such an intense swell of emotion for someone they totally turn your world upside down and inside out.”
Alexander said he shared the belief that “music should transport you somewhere magical” and that the pair “wanted to describe this magical place in the song”.
“A place of beautiful gardens, eternal flowers and time turning endlessly in an ecstatic loop,” he said.
“We took the feeling of dizziness and put that into the production, so there’s a lot of undulating arpeggios, lilting harmonies and counter rhythms in the backing vocals.”
The music video for the song, which was directed by Colin Solal Cardo, is set for release at 8am on Friday.
Alexander has previously scored five top 10 UK singles and two number one albums with his band Years & Years.
He has also starred in a number of TV programmes, including the seventh series of teen drama Skins and It’s A Sin on Channel 4, which saw him receive a Bafta nomination for his role as Ritchie Tozer.
Pop singer Mae Muller represented the UK last year at the Eurovision Song Contest, held at Liverpool’s M&S Bank Arena, and came second-to-last with I Wrote A Song.
The two Eurovision semi-finals will be broadcast live on BBC One on May 7 and 9, while the grand final will take place on May 11.