Will Young was "obsessed" with making a pop record when he turned 40.
The ‘All the Songs’ hitmaker had previously turned his back on his chart career but he admitted celebrating the milestone birthday made him want to turn the tables on "ageism" and prove he could still make a great commercial album.
He told Gay Times: "I think there is a little bit of a sea change. I don’t think you have to be young now to be a popstar. This is what it is to be a popstar at 40 and it’s f***ing amazing. This album was about making really good pop music. Not s**t music because I can’t bear that.
"I constantly have this thing in my head about being 40 and making a pop record. I don’t know why I was obsessed with it. I’m still slightly obsessed with it.
"I think it’s a bit of, ‘This is how it’s done actually’. I don’t think it’s arrogance but I feel like the industry can be ageist – more towards women – and I feel like, ‘Well, flip the table on it.’ "
The ‘Leave Right Now’ singer also admitted he "didn’t want" to write all the songs for the album because he wanted to remove the stress from the record-making process.
He said: "I just wanted to do it really simply. I didn’t want to do it the way it had been done before. It was about eliminating things that are stressful for me and extending the things that are joyful.
"I didn’t want to write all the songs. There’s somany amazing songwriters out there and I just hadn’t done it this way for about four albums. I didn’t really understand why.
"Every album, I’d always say, ‘Oh c’mon, how many bloody amazing songs are out there?’… Weirdly, of course, because the stress is off, I ended up writing the two singles."
Will Young ‘obsessed’ with turning tables on ‘ageism’ with new album
