“Dua Lipa and all the big pop stars are awesome, but how many times can you sing about a lover not being good enough?” Bring Me The Horizon’s Oli Sykes critiques pop music, names the artist he thinks represents what a “pop star should be”

Oli Sykes and Dua Lipa — (Image credit: Getty Images)

Bring Me The Horizon vocalist Oli Sykes has given his thoughts on the state of modern pop and named the musician he thinks represents how the genre should evolve.

In a new interview with NME, the 37-year-old was asked about his band’s recent collaboration with Nordic pop act Aurora, who appears on the song Limousine on new album Post Human: Nex Gen.

“Aurora for me is what a pop star should be, what the next wave of pop stars should look like; someone that has the songs, but is a real person who dares to speak what they believe in, who gives a shit about the world,” Sykes said of the Norwegian singer/songwriter.

Sykes is then asked, “Is that something lacking in pop?”, to which he answers: “Dua Lipa and all the big pop stars are awesome, but I do sometimes get the sense of, ‘How many times can you sing about a lover not being good enough?’”

He continues: “I do find that with a lot of pop albums: you’ve found the thing that makes you big and you’re sticking to it.

“With Aurora, it’s like a constant desire to be something more, to push pop and use that platform for good. She is what the next generation of pop stars will look like. The younger generation will want something with something tangible, something with actual substance, you know.”

In the same interview, Sykes also shot down the notion of Bring Me The Horizon ever being the subjected of a film.

“We’ll never do one of them,” he says.

“Our story is a very slow, long climb to the top. No one died. Every time someone’s like, ‘Do you want to do a documentary, I’m like, ‘Fuck no!’”

Sykes continues: “Look at a band like Foo Fighters – they’ve had the most insane story ever, and I still don’t want to watch that documentary. No offence. I just don’t care.

“[Singer/guitarist Dave Grohl] has been through so much, lost so many people, and I still don’t wanna watch it. So why would you wanna watch a Bring Me The Horizon one?”

Bring Me The Horizon surprise-released Post Human: Nex Gen on May 24. It was their first release since the departure of longtime keyboardist/producer Jordan Fish late last year and received generally positive feedback.

“Chaotic, confusing and nonsensical, Post Human: Nex Gen is a record that feels like it shouldn’t work – but, surprisingly, that’s also why it does,” Metal Hammer critic Emily Swingle wrote in a 3.5-star review.

“We’re not sure whether this will herald the next generation of metalcore just yet, but there’s something incredibly human burrowed within these abrasively buzzing electronics.”

Bring Me The Horizon played their first show since the release of Post Human: Nex Gen at Mystic Festival in Gdansk, Poland, on June 8, which Hammer awarded a 4.5-star review.

The band will play more European festival slots up until the end of July, then play standalone dates in Japan and Brazil.

See the full list of shows and get tickets via the Bring Me The Horizon website.

Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Metal Hammer and Prog, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, NME and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.