Years & Years singer Olly Alexander has hit back at a recent picture that appeared to show a record shop labelling the band’s music as ‘gay’.

One of the band’s fans posted a picture taken in an unnamed record shop on Thursday evening (May 26th), with the three-piece group’s debut album Communion filed under the category ‘gay’. While the authenticity of the image isn’t verified – the BBC claimed that it was taken in Germany - the band’s frontman Alexander responded to it.

Re-posting the original tweet, the 25 year old singer wrote: “um ok let's talk about this” followed by “if u think my music is gay that's cool, I love being gay and I love my gay music but can u really label a sound or style of music ‘gay’.”

He then laughed at the idea of labelling and categorising different types of art as ‘gay’, continuing: “hi what style of music do u make? Gay”, and then “me and my gay ass love gay music and being gay is the best! Bye h8rs!”

A number of other musicians, such as The 1975’s singer Matt Healy and Queen frontman Adam Lambert, commented in support.

The electronically-influenced pop trio recently announced they’re participating in a Party In The Parc concert on August 12th in Cardiff, an event organised by Pride Cymru.

Their debut album stormed to number one in the UK albums chart when it was released in July last year, their single ‘King’ having rocketed to the top of the singles chart earlier in the year. They’re currently in the process of writing and recorded their second record. Last week, they pulled out of the remainder of their American tour dates supporting fellow Brit Ellie Goulding, after Alexander fell ill.

More: Years & Years aren’t ‘precious’ about releasing downloads of their material [archive]