Troye Sivan, you're my number one (pop) boy
A long-gestated review of his third album Something To Give Each Other.
In my freelance work I write a lot of album reviews. And though I’ll get access to a stream a decent amount of time in advance in order to get a gauge on it, I think there’s a lot of value in letting a body of work marinate over a really long period of time before coming to absolute conclusions. In doing so, the sense in previously perceived contradictions can reveal itself, increased life experience can see the music re-shape with relatability, and some tunes can just straight-up grow on you (just look at Pitchfork’s humble practice of retroactive ratings!).
Accordingly, I played the long game with Troye Sivan’s third album Something To Give Each Other. It came out in October 2023 and, now, 6 months later, I have finally some thoughts …
On Something To Give Each Other, Troye Sivan emerges cooler than ever, self-aware and club bound. The tight 10-song execution deals in relationship appraisals, at once lugubrious and lustful, liberated and lucid. Following the contours of his infatuation, indecision and euphoria, the tensions are perfectly tempered, revelling in tender mess and hedonistic highs. Poetically, on STGEO, Sivan’s Trojan horse is ketamine.
Sivan feeds off house, synth and classic pop sounds, taking notes from the urtexts of dynamic genre-bending popular production: Kanye West’s 808 and Heartbreaks, Frank Ocean’s Blonde, and everything Robyn, not to mention the ecstatic substratum of Daft Punk. With no pre-fab or filler tracks, this pristine party record belies serious yearning and his most evocative lyrics to date; blunt and knowing, his sentiments never come off as slight. He’s always been contemplative, but now strikes with a wiser wit. Delightfully physical and embodied, STGEO builds on the new-found sexual freedom expressed on sophomore album Bloom.
Opener Rush is strong and taut pop that relocates a Club Tropicana sensibility to Berlin and mainlines a good time. An ode to temperance, it is not. Booming voices coagulate in the chanting, saturnalian chorus (“I FEEL THE RUSH / ADDICTED TO YOUR TOUCH”) and, beckoning with body rolls, not hands, every assertion that “it’s so good, it’s so good” is an Epicurean invitation.
What’s The Time Where You Are is a longing missive for a lover. With warm calibration, the winding melody drags while the syncopated beat drives, all while evoking the balmy colour of a Pedro Almodovar film. Then, on One Of Your Girls, as Sivan’s crushing desire is all-consuming, his sense of self proves increasingly precarious. It is a weightless track but never frothy - the breezy sonics are freighted with tortuous limerence. It’s a feat of vulnerability, cloaked in a winding synth groove that meets a fragile spoken word not unlike that of 10cc’s I’m Not In Love, deepened in poignancy by its vocoder effect. It’s at once playful (“You should insure that waist / the highest policy you can get”) and piercing (“Baby, let me plead my case // “give me a call if you ever get desperate”).
The half-way point is marked by a departure into the down-tempo, as if he’s fashioned a pulpit in the middle of Berghain, to express laments before returning to the upper atmosphere of the dancefloor. He impresses with a very mature sound on Still Got It, as an organ punctuates lingering feelings after a break up. The arresting dance between clarity and distortion stirs, crashes, and yips, calling to mind the many careening outros on Blonde. Similarly operating with Ocean’s fluctuating sombre, “Can’t Go Back, Baby" is a pensive highlight that ruminates on oppressive memory (“I wish you weren’t dead to me, so much to miss in you”).
Got Me Started kickstarts the fun again in a very savvy, compelling way - sampling the endlessly kinetic Shooting Stars by Bag Raiders, and so delivering the first real sublimation of an iconic meme into a credible song. The irresistible vigour of its house beat sets the scene for a sprawling night of fun (“We should experiment to the detriment of whoever’s on the couch”). On a track like this, Sivan shows what a polished star he is, injecting even throwaway pre-chorus whispers of “let’s go!” with a precision reminiscent of the breathy, pointed ad-libs of revered foremother Britney Spears.
Over a chewy beat, Silly is eager and dolly (a ditsy vibe employed to great effect by Sivan’s female peers and past collaborators, Charli XCX on 2022’s Crash, and Ariana Grande on 2020’s Positions). Here, his soft, fine vocals appear julienne-cut and present a dynamism comparable to The Weeknd (where even basic “la-la-las” are elevated). Honey is simply beatific; a sweet spot where carnal desire and emotional epiphany intersect (“Give me the courage to say all the shit I mean, yeah / Give me a song to rock your body, a lucid dream, yeah”). Sivan’s vocal layering here vibrates the senses like the sight of a mirage or pinwheel in motion.
How to Stay With You is a relaxed, mid-tempo closer that, amusingly, doesn’t reach any instructive solutions on the whole love situation - “I’m a little bit fucked on this / I’m a little bit out of time to spend with you / Baby, turn around, give me one more kiss”. A saxophone gradually comes to the song’s foreground, playing us out with a sweet, easy funk.
STGEO is a confident, cogent body of work that feels cumulative at this stage in Sivan’s career. It is not a series of big, left field swings, but a consistent and considered evolution, one that maintains the signature melancholy and fluidity of his debut, while moving towards sophisticated centrist pop that excites with its infectious vitality and punch. Defying Twink Death, Sivan sits comfortably as our best pop boy du jour - outclassing one Mr Styles any day of the week.