On She’s the Best, the single that gives its title to Troye Sivan’s latest album, he’s completely taken with a woman who smokes, stays out until Monday and answers to nobody. Nicole Kidman brings her to life in the music video, looking impossibly cool as she moves through the world without a care. It’s funny, a little filthy and strangely moving. Sivan isn’t trying to be her; he’s happy just to watch her exist, which is genuinely lovely: there’s something special about a gay pop star being so taken with women, not as romantic interests but as people whose confidence and freedom are worth celebrating. The album cover extends that feeling, featuring a woman far removed from the ultra-thin ideal still celebrated across fashion and celebrity culture. For an album so interested in desire, it’s refreshing to see a different kind of woman at its centre.
The influence of Charli xcx is difficult to ignore. In the wake of brat, club-kid aesthetics, knowing hedonism and women who refuse to behave have become familiar pop currency. Yet She’s the Best has a playful unpredictability of its own. Canada Dry is smooth, sensual and just suggestive enough to soundtrack a flirtation at the bar, while Troye Meets World suddenly breaks into a drum and bass rush reminiscent of an old Dreamcast game. The flute at the end is an unexpected delight. Party, meanwhile, has emerged as the album’s viral moment, bringing its club-ready energy and Madonna’s Music sample into the online world. It’s enjoyable how readily the record moves between these moods, never quite settling into one sound.
Still, Sivan’s vision of queer freedom belongs to a particular world, shaped by celebrity, fashion and a largely white Western pop culture. The popularity of Party also speaks to how readily certain versions of cool travel through the internet, becoming shared reference points. Sivan’s affection for the women who inhabit this world feels sincere, but the album rarely looks beyond its own social circle. There’s a tension between celebrating people who refuse to fit the mould and remaining within familiar ideas of what being desirable, cool and culturally relevant looks like. That doesn’t cancel out the pleasure of the album, but it does make its version of freedom feel more limited than it first appears.
Musically, the moments that probably stay with the listener most are those in which Sivan lets the polish crack. Love So Big It Hurts uses distorted guitars and abstract noise to give its grand declarations some real weight. On Embarrassingly, delicately layered vocals soften an acoustic confession without making it feel overworked. Sex Star is even more revealing: beneath its sweet melody and piano sits the desire to be wanted so badly that you might reshape yourself for someone who barely sees you. And on I Do This for You, enormous, soaring production meets a vocal full of anxiety. This contrast is great: the music reaches for something almost euphoric while the person at its centre seems uncertain of his own worth. Beneath the glossy surfaces, Sivan keeps returning to the less glamorous business of wanting to be enough for somebody.
By the time FF and Lost Time arrive, the nightlife fantasy has given way to the prospect of loving someone you haven’t even met yet. FF has the cinematic sweep of a romantic film (the music video confirms it), holding onto the excitement and uncertainty of wanting something to last. Lily-Rose Depp’s spoken introduction in French on Lost Time leads into a wish to stop being busy and spend time at home making things with someone you love. It’s a lovely, almost embarrassingly sincere place to end.
She’s the Best wears its contemporary pop influences openly, but one comes away enjoying it for more than its obvious pleasures. Sivan is just as interested in the awkwardness of wanting to be loved as he is in the fantasy of being untouchable. That tension gives the album its warmth, and it’s what made me want to keep listening.
