On 'She's The Best,' Troye Sivan takes the party to unexpected places

Throughout the last two decades, Troye Sivan has taken on all kinds of titles in pop culture: Child actor. Teen vlogger. Model. Pop star.

The Australian singer-songwriter grew up in the spotlight, cementing his status as a new kind of 21st-century public figure when he came out as gay to his half a million YouTube subscribers in 2013. Shortly after, Sivan signed to a major label and began releasing dreamy, synth-pop anthems that climbed charts around the world.

His 2023 album, Something to Give Each Other, marked a turning point in his career. Sexy and sleek, it packed a punch of high-BPM earworms and sultry confessions that presented Sivan as a grown-up, self-assured auteur who could fully command center stage. The choreo-driven singles "Rush" and "Got Me Started" became viral hits, earned Sivan his first Grammy nominations and even spawned a Timothée Chalamet and boygenius spoof on Saturday Night Live.

Soon after came "Brat summer," the mainstream explosion of his friend and collaborator Charli xcx's hedonistic hyperpop. In 2024, riding that rush and releasing the joint single "Talk Talk" for the Brat remix album, Sivan and Charli co-headlined the Sweat Tour; it transformed arenas into sweaty, strobe-light-filled nightclubs. Sivan says it was a thrilling moment in his career, but it also didn't paint a full picture of what he was going through at the end of his 20s.

His new album, She's The Best (out Oct. 9 via Interscope), gives the now 31-year-old star more breathing room to dig into darker feelings. Sometimes glitchy, verging on gloomy, at other times bright and bombastic, Sivan's fourth studio LP still pays homage to a long lineage of queer dance floors — with music videos set in the medieval era and modern-day NYC drag shows — but it also excavates a deeper layer of the star's desires.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Isabella Gomez Sarmiento, NPR: You spent a lot of time — I believe it was around five years — working on your last album, Something to Give Each Other. What was the process for She's the Best like for you?

I should not have done this, but we started the day after the Grammy Awards. I think it was sort of a panic response, almost, to coming off of the wave of the last album and that high. I was like, "I'm ready, let's go." And then I started the next day and I was like, "I'm not ready." I took some time, and basically, I think the thing that was confusing to me in the beginning of making this album was [that] there's almost two sides to it. One is I was having these experiences of being on stage and feeling like this really self-actualized version of myself where I was feeling a real, genuine sense of confidence and connection to the world. I was on tour with Charli xcx. There was a lot of partying going on. I think there was almost a sense of bravado there, you know?

Then what started to happen was there would be this crazy tension because I didn't feel like that all the time. I would go home to the hotel or wherever I was staying, and I think that there was — and sort of still is — a very deep sense of longing and loneliness that maybe was a bit exacerbated by the experiences that I was having. So when I started making the album, I was like, "Well, I want to honor this side of myself, which feels very connected and confident. I also want to be honest about what's going on." Over time, I realized that the only way to make something really, really true is to acknowledge the tension in my life. So the album is this journey, and it's intentionally got this sort of whiplash thing that happens a little bit where you go from a very intimate song to all of a sudden this song called "Troye Meets World" and it's like, "I'm back!"

I was going to ask about that, because the singles and the top of the album — it feels like a little bit of a fake out, right? You have this really high energy, like Troye coming off the Sweat Tour, and then you start to peel back some layers as the album goes on.

I really do see albums as the most detailed, layered way for me to document my life and catalog chapters in my life. If I do it well, to me, there's so many layers of how you tell the story. There's the lyric, but then there's also the melody and then there's also the sonic production. And to me, [She's The Best] does sort of tell the whole story. It ends on a sort of hopeful note. It ends with this song called "Lost Time," which is essentially a manifestation song. It's to this guy who I haven't met yet. The first half of it is this sort of beautiful love song, and then later in the song it says, "Someday soon I wanna meet ya." It just kind of really accurately ties up the whole thing and looks to the future because a lot of the album is like a love album to someone I don't know.

I want to take it back to the first track, "She's the Best." This song, in particular, and I think a lot of the album, has this messaging around the women in your life. What do they mean to you? How have they impacted you?

I think I spend so much time thinking about myself because of the nature of my work. I would like to think that I'm not an insanely self-centered person, but a lot of my days are centered around me. And then I also spend a lot of my life, because I want a boyfriend, thinking about men. I feel quite tortured by both of those subjects.

I think that in writing "She's The Best," it was me saying something that I've wanted to say and not really known how to for such a long time, which is that in the times in my life where I haven't always felt safe or protected by men, women have always been there. Growing up in the closet, having basically only girlfriends and then in my professional life, I've always been super comfortable in the orbit of a woman. I just have such deep gratitude that I wanted to share, and I wanted to share it in a way that hopefully didn't ever feel patronizing or too grandiose. You know, that's why I think a lot of the lyrics are so specific in that song. It's this collage in my head of all of these women and feminine people in general that have provided me with a sense of safety, a sense of inspiration and empowerment. Also, in a way, it's a love letter to the feminine side of myself, which I fought so hard for so long, and now I really, really appreciate.

It's interesting because I think so much of the discourse around pop music is about the "main pop girls," and there's not really as much of an equivalent in terms of like giant male pop stars, particularly ones that are experimenting with gender expression and doing drag and singing about queer love and sexuality. You're doing all of those things. How do you see your place in that pop landscape right now?

I sort of see it the same way that I [saw] myself socially, growing up. I never felt like one of the girls. I was always hanging out with the girls, but I was always like the girls plus Troye. I definitely didn't feel like one of the boys because there was this crazy masculinity thing that I did not feel a part of. And in a weird way, I think it's been the biggest blessing of my life is that I've always felt a bit other. Like, I'm a deeply, deeply uncompetitive person. I don't feel like I am looking over my shoulder to compare myself to anyone, you know what I mean? So I don't really know where I sit in the whole thing.

Sometimes maybe the reaction that I feel online is a little bit more in line with what the girls get. Then other times I'm like, no, because the discourse around "pop girls" is insane. It's absolutely insane. I'm grateful that I don't have it to that extent. It's sort of a weird middle ground.

On "She's The Best," Charli xcx does some of the backing vocals. You guys obviously have a long history of working together, you toured together. Her husband, George Daniel of The 1975, also worked on the song with you. What was that like? Is that song partially an ode to her in any way?

Yeah, I think you can feel Charli on this album in general. I think that the way that I feel her in this music is because it's impossible to be around her and not feel inspired. She's so focused and she really, really throws herself at everything that she does, and that's really infectious to be around. She made me feel like a superhuman version of myself, just by being around her.

To me a song like "Party" has an intentional wink towards a Charli-esque sort of song because it tells the story of this time in my life where I was experiencing being so closely in her orbit. She's definitely one of the characters that was in my head when I [was] writing "She's the Best," alongside my sister, and my mom, and my teachers at school and my two best friends. So then to be able to have her voice in the chanting at the end, it just felt like a really nice little nod to that. I know that for George, it's obviously very special because she's the best to him as well.

I want to ask about the Madonna sample. It rocks. How did you think about conceptualizing it in this song, "Party"? Did you come to the sample first or were you already building on the song? 

It started with the moment before the sample, which in the song there's quite a lot of drums and things going on and then everything kind of cuts out for a bit before the sample comes in. And in my head — because I think super visually when I'm making the music — we're in like a top wide shot of seeing everyone in this club. Then all of a sudden, we're in this ultra close-up, tight on someone's face at the party. All the music cuts out, and it's just this heavy breathing, the sound of somebody really losing themselves in the moment on the dancefloor. So it's this heavy breathing and this like sub-bass kind of thing that happens. Then slowly but surely, "Music" by Madonna fades in, and she's talking about how music makes the people come together.

To me, that ascension where your eyes are closed and you can feel the heat from the lights on your face and you can feel the bass in your chest, and you can also feel the bodies around you — that feeling is the thing that I crave the most, and that's always what I'm seeking when I go out. I've had that moment to "Music" by Madonna on the dance floor. So in my head, it's almost like a sound design choice where it's a storytelling thing. It placed me in the room.

What's your relationship to partying like at this point in your life?

The first word that comes to my mind is grateful. I've never really said this before, but I don't do drugs and I barely drink, and I have a really deep appreciation for partying. I think that part of growing up was, you know, the first time I went out in Berlin, for example, realizing that there's plenty of sober people around who were all there for something greater than each of us. It sounds corny to say, but I just think there's something so beautiful about a group of people getting together to listen to music and move their bodies.

I have this weird thing where sometimes when I'm on the dance floor, I imagine everyone's skeletons in their bodies, and I'm like, "This is kind of a hilarious thing that we're all doing. Why are we all, like, moving like this?" I think about it when I see a baby dancing as well. I think that there's something so innate about the connection between the body and music and then how that also connects you to the people around you. That is such a beautiful thing to me, and it's sort of the guiding light in my life and always has been.

What were some of the musical references that you were pulling from on this album?

I felt a really natural pendulum swing from my last album. I was trying to make this sort of very perfect pop, which I still love to do and probably will want to do for the rest of my life. But I was also very curious about creating something that felt very alive and not too contrived or controlled. I was listening to a lot of music that felt like it was coming more spontaneously than being too considered. Everything from Arthur Russell to the Avalanches to the Radio Dept. to Cornelius. It was a bit all over the place. Then, of course, I'm forever listening to Janet [Jackson]. Again, all of these things being true at once. I'm hoping that people can hear the album and just be like, "You know what? This is a real person. This is not a product."

Even some of the vocal delivery — the choice to do the singles in spoken word. I feel like you got to hear these different sides of your voice that maybe weren't as fully on display on the last album.

Every album, I think, I find a new part of my voice that I'm exploring. For example, on this album, the two singles are sort of the main two spoken moments, but there was something really interesting about that to me. With a song like "She's the Best," with such a grand statement, the idea of singing this sweet melody with such a sweet message gave me the ick. I was like, I want this to feel genuine. I don't want anyone to feel like they're being patronized. I need to deliver this in the most genuine way possible, and that felt like spoken to me.

But then there's also moments where I'm really exploring my falsetto on this album in ways that I haven't felt confident enough to do in the past. Or I'm really singing out on a few songs, as well, and pushing myself. I recorded a lot of the vocals at home for the first time and learned how to produce my own vocals. I think that really freed me a lot as well, because when I'm home alone, I can sound absolutely dreadful trying something that I've never tried before. There's no embarrassment there. So, yes, I'm definitely exploring all aspects of my voice on this album.

This album also goes in a lot of different directions. I'm thinking of songs like "Le Boy" and "Sex Star." There's all of this yearning and romanticism. Where were those feelings coming from for you?

The yearning and romanticism was coming from yearning and romanticism. I have been single for a long time, and I'm 31. My older brother has two kids and a beautiful wife, who's like a sister to me. I grew up in Perth, in Australia. There's not really much of an entertainment industry there. It's the most isolated city in the world. So in my head, that is who I am, you know. And then everything that has happened post has almost felt like a layer on top of what lies underneath, the "real me."

I have had moments where I'm so thrilled with how things have gone in my work life, but there is so much more to me and so much more that I still desire. Sometimes it almost feels like one cannibalizes the other, and I'll have these moments where I'm like, "What am I doing? I need to service this other part of my life more than I do and respect it more than I do." I don't know how people have both, and that has left me feeling, I think, a little bit — I don't want to say hopeless — but definitely in my feelings. I knew that I couldn't just write the side of the album that I'm more comfortable people seeing, which is the idea of connection and music and dance and whatever. I love that. That's 100% true, but it's not the whole story. Then it's this other side of the album that you're talking about.

Was there a freedom or any sort of fear in putting that out there on this part of the album?   

For sure. I mean, it's definitely less sexy. It's very, very nice when you write an album that you can sum up in a single sentence, and this is not that. It's super, super vulnerable. It's the kind of thing where you don't want to admit to anyone like, "Oh yeah, I'm like, kind of lonely." It's just not a nice thing to acknowledge. But I've always written my music very diaristically and I use it as a form of catharsis, so I knew that I had to just go for it.

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