Troye Sivan has spent the years since releasing his superb album Something to Give Each Other campaigning as pop’s coolest gay provocateur. Now, with his fourth album She’s the Best, he may have cemented that title. Take, for example, the immaculately produced videos released ahead of the album. The title-track video finds Sivan singing his heart out to Nicole Kidman in a New York City dive bar, spliced with shots of drag legends like Sasha Colby doing her iconic hair flips. The aesthetics are simply unmatched, and it all feels rooted in the queer community without coming across as disingenuous.
But cultivating such a vibe doesn’t mean much if the music falls short. Thankfully, She’s the Best is Sivan’s most intriguing album to date. From the opening title track, it’s clear Sivan is brimming with confidence and an assured sense of self. After the success of Something To Give Each Other, it would have been an easy layup to fall back on a similar sound, but he instead expands it further than ever before, while simultaneously proving he’s unafraid to make bold stylistic choices. Even the opening title track eschews the norm for a lead single. On it, Sivan delivers most of the lyrics through spoken word, save for its subdued, sing-along chorus, with one-liners like “Great smile and a cum stain on her dress” and “She takes down an incel on the internet / When she needs just a little unwind.” It does an excellent job of checking expectations at the door.
His typical touchstones remain, but She’s the Best feels most indebted to the many offshoots of dance and pop music of the 1990s. “Canada Dry”, with its slinky, hypnotic house beat, could easily have been a long-lost Madonna track, while the lavish dream pop of “Embarrassingly” shines with its chorus-laden acoustic guitars and aching vocal delivery. Sivan also employs a wider range of sounds and textures. The chugging distortion of the mid-album highlight “Le Boy” soon gives way to gently plucked guitars and a lush string section, creating a mesmerizing contrast. These shifts in texture and tone keep the album engaging, with Sivan repeatedly steering songs in unexpected directions.
Lyrically, She’s the Best is less interested in exploring uncharted territory, with Sivan’s sexually charged lyrics often toeing the line between horny and heartbreak. He’s firmly in his wheelhouse here with writing that reinforces his charismatic flair without revealing much beneath it. In a recent interview, Sivan said some of the tracks felt like the “interior of [his] mind.” Yet between the sexual provocations of “Canada Dry” and a somewhat cliché refrain chanting “Music makes the people come together” on the upbeat “Party”, it can be difficult to discern what that interiority actually reveals.
One clear exception is the soaring “FF”. Here, Sivan balances his sensuality with moments of vulnerability: “We talk about the climate, how the boys are getting violent, and we’re scared as shit / It’s getting kinda obvious, I didn’t go to college, and, baby, you did,” he admits. It’s in these moments, like the bridge of “Embarrassingly”, where Sivan confesses to masturbating to his ex, that we get a glimpse at something deeper than his pitch-perfect persona.
She’s the Best continues Sivan’s trajectory toward a more mature sound with some genuinely ambitious moves. He’s always comfortable inhabiting a cheeky, intimate pop star identity, but his most compelling work emerges when he takes creative risks and opens himself up to vulnerable confessions. Some may argue that Sivan isn’t the most influential pop star or that he leans too heavily on his outspoken queerness, but if the self-assured swagger of She’s the Best is any indication, he probably doesn’t give a fuck what they think.
