[REVIEW] Troye Sivan - She’s the Best: A lush and messy exploration of yearning and primal desire

Like most people after an excess of hedonism and partying, Aussie superstar Troye Sivan found himself at a crossroads. In 2023, he released Something To Give Each  Other, which gave Sivan his iconic pop star moment, complete with headlining sold-out arena shows and a co-headlining triumph with Charli XCX; on the aptly named Sweat Tour. It was a beaming display of commanding pop music infused with the collective feeling of communion on the dance floor. Yet, with all parties, the speakers have got to be turned off at some point, and you’re left lying on your bedroom floor churning through the internal dialogue. And with that: She’s The Best was born. The accurate way to describe this album is that it's the emotional hangover from the big mainstream dance party.  Leaning into many elements that made me fall in love with Sivans music at the age of 14,  while also wearing its unevenness and overindulgence on its sleeve. 

The title track opening the album presents this crystal clear. It bounces along with trip hop drums and skittering percussion layered with sitars and a crowded amount of vocal samples, as Troye enters a spoken word monologue dedicated to the women in his life. It’s deliberately tongue-in-cheek: “Great smile, and a cum stain on her dress” and refuses to take things too seriously while still feeling like a genuine love letter to the women that raised and shaped him. Troye sings deliberately as a background character, feeling like a fly on the wall, watching his girls apply their contour and adjust their dresses, swaying to the music in the background. (The Vulcan-eared among you will also hear Miss XCX in the  chorus, another nice touch…)  

‘Party’, the album’s second single, fares better as a part of the overall work than it did as a standalone release, while there’s something that holds me back from fully embracing the track. It's got everything a pop hit should have: addictive lyrics, a bumping baseline and a commitment to staying fully in the groove. But yet, the Madonna sample of the  chart-topping ‘Music’ feels wholly under-utilised, and I find it really hard to believe it took a team of 7 songwriters to write essentially the same line 8 times with slight alterations.  

It feels more frustrating when the previous track ‘Canada Dry’ presents what ‘Party’ tries so hard to do so effortlessly. It glides along the dance floor with a sultry house beat that absolutely oozes with sex appeal, feeling like a direct inspiration from Madonna’s defining album Confessions On The Dance Floor. It’s a gloriously horny track not just in lyrical content, but with the falsetto performances from Troye layered over not-so-subtle vocal samples of a sexual grunting nature: “Wanna offer my body to ya, for ya to try”. I can only describe the last 30 seconds of this track as a musical representation of a literal orgasm, as his vocals are warped to ‘Daft Punk’ levels as the drums pick up and the pressure  builds.  

The singles also presented listeners with a different expectation of what the main bulk of the final product actually sounds like. This is a very queer album about yearning. A man that might exist, that also might not. He might have met him in the past, or he’s yet to meet him. But the album isn’t interested in figuring that out; it's more focused on the feelings of this fantasy, which feels incredibly upfront and refreshingly embarrassing for such a mainstream pop album. Case in point: the track ‘Embarrassingly’. I dare you to  try and seek out a song about masturbating over your ex-boyfriend that is this lushly arranged and so tight in its production. The main production this time round is courtesy of  George Daniel of The 1975 and Bleachers’ Jack Antonof, which I say with relief is the most interesting production from both producers in quite a few years for me. (Especially  Mr Antonoff. I have not been this enamoured with his production since 2017’s Melodrama by fellow superstar Lorde) The acoustic guitar floating lightly along this track as Sivan declares “At least I can be alone when I fall into you” hits with a tinge of pain and acceptance, that’s bolstered to new highs when the song kicks into fifth gear near the  latter half, with the guitar chords absolutely soaring before the last chorus. It presents Sivan as a professional yearner with a knack for effective dramatics.  

My biggest issue with the album is that it’s chock full of ballads and slow starts over each track, which eventually unfold into larger-than-life choruses and declarations of fantastical desire. However, with so many ballads sandwiched between each other, it feels like a  sonic workout to get to the meat of the record. Allowing some tracks like ‘Le Boy’ and  ‘Cowboy’ to not linger in my brain as much as I desired, even when they do kick into gear eventually. ‘Love So Big It Hurts’ is another victim to the self-indulgence, with  arrangements that wouldn't feel too out of place in Welsh artist Duffy’s debut Rockferry,  but sadly feel left on the side of the road when compared to the vocal performance that accompanies its delicately crafted sound.  

The main reason these tracks don’t have the gut punch I want from them is that they either follow after some of the album’s strongest moments or they get sandwiched between them. Neither outcome leaves me with hard concrete feelings about them.  ‘Cowboy’ is adorably honest in its display of tenderness and yet, just before this, ‘I Do  This For You’ kicks off with some of the punchiest beats on the record along with a deep cut sample of ‘Dream’ by trip-hop collective Forest for the Trees. It’s quite reminiscent  of his previous albums, with fantastic use of Jessica Pratt and Bag Raiders tracks in its sampling.  

The album has an abundance of moments like this. ‘Sex Star’ has a great grounded element to it, with flourishes of twinkly synths and gentle guitars courtesy of Finneas while exploring the topic of changing yourself for another, as discussed in Troye’s past work such as ‘STUD' and ‘Still Got It’. Then ‘Troye Meets World’ straight after feels like such a whiplash tonally and sonically: Light DnB elements with an ambient feel mixed with rowdy vocal distortion and glorious flute inclusions that are such an up-tempo treat to the ears; it seeps into my mind the way ‘Sex Star’ struggles to do. 

‘FF’ however, is easily the cream of the crop. Sonically, lyrically and vocally, this is the biggest star of the show. It’s such an unflinching representation of desire and longing. At the same time, while presenting a sexual desire in such a gut punch of a chorus: “Gone are the days of waiting for pleasure”. A fascination of mine since ‘One of Your Girls’ is  Troye’s use of Auto-Tune and vocoders to present this element of delusion in his lyrics. The guitars absolutely kick in, then stop, allow some strings and synths to let the song breathe, then belt out again as his voice soars while he declares: “Me and my babe, fucking forever, and ever, and ever”. It's the culmination of every sound and desire he’s explored in his decade as a musician, allowing him to rip his heart out and serve it on the most lushly crafted plate one could imagine. 

Such is the case with the album’s closer ‘Lost Time’, his most rhythmic end for any of his albums by far, while never sacrificing the dramatics. It’s also a statement on how much of a respected star he truly is without the chart-topping. Lily Rose-Depp delivers a French spoken word performance over hopeful riffs and a deliberate roughness to the sound that  leans into the idea of Sivan on his knees, longing to make up for lost time with his forever lover. It's sombre without being melodramatic, and closes this album on such a high note  that I find myself very excited to see what producers and writers he jumps in the studio with in the future.  

‘She’s The Best’ is at its peak when it leans into the fantasy of the mystery lovers and past flames with tenacity and fervour. At its worst, it relies on the overused formula of love balladry and straightforward dance pop that threatens to derail such a personal and gut punch of a record. But I can’t help but think that’s the point.  

There are no real innuendos in the lyrics; it’s pure, unadulterated sexual and emotional desire, presented in a forward tone. It makes the warped delivery of “Turn my bussy out” on 2023’s ‘How to Stay With You’ feel like a mere feather in the wind compared to the bold queerness he expresses on each track here. The album has me pondering what-if scenarios: what if George Michael wasn’t hounded by the media? What if Stephen Gately wasn’t outed by tabloids? What if Freddie Mercury was able to sing fully  unfiltered about his lovers? This isn’t to undermine these artists’ impact on pop music and pop culture as a whole, but rather a testament to how confessional and free-feeling this album is overall. I think that, even with its unevenness and the hard lean into self indulgence, this is still an album that should be experienced to be believed. Troye himself doesn't think this album will chart; however, he can be sure that he got a lot of feelings off his chest. Yearning in public is back, baby, and I’m so here for it.  

★★★½