Troye Sivan She's the Best

Tracks: She's The Best, Canada Dry, Party, I Do This For You, Cowboy, Embarrassingly, Le Boy, Sex Star, Troye Meets World, FF, Love So Big It Hurts, Lost Time (ft. Lily-Rose Depp)

Label: Interscope

Troye Sivan has spent much of his career occupying an intriguing position in pop: a star whose cultural influence, fashion credentials and devoted fanbase seem considerably larger than his chart statistics might suggest. With collaborators clamouring to work with him and an enviable knack for making queer desire sound like the most natural thing in the world, he has become one of the genre’s most compelling figures. On his fourth album, She's the Best, he makes a convincing case for why his relative freedom from mainstream pop’s demands might be his greatest asset.

Following the sleek, sweat-soaked euphoria of 2023’s Something to Give Each Other, Sivan loosens his grip on conventional pop structures, trading some of that record’s immediate dancefloor gratification for something hazier, stranger and altogether more unpredictable. With Jack Antonoff and The 1975’s George Daniel among the collaborators, the album dips into the alternative dance sounds of the 1990s, weaving together trip-hop, Balearic house, shoegaze and offbeat electronic pop. The result feels less like an attempt to dominate the charts than an invitation into Sivan’s own late-night world.

The title track establishes the mood beautifully. Featuring Charli xcx on backing vocals and accompanied by a video starring Nicole Kidman, it introduces a gloriously unfiltered portrait of an irresistible woman whose appeal lies as much in her recklessness as her beauty. A skittering breakbeat, woozy synthesizers and understated vocal flourishes give the track a wonderfully nostalgic quality, recalling the sophisticated dance-pop that once soundtracked Britain's indie clubs. Charli's presence is fitting, too: her own celebration of chaotic, uncompromising femininity feels like a natural companion to Sivan's mischievous character study.

Elsewhere, Party takes an altogether more minimal approach, building its identity around a familiar Madonna interpolation and Sivan's deliberately detached delivery. It is a curious proposition, more interested in atmosphere than a conventional chorus, but that refusal to play by pop's usual rules is characteristic of the record. The deep-house pulse of Canada Dry is similarly unhurried, while I Do This For You conjures a hazy, sample-heavy soundscape that feels tailor-made for the small hours. There is a distinctly sun-dazed quality to these songs, as though Sivan has stumbled upon a forgotten corner of 1990s dance music and decided to make himself at home.

The album's greatest strength, however, is its ability to marry these unconventional arrangements with melodies that linger long after the music has stopped. Love So Big It Hurts introduces unexpected bursts of distortion into an otherwise accessible pop framework, while Lost Time offsets its sensual atmosphere with skewed synthesizers and a delightfully provocative lyrical turn. Le Boy buries its hook beneath layers of hazy guitars, flirting with shoegaze without sacrificing its underlying pop sensibility. Sivan understands that a great melody need not arrive in pristine packaging; sometimes, the more interesting choice is to obscure it beneath a little noise.

There is a more vulnerable side to the record, too. Embarrassingly wraps an intimate, decidedly unglamorous confession in delicate acoustic pop, its prettiness providing an amusing contrast with its subject matter. It is a reminder that Sivan's greatest lyrical strength lies in his willingness to discuss sex without sanitising it, whether he is celebrating fleeting encounters or exposing the awkwardness that follows them. Across the album, he moves between lust, loneliness and the quieter desire for something lasting, suggesting that the pursuit of casual pleasure does not necessarily cancel out the yearning for domestic happiness.

That tension gives She's the Best much of its emotional appeal. Even when Sivan is singing about sexual freedom with gleeful abandon, there is often a suggestion of something more tender lurking beneath the surface. His world is unapologetically queer, but its appeal extends beyond the specifics of his experiences: these are songs about wanting people, wanting to be wanted and occasionally wondering what happens when the excitement wears off.

Not everything lands quite so successfully. The deliberately loose approach occasionally tips into aimlessness, with FF lingering longer than its ideas can comfortably sustain. Troye Meets World, meanwhile, feels less assured, its accelerated vocal hook disrupting rather than enhancing the atmosphere. And while the album's understated production is frequently its greatest asset, there are moments when a little more urgency would have sharpened the impact.

Yet these are minor frustrations on a record that consistently rewards curiosity. Sivan is clearly comfortable enough in his position to resist the temptation to repeat his previous success, even when the result means burying a potentially enormous chorus beneath a wall of guitars or allowing a track to drift rather than explode. The involvement of Charli xcx, Madonna and Kidman might suggest an album designed around celebrity connections, but the real appeal lies in the music itself: assured, idiosyncratic and unafraid of a little mess.

She's the Best may not deliver the relentless succession of instant hits that a conventional pop blockbuster demands, but that is hardly the point. Sivan has created a record that feels intimate without being insular, nostalgic without being derivative and provocative without resorting to empty shock tactics. It captures the delicious uncertainty of nights that stretch into mornings, when the boundaries between romance, friendship and physical desire begin to blur.

For an artist who has already demonstrated that he can deliver immaculate dance-pop, the willingness to embrace something looser is refreshing. She's the Best might not propel Troye Sivan into an entirely new commercial stratosphere, but it reinforces his status as one of modern pop's most distinctive voices. Sometimes, being the biggest star in the room matters less than being the one making the most interesting music.