Troye Sivan – ‘She’s the Best’ review: late-night revelations set to a ’90s alt-dance groove

Troye Sivan has trailed his fourth studio album with one serious flex after another. The video for its trip-hoppy lead single and title song, ‘She’s the Best’, stars a strikingly game Nicole Kidman, who slinks down the street as Sivan speak-sings about a goddess with a “great smile and a cum stain on her dress”. Then came a more uptempo second single, the bacchanalian house banger ‘Party’, which features an instantly recognisable interpolation from Madonna’s Y2K chart-topper ‘Music’. Well, why align yourself with one certified “Mother” when you can call in a favour from two?

The album as a whole, however, is more low-key than these A-list associations might suggest. Sivan has said he wanted ‘She’s the Best’ to feel a little more “sloppy” than his last LP, 2023’s poppers-scented electro opus ‘Something To Give Each Other’, but it’s probably more accurate to describe this pleasantly confounding follow-up as “loose” and “laid-back”. Sivan and his touring buddy Charli XCX once sang about wanting to “go back to 1999”, but here, with help from covetable collaborators including Jack Antonoff and The 1975’s George Daniel, he’s embraced a range of grungey ’90s dance sounds.

The deep house throb of ‘Canada Dry’ has echoes of Madonna’s deliciously downtempo 1992 album ‘Erotica’, while the heady hook of ‘Le Boy’ is surely inspired by Air‘s enduring 1998 smash ‘Sexy Boy’. The brilliant, vibey ‘I Do This For You’ sounds a little like George Michael knocking shoulders with Australian sampling maestros The Avalanches. Revealingly, it’s built around a very IYKYK sample from ‘Dream’ by Forest For The Trees, a cult trip-hop collective led by Beck collaborator Carl Stephenson.

At times, the deliberately languid sound of ‘She’s the Best’ does become a little meandering: the psychedelic swirl of ‘FF’ drags as it passes the four-minute mark. But mostly, Sivan hits a sweet spot where effortlessly melodic songwriting dovetails with late-night revelations. The gently strummed ‘Embarrassingly’ is a deceptively pretty song about masturbating over an ex, even if its most overt lyrics (“what a sticky situation”) are buried coyly in the mix. ‘Sex Star’ contains a knowing nod to his enviable Melbourne home – “I just want you in my really nice house” – and ‘Lost Time’ interrupts Lily-Rose Depp’s elegant French intro with a horny humblebrag: “Breaking back in California / Getting dick just how I wanna”.

The result isn’t Sivan’s most immediate or crowd-pleasing album, but it does create a consistently appealing and intriguing mood. It’s the sound of secrets spilled and fantasies shared at the afters, with the occasional break for full-on dancing. No wonder Nicole and Madonna wanted to get involved.

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