Blooming with Troye Sivan
I remember the exact day I discovered Troye Sivan it was August 16 2018. The reason I know this is because I discovered Troye on the same day Aretha "The Queen of Soul" Franklin passed away. As I typically do whenever major musicians die I looked up and read as many articles online as I could that were paying tribute to Ms. Franklin. Eventually I was on Pitchfork reading their article about the Queen of Soul. At the bottom of that article they had a link to an article about the best books written about Madonna so I clicked on that since I love her. Then at the bottom of that article there was another link to the 50 best LGBTQ Anthems of the past 50 years. So I clicked on that too.
The list was chronological and for the most part I knew what to expect. It started with Lola by The Kinks, then moved into the late 70s disco by Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor and Sylvester, followed by 80s synth pop like Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, plus icons like Madonna, Gaga and George Michael, and the lesbian rock wave of the early 90s with KD Lang and Melissa Etheridge. As I came to the very end of the list there was a song called Bloom by an artist I had never heard of before whose name was Troye Sivan. For the song the writer explained that Bloom was not about flowers but rather about being a power bottom during gay sex and that the song was so catchy you won't be able to resist it. The writer then went on to say that the song's appeal of all places could be seen on the Today Show where Troye performed Bloom for an audience of mostly girls and women who were singing along to every word to a song about gay power bottoming. The writer ended their write up by saying "What a time to be alive!"
Well this most certainly caught my attention! I started reading up more about this Troye fella and was becoming more and more interested in this openly gay young man who was bringing Queerness into mainstream pop music like never before. By the time I got home I asked my husband if he had heard of Troye Sivan which he had not but he was as intrigued as I was. We sat down and watched the music videos for My My My and Bloom first and immediately I was buying what Troye was selling hook, line & sinker. I was blown away by this young man who was not only openly gay but FLAUNTING it! The way he sang, moved, danced, dressed and made eye contact with the camera dripped of gayness and it took my breathe away. Then we watched more videos from the Blue Neighbourhood Trilogy, which depicted a star crossed love affair between 2 teen boys, the Heaven music video which depicted the struggles of the LGBTQ community as well as footage of LGBTQ people from the last 50 years, to Dance to This where Troye looked like David Bowie circa 1983.
It was almost too much to take in one sitting. In just one hour Troye Sivan had rocked my world. I never thought a pop star like him could exist. All of a sudden there was a pop star who sang about my life as a gay man that no one else really had before. As I started listening to Troye's 2015 debut album, The Blue Neighborhood, these feelings deepened. That 2015 album, which depicted Troye's struggle to come to terms with his sexuality as a teenager, captured my experience perfectly. There were the lyrics to Heaven which talks about how Troye was not only afraid of being rejected by friends and family for being gay but that he would be denied Heaven. This is something that is quite common among most people in the LGBTQ community but had never really been addressed before this directly in a pop song. It's a song that made me more and more emotional every time I heard it because it was bringing up feelings and memories that I had suppressed for so long.
Then there was Lost Boy which discussed the complex emotions of wanting to come out but also being comfortable in the closet because that's all you have ever known. If you come out you are not sure what will happen to your sense of being since that's all you've ever known and presented to others. I felt the exact same way throughout all of high school. I wanted to be out but I also had grown comfortable being in the closet and closing myself off emotionally to those around me. It wasn't until college when I was thrust into a brand new environment that I finally had the courage to start coming out. But when Troye sings "I'm just a lost boy, not ready to find" it brings me right back to that time in my life. The album as a whole captured my teenage years with such detail, compassion and honesty it was unlike any other album I had ever heard. I connected with the message and theme of this album more than any of the other albums I had listened to for the past 22 years.
Now as I was binging through all his music his second full length album Bloom had yet to be released despite it already spinning off 5 singles. I ended up staying up late Thursday night in anticipation for Bloom. I watched his live stream on YouTube where he performed some of the songs off his new album and he did an interview/fan meet at the top of the Capital Records building in L.A.
When the clock finally struck midnight I got on Spotify, found Bloom and pushed play. As soon as Seventeen started I was transported again. The song marks a crucial transitional moment for Troye's musical career and persona. Seventeen is about Troye's first sexual encounter where he lied about his age to join Grindr and met a much older man who ended up taking Troye's virginity. Once again the song's honesty, bravery and eye for detail brought back a rush of feelings and memories about my first time with another gay man. Sure you have to age me up by 2 years to 19 and replace Grindr with Myspace but it pretty much felt just like the song had described. All the feelings and memories of that night were flooding back to me and it was one if the most goosebump inducing moments I had ever experienced listening to a song. I ended up listening to the Seventeen 3 times in a row that night.
Once I got to the rest of Bloom I discovered a perfect pop album with hooks galore that also showed Troye gaining more confidence in himself and his sexuality. Just like Blue Neighborhood captured my teen years perfectly, Bloom captured my college and young adulthood years as an out gay man perfectly as well. Seventeen captured the transition while My My My, Bloom and Dance to This captured the early days of my relationship with Cory (who would eventually become my husband) when I was in my early to mid 20s. In between there were messy break ups (The Good Side) and discovering that being with someone not right for you needs to end (Plum). Then there was Lucky Strike where Troye sang the words "He" and "Boy" as if it was as normal to sing like in most heteronormative love songs. This is when I started realizing that there was a problem with my outlook on music and life as a gay man because all this was so unexpected for me. I had been conditioned to not expect songs about gay love like this and I had accepted that without a second thought because I just wanted to be accepted and validated by straight culture so much. I was beginning to understand I was conditioned to think this way my whole life and that there might be some things I had yet to grapple with as a gay man despite being in my early 30s and married.
So around this time I was also watching every youtube video there was for Troye. At one point I came across a 30 minute interview on an Australian talk show that Troye had conducted just a few weeks before I had discovered him. In the interview we go through most of Troye's life and career but what stuck out was when the interviewer asked him if he ever felt scared to show himself kissing another boy on camera in his early videos. Troye said that the act of kissing another boy on camera never made him nervous. What did make him nervous he said was letting his feminine side come out more. Troye talked about how he thought he was fine with being gay for a long time when in reality he was afraid of coming across as too girly or wearing feminine clothes or being into certain things that would make straight people uncomfortable. He said this was a form of internalized homophobia that he was still working through. Troye said his new videos were helping him push past this sense of shame by either wearing more androgynous outfits or dancing in a way he used to when he was a kid. He mentioned prancing around to Madonna's Like a Prayer in his bedroom as a young boy.
When Troye said those things it stopped me in my tracks. I too was suffering from a deep sense of internalized shame but I had ignored it for so long that I didn't realize it was still simmering underneath. Once upon a time I too danced around my bedroom to Madonna music videos. Once upon time pink and red were my favorite colors. Once upon a time I wanted to wear dresses, paint my nails and play with my little ponies. I wanted to be the Disney Princess not the Prince. I had forgotten how much I used to want all those things because I had slowly given them up after receiving multiple messages from everyone around me that I had to act more like a boy. Troye was reminding me how much I still wanted those things before the world had told me no.
Then I watched his 2017 GLAAD acceptance speech and it brought me to tears! It was one of the most moving speeches I had ever heard about LGBTQ rights and history and it showed me that Troye was wise beyond his years. In less than 10 minutes he was able to summarize the struggle, the pain, and sacrifice the LGBTQ community has been through while at the same time highlighting the victories we’ve made and why our community always perseveres. At the end of the speech Troye says, “Don’t let anyone strip you of your truth and your love because those are the foundations of who we are as a community. In a time when it might be tempting to retreat into the shadows I ask you to be louder. Keep holding hands, keep finding pride in your identity, keep standing up for those in our community who are most vulnerable. Keep love in your heart and don’t forget to share it with the world because that love is something to be so proud of and something no one can take from us.” I was basically in tears by the end and every time I watch it I still tear up. I also share this speech now with everyone I know because how powerful it truly is.
At this point I decided I needed to see Troye Sivan live so I got tickets for my husband and myself. Little did I know that it was to be the most life changing concert of my life. That story next time.
If you want to hear more by Troye Sivan check out my Spotify playlist below called Dougystyle Presents: Troye Sivan.
