As a newcomer and a minority in the music industry, Troye Sivan just sent the gays into a frenzy with the release of his second studio album. “Bloom” was released Aug. 31 with a few of its songs released a few weeks earlier accompanied by their respective videos. Troye Sivan’s “Bloom” is currently in the Top Five on the Billboard 200 album charts. This album carries themes of love and everything else that goes with it all in a beautiful mixture of ballads and pop songs you might sing along to or otherwise cry to in the shower.
The subject matter of the songs on this album was perhaps expected for the die-hard fans of the YouTuber-turned-pop star. Before his international stardom, Troye Sivan was an ordinary Australian white boy from a middle-class family whose coming out experience was not at all difficult (revealed on his YouTube channel). He handles love stories vulnerably yet so conventionally. On “Seventeen,” Sivan talks about losing his virginity like any other typical teenager in western culture. He is eager, but he knows it’s messy because he “may be a little too young.”
Already Top Five on Billboard, Sivan is headed for major musical awards.
@troyesivan
In his lyrics, Sivan is not afraid of desperation. In fact, he taps into it with lines such as “begging just to know you” (on Bloom) that evoke somber moods from his audience just before he taps into the energetic chorus that makes it that much more exciting to sing along to. This album contains themes of love, sex and heartbreak. In collaboration with bigger pop star, Ariana Grande, Sivan shows us the simplicity of love and being in a relationship on “Dance to This” and its accompanying music video where they do just that. The two artists alternate between solo verses and duets to produce a tender yet powerful flow of lyrics about the men they love. Sivan and Grande sing about staying home, staying sober and dancing “to this” with their significant others instead of partying hard in the ways of fame.
On his only NSFW song from this album, “Postcard,” Sivan features Gordi to probe into the subject matter of unreciprocated love. The lyrics are raw and tender as Sivan pursues a love that was not meant to be. He sings about sending his love interest a postcard all the way from Tokyo which he even wrote in Japanese, but his muse couldn’t care less.
The titular song, “Bloom” was accompanied with a tasteful video paying tribute to the LGBTQ flag and breaking gender norms among other things. Sivan does not literally wave a rainbow flag in the video, instead, he does one better as the videographer zooms in on a bouquet of flowers that just about contains every color there is. “Bloom” is truly a major visual and lyrical art piece made for generations to come. Sivan wears glitter makeup, red lipstick, floral dresses and crop tops in a music video packed with content male pop stars usually sets aside yet it is so prelevant in the LGBTQ community. It’s important to note how progressive Sivan’s musical style is because he shows no indication that gay love stories are out of the ordinary in his lyrics due to their political connotations or lack thereof.
