— छह हजार एक सौ छह —
How the fuck did I not know that Troye Sivan released a new album? Or that he was
going to?
She's the Best dropped on Friday last week—I only downloaded it yesterday. And I only learned about it because the YouTube algorithm fed a video about him to me. And this was after he had already dropped two singles, in both August and September. I had no idea!
I guess this is what happens when you abandon nearly all social media platforms. If I were still on Facebook I almost certainly would have known about this. Still, small price to pay I guess. Relatively speaking.
I was thrilled to learn about the new album yesterday, though—his fourth full-length studio album, since his debut was released in 2015 (but which I did not discover until the release of his second album, in 2018). I adore Troye Sivan. His music is pure pop, his lyrics range from queer innuendo to overtly sexual queerness, and his infectiously sultry voice is the best thing of all. When
Bloom was released in 2018 and I was introduced to him, if I recall correctly, via his video for the title track, I was immediately smitten. Okay, so he was
really young—he was 20 years old when his debut,
Blue Neighbourhood, was released; 23 when
Bloom was released. I listened to
Bloom 47 times in 2018 alone and
Blue Neighbourhood 32 times; I listened to him easily more than any other artist that year, and any nostalgia I have for that time—honestly, largely linked to Ivan, and particularly when I visited him in Vancouver that year—is something with the music from these two albums as the soundtrack.
He waited quite a long time to release another album, five years later, at the age of 28:
Something to Give Each Other is probably in the running for my favorite album of the decade so far. I loved it more than his previous two albums combined, largely because it leaned so much more heavily into dance-pop beats but still perfectly married to his delicious singing voice. I listened to it 69 times that year, by a
huge margin more than any other album—for me;
Something to Give Each Other was
the album of 2023. I listened to it more than my second-most through my ninth-most listened-to albums of 2023
combined. My #2 album of that year was Sam Smith's
Gloria, which I listened to 20 times.
I'm already at a cumulative total of 90 listens for
Something to Give Each Other; it's my 55th-most listened-to album
of all time, only three years in.
All of which is to say: this new one,
She's the Best, had a lot to live up to. And I get the need for creative growth and exploration; I don't need another album just like it. Still, there's a lot to say about this new album, which upon first impression ranges from "meh" to "it's growing on me."
The most notable thing about it, I would say, is that it's a tad over-produced. Far too often the busy musical production obscures that luscious voice that is the first thing I come to Troye Sivan for. I have to look at the lyrics to understand what the fuck he's saying most of the time, which is frustrating. Janet Jackson released a bunch of albums like this, and they were easily her most forgettable.
There's also the very presentation, wrapped up in the album title, and the title track, which was also the lead single: "
She's the Best." This is ostensibly an ode to all the fabulous women who have stuck with him in ways men never have. It's a "
love letter to incredible women." He wrote on Instagram,
“Boys have come and gone, work has come and gone, but I have always, always had my girls. My whole life I’ve existed in the orbit of incredible women. This is my love letter to them.” There's even a "
footnotes version" of the video—in which, by the way, fellow Australian Nicole Kidman is featured prominently—on his YouTube page.
And honestly, I'm not crazy about his spoken-word delivery of most of the lyrics in the song—but its sonic makeup still makes it one of the tracks that grows on me more with each time I listen to it. The album's cover is a little audatious, too: it features a smoking woman with her breasts sticking out of her unbottoned shirt, only pasties over her nipples. It's a still from a very brief clip in the video.
And all this seems to suggest that it's the overall theme of the album, given it's also the album title,
She's the Best—except, it's really the only song among the 12 on the album that even hints at the theme of appreciating the great women around him. All the rest of the tracks have to do with his fantasy of or longing for a lasting romantic partner, as a means for coping with a nagging loneliness.
That is really the theme of the album, cloaked behind this actually-brief nod to apprecating women.
Also, side note, gay or not, there's something a little odd about the use of this image for his album cover, when it's supposed to be about appreciating female greatness rather than objectivication. He gives lip service to loving "self-possession" and confidence, and certainly that is evoked by this image as well, but in my view such an image would have been far more effective if the subject did not fit American standards of young, female beauty and hotness so perfectly. To me it comes across far more as an attention-grabber than any visual embodiment of "female greatness." (Troye Sivan has already been criticized for how heavily his sexualized videos lean on lean, cute white boys and otherwise show little diversity; this album cover kind of feels like it's just the female version of that.)
And then we get right into the second track, called "Party," in which he once again delivers an almost-rap rather than singing most of the time, this time rattling off all the places to party, but with a pretty passionless deadpan delivery via what sounds like some kind of vocoder. But it also has a brilliantly infectious beat, and I find myself weirdly into
the video for this one, set in medieval times, featuring some great dance choreography, and again a lot of gay sexuality (Troye Sivan sure likes to show bare male butts in his videos). [EDIT: Upon second watch of the "Party" video, I see that its cast—albeit none of the principals—is pretty diversified; whether that is pure coincidence or response to the criticism of his
Something to Give Each Other videos, I have no idea.] It also has yet another huge celebrity feature, this time with Sir Ian McKellan narrating the opening shots of the video. The
story behind Sivan asking McKellen, with whom he once acted when he was a teenager, is actually fairly touching.
And, guess what? "Party"
also has a huge Madonna connection—not only does Sivan sing a couple of key lines from the song "Music" (
Music / Makes the people / Come together / Music / Makes the bourgeoisie and the rebel), but the song literally samples the "computer voice" line from the origonal "Music":
Do you like to ... acid rock. Apparently Madonna was "very warm" about granting him permission for the use.
Anyway. Talk about wild, at least from my own personal experience. It's one thing to realize that the song "Music" is 26 years old—kill me now—and quite another to experience it getting sampled in a contemporary pop song the way songs in the nineties used to sample songs from the sixties. And don't get me wrong, there's also a thrill, as a gay fan, to experience a sonic meeting of the likes of Troye Sivan and Madonna. I kind of wish it had happened on
Something to Give Each Other rather than this album that is not as good, but whatever.
There's some irony to the fact that Madonna herself released
Confessions II this year, reinvigorating her own career in a way she hasn't in two decades precisely because the album itself is her best, in my opinion actually in well
more than two decades—I haven't been this into a new Madonna album since
American Life in 2003. I even think it is arguably better than 2005's
Confessions on a Dance Floor. It's been out all of three months and I've already listened to it 87 times;
She's the Best won't have a prayer of catching up to that (lucky for 2023 Troye Sivan that Madonna hadn't released an album since 2019), though it does still have a likely chance of being my #2 album of the year.
I still adore Troye Sivan, even with some fair critiques of his very pretty-White-boys artistic presentation. His voice alone draws me in, always—which is one of the problems in the new album, as it's obscured too often by overdone musical production. The new album has a good number of ballads in which his voice has more room to shine (check out the also-hot video for "
FF," which amusingly stands for
Fucking Forever). I'm thrilled that he's still making music, and am delighted he did not wait five years between albums again. I'd love for him to lean more into emulating the women he ostensibly reveres, though—Madonna in particular: she was diversifying her dance entourage (both sexually
and ethnically) long before other people were, an in a way Sivan unfortunately kind of isn't.
Somewhat in the same vein, I am dying for Lil Nas X to release his new album. He very much exists in the same sphere as Troye Sivan, with his own unapologetic gayness—but, by definition, not so glaringly White. That guy is actually more effectively following in Madonna's footsteps than Troye Sivan is, right down to a sense of showmanship that makes up for merely moderate singing talent. (I would say that Troye Sivan is a far more talented singer. But Lil Nas X is better at being a delicious pop star.)
I suppose I'm being sort of nitpicky with a lot of this. In one sense, this is all an ambarrassment of riches for me. Could you imagine Lil Nas X
or Troye Sivan existing when I was a teenager? They might very well have pushed Madonna to the sidelines. But I suppose that's sort of the point here. People like Madonna walked so these guys could run.
— छह हजार एक सौ छह —
— छह हजार एक सौ छह —
In completely unrelated news, I totally forgot to tell you about my toe wart!
It was discovered at my doctor appointment on Monday. I wanted Dr. Means to take a look at what I was pretty sure was just mysteriously long-lasting bruising under the toenail on my right "index toe." This is right next to the big-toe toenail I have now more than once had to get medication for a fungal infection, and I wanted to be certain this new thing was not also a fungus. It's very dark and looks very different, at least. But, the fungal infections were both shortly after I was walking barefoot through gay bathhouses and the bruise happened shortly after I was at the bathhouse in Amsterdam, and I wasn't sure if there might be a connection.
Dr. Means took a look at it and confirmed it appears to be just bruising. But he also noticed, on the side of the very same toe, what I had long assumed was just a callus from all my bike riding. Apparently not. Dr. Means said it looked like a wart. He even went to get a better piece of equipment to look at it more closely. He said he could take care of it right then.
I had like three things to ask him about during this visit, but I certainly did not expect to come in and get a toe wart removed. I actually had two options, he told me: he could cut the outer part of it off with a scalpel (which should not hurt at all) and then he could freeze the rest of it with dry ice getting blown on it; or, I could do a version of home treatment that other patients have said was actually more uncomfortable. I mean, I will always go with the more comfortable choice, so that answered that question.
I texted Shobhit in the middle of Dr. Means cutting the outer portion off with a small scalpel. I think it worried Shobhit at first, probably because of my
back cyst removal last November being such a horrible experience. Shobhit even texted,
Are you okay? and asked if I would be coming straight home after the appointment; I assumed him I was totally fine and would be going back to work.
Dr. Means had a sort of blowtorch thing to freeze what was left of the wart and then let it thaw for thirty seconds, which he did two or three times. He said I should be fine to just have it looked at again when I come back for my next quarterly appointment. I asked him while he was doing it, "Have you done this a lot of times?" He said: "Too many to count." I got super nervous the first time he blew the freeze-torch on it, but that proved to be pointless; even though he said some people find it uncomfortable but not painful, I still involuntarily prepared for the worst. The thing is, though, I am realizing that between that fucking cyst removal and then the truly unprecedented, excruciating pain I experienced in the hospital with the internal bleeding after my bike accident in May, I have a feeling my threshold for pain has increased a bit—not to mention "discomfort." Relatively speaking, this was truly a nothing burger. I made the right decision to have him just take care of it then.
This did mean he spent a bit more time with me than usual. "I hope I'm not keeping you from other patients," I said. He assured me I wasn't. I often wonder what his typical day is like. Is his scheduling done to avoid too many back-to-back appointments so he doesn't fall too far behind schedule? How long of a lunch break does he get? What is the practical purpose of scrubs, anyway—presumably there is one? This is how my mind wanders when given the opportunity. This is nothing compared to the 100-mph speed of Shobhit's every waking thought, so I shudder to think what it's like to be in
his head. In his case it's mostly a constant litany of things to worry about, I think. I almost never worry about anything.
I had my first anal swab for the STI screening, because of the large amount of sex I had in Amsterdam. A fascinating detail: the doctor does the throat swab himself, but left me in the room to do the anal swab on my own. Not everyone does, but I prefer this. It avoids embarrassment, and I don't have to stick my asshole in the face of someone not eager to be there. All my tests results were negative and/or normal, but that's not why I mention all this—my next step was to go down to the lab on the 6th floor for blood work as usual, which meant getting blood drawn like I do every three months. But between this and the fucking
three vaccine shots I have already gotten this fall (shingles, covid, flu—with a fourth, pneumonia, coming next month), I'm pretty effectively desensitized to the needle poking. I mean, again, it's all relative: I'm just well practiced now at making sure I don't see the needle or the blood vials. And I still briefly hyperventilated as soon as the needle went in, prompting the phlebotamist to say, yet again, "Are you okay?" But the point is I was actually fine, and I knew I would be.
— छह हजार एक सौ छह —
I haven't even mentioned Action Movie Night yet! The next two people on the schedule were unavailable, which resulted in me being the one to choose the movie, rather earlier than I expected. And it was a choice I knew no one would predict but everyone would be delighted by:
Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
The downside was that it was also the lowest turnout we've had in ages—only six people: Tony, Chris B, Derek, the new guy named Brian, Shobhit, and me. Not even Daniel came this week, which was probably the biggest shock; I was convinced he'd show up around 7:00 as he's always one of the last to arrive, but then that time came and went. He's been bringing another friend of his as well, but that guy wasn't there either. But other perennials, such as Jake or Ryan, didn't make it this week, and I think they'll be bummed that they missed this movie. Or at least Jake, who loved my
Gremlins and
Gremlins 2: The New Batch choices, will be. Jake never gave a reason, but according to Tony, Ryan bailed because of some beer festival event he wanted to go to.
This new Brian guy is an acquaintance of Ben's, who brough him last time—but, I got the clarification this time that it's Brian's wife who works with Ben at Alaska Airlines, not Brian himself. But he apparently enjoyed
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World so much last time that he decided to keep coming. We'll see how long he lasts; he seems nice enough. He and Tony were the only ones already there when I brought the pasta Shobhit made down to the community kitchen, but then Tony had to leave for a bit, leaving only Brian and me for a while. I asked him about where he worked just to kind of fill the dead air.
Shobhit had gone to an audition at Seattle Center, so for a while he thought he'd be late. But, he got his audition done early and was on the bus back by the time the scheduled meet time of 6:30 was upon us. He was there before it was even 7:00. Tony brought half a delicious mushroom pizza and Shobhit and I brought the pasta; that was the only food brought and I am just realizing that made the food 100% vegetarian this week. Usually Jake can be counted on to bring Dick's burgers, but he didn't come this week.
The guy who annoys a bunch of the others was among those who did not make it this week, which was ironic because most of the people who dislike him the most also didn't make it. A total missed opportunity for them!
Anyway, this was my first time using the new projector. I had tested it the night before and got it working pretty quickly; it took a bit longer to figure out this time but, with Tony's help, we still managed it. After that, it played without a hitch—and when the title
Who Framed Roger Rabbit appeared on the screen, people got suitably excited. Granted, I will say the frequency of audible laughs died down by the end of the movie, but it was still incredibly entertaining. But most of all, jaw-droppingly impressive on a technical proficiency level. That movie came out in 1988, but even though that does mean you can start to see some of the seams from today's perspective, for the time it's kind of unbelievable what they accomplished—because there's no CGI. Live-action movies with integrated animation from decades later don't look as good and aren't nearly as well staged. It was rightly critically adored in its time, and I'm really glad I chose it. Now I just need to decide which title to put to the top of my list for the next time I get to choose, probably sometime in the spring.
— छह हजार एक सौ छह —
[posted 12:32pm]
