How Troye Sivan Has Grown from Hiding in the Blue Neighborhood To Feeling the “Rush”

Troye Sivan built his initial public image off of an innocent portrayal of queer love. Now, he’s encouraging listeners to hook up with whoever’s in front of them. Taking a trip through acceptance, discovery, and now ownership, Troye Sivan is all grown up. 

Written by William Beachum

Illustrated by Grace Xu

Troye Sivan’s new music video for his salacious single “Rush” is laughably sexy. It glamorizes queer lust, nudity, and recklessness. This recklessness becomes even more fascinating when considering Sivan, just ten years before the release of “Rush,” was battling the uncertainty, loneliness, and fear of being a gay man — especially in his music.

Sivan started off his career as a Youtuber in the early 2010s, creating vlogs and advice columns. His brand was all about being wholesome and cute, representing the boyish crush archetype for many young teens from 2010 - 2012. He broke the facade in 2013 when he published a video titled “Coming Out,” in which he spoke to his teen audience about his experiences as a gay man for the first time. This video became his most popular, with teens queer and not praising it as a beacon of vulnerability. Even now, queer adults have reported this singular video’s impact on the progression. Its popularity showed Sivan that there was an audience of scared queer teenagers that needed a voice, and he had it. 

Inspired by his newfound direction, Sivan released his first album, Blue Neighbourhood, in 2015, which tells a story about two gay teens falling in love in an unaccepting small town. Blue Neighbourhood covers the process of learning self-acceptance as a queer person despite the discrimination and hate one may face from friends, family, or themselves. Sivan introduced his audience to the Blue Neighbourhood era with a series of short films guided by the songs “WILD,” “FOOLS,” and “TALK ME DOWN.” The series follows the story of two gay teens facing the world together. 

On “WILD,” Sivan whines that he can’t physically ignore the deep-seeded longing and connection he feels when with another boy. A group of children charmingly chant "wild" alongside Sivan's desperation-tinted lyrics, "Leave this Blue Neighborhood." “WILD” operates on a pattern of snaps and muted guitar riffs, spotlighting Sivan’s emotional appeal. The repetition of the background instrumental emphasizes the singularity and uniqueness of this desire in an unaccepting environment. Sivan makes a fraught plea to the boy in the film to run away with him, but by the end of the song, he realizes “[he] can’t turn away” from his Blue Neighbourhood. The music video contrasts Sivan’s lyrical desperation, portraying two young boys playing and finding solace with each other, while their fathers freak out around them. Their innocent love should be undisturbing, but it makes Sivan’s “heart shake, bend, and break” because of their fathers’ disapproval. 

The music video for the middle child of the trilogy, “FOOLS,” sees Sivan feeling foolish for believing in a future with his lover. In the music video, he watches from afar while his lover gets abused by his father. Sivan feels an immediate sense of shame for inadvertently causing this situation by wanting to “be close to [him],” especially since he knows that “the less time that [he spends] with [him] / the less [he needs] to heal.” Sivan knows that outside of this relationship, “[their] lives don’t collide;” but nevertheless,“[he] still wants it all.” The abrasive and sporadic synths, primarily heard on the chorus, further emphasize to Sivan that holding this love is dangerous. The distorted vocal samples add to the lack of consistency of the song, reflecting the state of the two boys’ relationship. Sivan has always had the urge to be free in his desires, it’s just that his shame held him back from acting on it. At the end of the “FOOLS” video, the boy looks out over a cliff that the pair used to swim near. The narrative is left unresolved, making viewers feel the same loss and discomfort that Sivan laments over on the track. 

In another emotional standout, “HEAVEN,” Sivan contemplates if he has a place in Christianity. Focusing on the debate many queer people have while rectifying with a higher power, Sivan is “trying to save face, and daddy heart break” by staying in the closet, preserving his pride while simultaneously remaining an anonymous member of the LGBTQ+ community. Sivan starts to peel back some of his internal shame on this haunting track, tracing its roots and confronting his own mindset. Sivan is not quite at the stage of empowerment that he will reach on “Rush” yet, though. “HEAVEN” is not a reckless anthem, but rather an anxious contemplation that can only be finished, narratively and lyrically, by “Counting to fifteen.” 

Blue Neighbourhood’s accompanying short film series was explosively popular, garnering over 30 million views total. Its themes of self-acceptance spoke to an audience of closeted teens. The delicate synths, sullen pianos, and melancholic orchestrations created a world where viewers could feel safe in their exploration of their sexuality and identity. Blue Neighbourhood is a cultural landmark for people who were queer teens at the time of its release. The album provides a soft, vulnerable queer narrative that young listeners can still identify with. Sivan acknowledges the harm of homophobia while not explicitly making it a political message. He expertly portrays the insecurities and questions that homophobia creates through a teenage lens, giving power and voice to his growing audience.

In 2018, Sivan released Bloom, which runs away from the hand-holding and tender kisses of Blue Neighbourhood. Instead, Sivan lyrically experiments with the sexual. On “Seventeen,” Sivan describes his first casual encounter with sex. He assuredly mumble sings “a boy becomes a man now” in reference to his first time. Sivan has no solid conclusion on the morality of this encounter, but rather revels in the discovery and maturation of the moment. “Seventeen” uses airy vocal riffs to cushion the song in a pillowy placidity, reflecting the quiet confidence that Sivan feels in his reflection. The title track, “Bloom,” uses a pastel coating to cover up Sivan’s subtle sexual innuendo along with flowery language to represent the singer’s sexual nature. Pleasantly singing “(I bloom) just for you / Come on, baby, play me like a love song / Every time it comes on I get this sweet desire,” he cautiously avoids speaking to the overt nature of sex; but he does refer to his willingness to be submissive for his partner.

Bloom also sees Sivan grow in his emotional maturity. The album swaps out the grand orchestrations of hurt and betrayal on Blue Neighbourhood for bright, bubbly pop portrayal of acceptance. Sivan moves past the frustration and angst he feels toward his sexuality, instead embracing himself. On “Plum,” he sweetly sings “you can’t change what the seasons bring.” The chorus ends in a high pitched anti-drop, leaving listeners with the same sort of unfinished ending that Sivan experiences. Bloom is the second part of Sivan’s coming of age narrative: discovery. He’s grown up and experimented sexually. However, Troye still sings about his “whispers of doubt” regarding his sexuality on ”Postcard(feat. Gordi)”, which he will need to overcome to fully feel the “Rush.” 

In August 2023 — five years after he released Bloom — Sivan gave listeners his electric new single, “Rush.” The track pulsates with a visceral intensity and entrances listeners into its rhythm. Droves of shirtless men sway in the song’s music video along with pulsating, synth instrumentation. Reverb envelopes Sivan’s voice as the chorus concludes, musically representing the act of giving in to the “Rush.” With gay men chugging beer kegs and dancing together in clubs, the “Rush” music video displays a raunchy, queer definition of masculinity. With this new single, Sivan moves into a third stage of his queerness: ownership. He is finally comfortable enough in himself to engage with the gay nightlife scene., which may have felt shameful for him at the start of his music career. As he told UDiscover Music this year, “I’m having a lot of fun right now, and I want people to party.”

“Rush” is the first single off of Sivan’s upcoming album, Something to Give Each Other, which arrives on October 13th. If “Rush” is any indication of the album’s content, it will most likely further explore Sivan’s ownership of his queerness. 

The queer coming-of-age narrative modeled in Sivan’s discography gives his audience a language to relate to their unique queer experiences. Some of his listeners may be in a different place regarding their journey with their queerness, but regardless, Sivan’s music creates a sense of understanding among him and his LGBTQ+ listeners who have grown up alongside him — the same understanding that he felt from his supporters when he first came out. This sense of community has been a part of Sivan’s message since Blue Neighbourhood’s “YOUTH,” in which he exclaims, “My youth is yours.”