20-year old gay Australian singer Troye Sivan recently released his first album Blue Neighbourhood which has already hit in the top 10 on album charts around the world.
With almost 4 million YouTube subscribers, 3 million Twitter followers and over 1 million tracks sold, Sivan has already achieved milestones it takes others years and years to accomplish. One of his most viewed YouTube uploads is his “Coming Out” upload that he posted shortly after turning 18 and three years to the day he came out to his family.
Preceding the release of Blue Neighbourhood, a music video trilogy was released for the songs “Wild” and “Fools” capped off by the breathy and heartbreaking “Talk Me Down.” Their story line follows him and a childhood friend who eventually becomes a love interest while telling of struggles in their same-sex relationship.
The anthem of “Youth” stomps while managing vulnerability and humility. He proclaims “Trippin’ on skies, sippin’ waterfalls, my youth, my youth is yours, run away now and forevermore” while using an echo-effect that has been heard in some of the biggest hits of the last year like Coldplay’s “Adventures of a Lifetime.” But it is the striking electronics matched up with Sivan’s charming and blissful voice the makes for an uncompromising blend of pop and melody.
Sivan said “Youth” is a song about the joy in naivety and being lost. It’s about dropping everything, running away, making mistakes, and loving too hard, and how that’s okay.”
He succeeds in being true to the modern EDM sounds of the 21st century while creating anthems, love songs and stories that not only will LGBT fans relate to, but are also true for all of youth of today and yesterday and tomorrow. His boy-next-door meets geek image can drive anyone a bit mad with passion as he sings “You make my heart, shake, bend and break, but I can’t turn away, and it’s driving me wild” on the song “Wild.”
Counting both soulful gay British James Bond singer Sam Smith and pop princess Taylor Swift among his admirers and fans, Troye Sivan has a subtle sexiness about him that draws you in and makes you feel at home with him as he spills his heart one song after another.
He explains, “It’s all about keeping it honest, real and truthful. For me, my truth is an LGBTQ one. So it was important to me that context was also apparent in the record. It’s an important message to send out to people.”
With Blue Neighbourhood it is easy to understand why Time magazine named Troye Sivan one of the 25 most influential teenagers of 2014 as it adds another achievement for this artist who has the potential and time for much more well into the future.
