Troye Sivan is more than a pop star (and Australia’s sweetheart) – he IS the culture. Over the years, his music has become a defining soundtrack for youth and the queer experience. Troye has mastered a thematic navigation of love, longing, and identity with a duality of introspection and extroversion that crafts his authenticity. His sound, defined equally by its vulnerability and its danceability, has forged from his inspired past of childhood telethon performances and YouTube vlogging to collaborations with the biggest names in pop (Ariana Grande, Charli XCX, and Kacey Musgraves, and the unforgettable stage strut at Taylor Swift’s Reputation Tour).
Throughout his discography, Troye’s stylistic evolution has centered connection in his artistry, grounding his experiences through a curation that sparkles with the most iconic dance tracks of the decade, alongside the most quiet and most intimate of listener experiences.
Ahead of his upcoming NZ tour, we journey through the style evolution of Troye Sivan.
TRXYE EP (2014)
TRXYE (Troye’s first EP with a major label) was a cultural reset for the pop girlies. Melancholic lead single, ‘Happy Little Pill’ soundtracked the depths of late night Tumblr scrolling for chronically online teenagers everywhere. TRXYE’s sound is unmistakably a product of the 2010s sonic scape – with dynamic post-chorus instrumentals made a staple of Troye’s sound on tracks like ‘Touch’. This EP invokes a homesick nostalgia for the early days of social media, and its only fitting that the cover art is the same bright blue as all our turquoise bedroom walls once were. With TRXYE, Troye proved from the outset his ability to be a heralded voice for his generation – creating works that captured both the zeitgeist and the community.
WILD EP (2015)
Released in 2015, WILD picked up where TRXYE left off. This project showcases a maturation and growth that Troye has credited to formative creative relationships with writers and producers like Jack Antonoff, alongside longtime dream vocal collaborations with the likes of BROODS and Tkay Maidza. Post-chorus instrumentals are solidified as a staple of Troye’s sound in this project, with piano melodies taking prominence at the centre – whether it’s the ominous aural atmosphere of ‘BITE’ or the opening balladic verse of ‘FOOLS’. We’re introduced to punchy beats composed of bright metallic drum tibre and cymbal palettes, and Troye spotlights more confidence in his early constructions of synthy vocal layering. WILD’s cover art once again portrays Troye’s obscured face, a work by Taiwanese illustrator Hsiao-Ron Cheng, that Troye discovered on Tumblr. This collaboration marks the continuation of Troye’s deep connection to digital culture – a cornerstone element of his artistry and his fandom.
BLUE NEIGHBOURHOOD (2016)
….This was Coachella 2016. The WILD EP flourished into Troye’s first full-length studio album, Blue Neighbourhood. The energised coming-of-age package unfurled into a conflicted storytelling of suburbia and identity. The Blue Neighbourhood era is often seen as a defining moment for Troye Sivan’s career, solidifying him as a voice for LGBTQ+ youth while also marking his transition from a primary public presence as a YouTube personality to a wider known and respected artist in the pop scene. Describing the titular world of the project, Troye told VICE in 2015, “I needed a phrase to sum up the way I felt about my hometown, but also the place that I’ve created in my head where all the songs kind of take place….I have a bit of a complex relationship with home and blue for me is a colour which feels equally happy and sad. It’s my favourite colour but it’s also a bit dull, you know?”
Musically, the album blends indie pop, electropop, and elements of synth-pop, with a mix of airy melodies, soft electronic beats, and quieter, cinematic moments. Songs like ‘Youth’ offer an outpouring of excitement and longing from the outset, while others like ‘Talk Me Down’ and ‘Heaven’ enrich these sentiments with a stinging emotional depth. The album garnered both critical and commercial success – a credit to its endearingly emotive writing, infectious melodies, and Troye’s captivating vocal delivery that weaves a forceful exploration of the complex nature of youthful love and growing up.
BLOOM (2018)
Troye’s sophomore album, Bloom, is rich in pop anthems that mark a liberation from the introspection of Blue Neighbourhood and channels the emotional charge into a newfound exuberance. Bloom is a full embrace of queer identity in all its joys and complexities, accompanied by a transformative stylistic debut of the bleached hair that remains a hallmark of Troye’s public image today. The Bloom era was punctuated with bolder visuals that amplified a new assertion in Troye’s creative voice, a natural liberation from the muted sombreness of Blue Neighbourhood’s youth and the aural weight of dominant electronic production elements in his earlier EPs.
Sonically there is a broadening in instrumentation to spotlight guitar, stamped with his now signature dance beats – capturing the fragile euphoria of Troye’s experiences of young queer love with an unmistakable universality. We journey from the stripped heart of the album (the bud), ‘The Good Side’, which eulogises a past relationship, tracklisting into the optimistic acceptance of airy pop anthem ‘Dance to This’ featuring Ariana Grande. Two sides of the coin, a coexistence of perspective and experience Troye that has etched out and can flip at his artistic whims.
SEE MORE: The Importance of Troye Sivan’s ‘Bloom’ As Positive Queer Pop
IN A DREAM EP (2020)
In a Dream was an unexpected move for Troye, a bittersweet liminal dreamscape that casts a raw take on the 2020 zeitgeist that toes the line between the haunting and the comforting. Troye experiments with electronic minimalism, pushing the frontiers of his artistry to create a project that expands his repertoire while playing to his strengths vocally and thematically. It’s an immersive, ambient, and painstakingly vulnerable gem – a true ‘10/10’. In a Dream is a collision of the sombre suburbia of Blue Neighbourhood with neon bolds of Bloom while being something entirely new, offering a more fragmented, ethereal take on Sivan’s signature sound.
Something to Give Each Other (2023)
Troye’s third studio album is a rich and honeyed celebration of joy, dance, and connection. Queer celebration through his works isn’t new, but Something to Give Each Other is his crowning jewel.
Boasting anthems like ‘Rush’ (which has earned Troye his first Grammy nominations), and ‘Got Me Started’ (the only song to ever sample Bag Raider’s iconic ‘Shooting Stars’), the overt flares of this project are only the beginning. Troye paints stories of warmth and human connection by also honouring the moments that touch grows cold and love grows quiet – journeying narratives of heartbreak as wholes as opposed to just final chapters. The rich dynamism of Something to Give Each Other transgresses the sonic scape and continues to amplify its ceremonial humanness through live performance. In addition to the album’s headline tour, Troye collided with 2024’s It Girl, Charli XCX, to turn arenas into nightclubs with the SWEAT Tour – a.k.a. the largest party in pop culture this year. Something to Give Each Other continues to offer an expansive revolution of every facet of Troye’s artistry. Propelled by the authenticity, experimentation, and jubilation of every project in his discography to date, this album is unmistakably and commendably, Troye Sivan.
Troye is bringing Something to Give Each Other Tour to NZ on Dec 1st. Purchase tickets here.
