Troye Sivan’s “She’s the Best” Makes Growing Up Sound Like the Best or Worst Night of Your Life

Design by Sophie Parrish

By Oona Schulweis

Few artists understand the relationship between youth and pop music as well as Troye Sivan. We grew up knowing him from his YouTube views, and now we know him from songs that live somewhere between the dance floor and the bedroom. His music constantly captures the tension between wanting everyone in the room to desire you and wanting one particular person to stay forever. Even when he’s making music that demands the club, something a little sad usually hides underneath. It’s what makes his music so good to listen to when you’re getting ready with your friends, dancing with strangers, or lying awake at 2 a.m., thinking about someone you probably shouldn’t. On She’s the Best, Sivan leans into that tension, creating an album that sounds like being young, having the time of your life, and slowly realizing that none of it lasts forever. 

I would say the album’s greatest strength is how naturally it moves between these different feelings. “She’s the Best” sounds like a wine-drunk night with your girls, when you just appreciate them for being your friends and for being around you, while “Canada Dry” follows the night out. The kind of night out where you lock eyes with someone across the dance floor, and suddenly the entire room seems to revolve around the two of you. The first two songs have a hazy, late-night atmosphere that makes the whole experience feel surreal, like a movie club scene that gets increasingly ridiculous until a robotic autotune joins the party at the end. Speaking of which, “Party” is exactly what its title promises. It’s the sort of song that makes you want to “party in the park, party in the bush, party under the bridge” and party anywhere else you can imagine. Troye knows how to make fun music without making it feel disposable. 

That balance gets even more interesting as the album slows down. “I Do This For You” immediately made me picture Madonna performing it during her Bedtime Stories era at the VMAs, or somewhere like that–it feels sensual and larger than life. But beneath that feeling is loneliness. The song brings to mind constantly traveling, chasing deadlines, meeting people, and trying to build a career, only to wonder whether you’re actually getting anywhere. It feels especially relevant to anyone in their twenties, when you’re supposed to figure out who you are while also making decisions that will supposedly shape the rest of your life. “Cowboy” approaches growing up from a different angle. As someone from Los Angeles, I immediately imagined driving down the Pacific Coast Highway with my high school friends before everyone went off to college. Windows down, music blasting, pretending nothing is changing even when you know everything is. The song captures the strange nostalgia of a moment that hasn’t even ended yet. 

Troye is especially good at making romantic obsession sound beautiful, even when it’s objectively a little embarrassing. On “Embarrassingly,” he captures the experience of replaying a conversation in your head for weeks, convincing yourself that a look meant something, or wondering why you can’t stop thinking about someone when you know you should probably move on. The dreamy atmosphere makes the whole song feel like a memory you can’t quite separate from a fantasy. The interlude especially was one of my favorite parts, as it made me feel like I needed to hang out the ceiling of a car and pull a The Perks of Being a Wallflower moment immediately. “Le Boy” has a similar cinematic quality, reminding me of a scene in Booksmart: the main character, Amy, finally gets to spend time with her crush at their last high school party, and they jump into the pool together. For a moment everything feels perfect, until Amy finds her crush making out with someone else. Sometimes you get the moment you’ve been dreaming about, only for reality to ruin it minutes later. 

The more introspective tracks on the back end of the album give some much-needed room to breathe. “Sex Star” is a surprisingly mellow song for a title with such an exciting life attached, feeling less concerned with the thrill of the moment and more with what happens after you’ve spent years building your identity around a career or dream. There’s something unsettling about realizing that achieving what you wanted doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll feel fulfilled. “Love So Big It Hurts” continues this emotional thread, sounding like the aftermath of finding someone, losing them, and discovering that your feelings haven’t disappeared with the relationship. These songs work because they don’t aim to turn every emotion into a dramatic revelation. Sometimes growing just means sitting with the uncomfortable realization that you can have a life you wanted and still feel a little lost. 

Of course, Troye can’t stay off the dance floor for long. “Troye Meets World” is one of the album’s most immediately exciting moments, with fast-paced beats and echoey sounds that radiate PinkPantheress-like energy. It sounds like colorful lights, sweaty bodies, and strangers screaming lyrics to each other as if they’ve known each other for years. Then the flute arrives at the end, and suddenly you’re in an Uber ride home, watching the city blur past your window, or running through the forest to escape some annoying guy. It’s a sudden yet effective transition from club euphoria to the quiet comedown that follows. “FF” is similarly compelling, although its emotional intensity comes from a different place. Beneath its provocative title and chorus, the song is about wanting to be close to someone so badly that being apart from them feels almost unbearable. It made me tear up the first time I listened to it with its accompanying music video–it’s one of those songs that makes you want to call someone immediately, even if you have no idea what you’re gonna say. 

The album closes with “Lost Time,” featuring Lily-Rose Depp, whose French-language intro immediately reminded me of “Chosen” by Blood Orange and Caroline Polachek, with its “it was the last weekend of September…” intro. The song’s use of autotune and pop production, paired with its hazy, jazz-club atmosphere, gives it a wonderfully disorienting quality. It feels like spending the night in a dimly lit vinyl bar, talking to someone you might never see again, wishing the conversation could go on forever. It’s a fitting ending for an album so preoccupied with the moments we can’t hold on to. 

What makes She’s the Best work is that it understands growing up isn’t one continuous coming-of-age montage but instead a series of contradictory experiences. This album captures being surrounded by people and feeling lonely, falling in love and knowing it might end, and having the best night of your life and wishing you could stay a little longer. Emotional shifts feel less like interruptions and more like the natural rhythm of being alive. Troye has always made personal pop music, but this album is so affecting because it turns ordinary experiences into something worth remembering. Those moments may not change your life, but they become part of who you become. She’s the Best makes you want to stop worrying about what comes next and enjoy the life you’re actually living.