Troye Sivan Something to Give Each Other Review: Permission to Pursue Pleasure

On his sophomore effort, Bloom, Australian singer Troye Sivan struck a delicate balance between unapologetic queer desire and the kind of hole-in-your-soul introspection that has, until recently, been traditionally expected of LGBTQ+ pop artists. In other words, gay sex is permissible, as long as you’re a little bit tortured about it.

Five years later, Something to Give Each Other finds Sivan older, bolder, and, for a large part of its running time, unrepentantly horny. The album’s lead single, “Rush,” was initially released in a two-and-a-half-minute edit that captures the sensation of a quick hit of poppers (the song’s title also happens to be the name of a popular brand of alkyl nitrite). The extended video version of the throbbing house track (sadly not included here) is a full minute longer, with a breakdown that lets Sivan breathe—and luxuriate in the afterglow.

Either way, a hedonistic streak permeates much of Something to Give Each Other: “We should experiment even to the detriment of whoever’s on the couch,” Sivan sings on “Got Me Started,” consent police be damned. The treatment of the singer’s voice here—the pitched-up vocal hook echoes a sample of the TikTok hit “Shooting Stars” by the Bag Raiders—and on the next track, “Silly,” reflects the distorting effects of desire. The latter’s depiction of mind-fogged lust evokes many a song by the Weeknd, his co-star in HBO’s short-lived The Idol: “The party’s the only place that really knows me/I’m just tryna get outside of this body,” Sivan sings, alternating between falsetto and chest voice.

Elsewhere, “One of Your Girls” unabashedly co-opts the age-old trope of queer people pining after their straight counterparts. Accompanied by a seductive, tropical groove, acoustic guitars, and kettledrums, Sivan puts words to the unspoken, albeit masked by Vocorder: “Give me a call if you ever get lonely/I’ll be like one of your girls or your homies/Say what you want and I’ll keep it a secret.”

With a few exceptions—like “Can’t Go Back, Baby,” whose sped-up vocal sample and vibraphone (played by Sivan) conjure the dreamy, nostalgic pangs of lost love—Something to Give Each Other lacks the more tender, reflective moments that were peppered throughout Bloom and 2015’s Blue Neighbourhood. The standout “Still Got It,” on which Sivan admits he still has the hots for an ex, splits the difference and features some clever internal slant rhymes (“I saw you at a party, said ‘hello’ like an old colleague”) as it slowly builds to a skittering electronic climax.

What Something to Give Each Other lacks in poignancy, though, is made up for by the joy with which it embraces queer pleasure. “Kiss it when you’re done, man, this shit is so much fun/Pocket rocket gun,” Sivan quips on “Rush.” The album’s title, which is repeated in three different songs, at first seems like a coy double entrendre, but the “something” that’s being given might very well be permission to pursue pleasure.