troye sivan "my my my!" -- 'one of the first great songs of this young year' or overpraised twink mediocrity??

It's definitely been the year that I've spent two hours a day typing about it

I think what I’ve been struggling with (for years) is, really, the intersection between “good music” and “a sexy image”. I have never really “got” the appeal of boybands (or in many cases, girlbands) because I watch porn when I want to look at hot bodies and penetration, and I listen to music when I want to be aurally stimulated. Unless there’s a part of the video where Niall literally tops Louis then what is the point of listening to this band, watching their video? Never really understood it.

It’s different obviously with any scenario involving POC because it feels as if the “sexy image” is itself an act of decolonizing typically white-focused notions of sexiness and feels necessary

Or that Peaches video “Rub” which is perfect in every way

But with Troye Sivan— “my youth, my youth, my youth is yours”— I just can’t get past the fact that there is NO thesis here, except to hold the gaze of women and gay men, and to re-affirm that young white male bodies carry such currency that they can and will rule the world of music (Troye’s new track) cinema (Call Me By Your Name— Vogue has even called Timothée Chalemet “this season’s It girl”) and so on

The feeling I have isn’t quite bitterness (though sure I’m bitter) but also more like.. concerned. I didn’t like Ryan McGinley the first time around, and I guess I thought that the vapidity of Tumblr-stardom (I have become a successful artist because I take basic photos of my attractive friends) wouldn’t prevail as weirdly as it seems to be prevailing

And there’s a difference, now, too. Gay white men in North American are in a position now where they are no longer oppressed, and yet we’re still giving them the keys to our safety deposit boxes as if they are oppressed.

I'm not sure if I agree with "no longer oppressed." At the very least, how we define "oppression" needs some unpacking. Certainly, gay white men of a certain age, class, etc are privileged in a way that other queer people will never experience.

I'm currently in the middle of my PhD dissertation on queer characters in Young Adult Fiction, and wouldn't you know it, said characters tend to be overwhelmingly gay white male twinks (with some notable exceptions: Brian Francis' Fruit features an overweight protagonist who is, tellingly, less well adjusted than your typical GWM character; Charles Rice-Gonzales' Chulito is about a Latin American teen in the South Bronx that, thinking back on it, now feels like a bit of a template for Moonlight). But yeah, we are definitely reaching a point where "overpraised twink mediocrity" has the advantage of both being what many gay men want to consume and what many hetero critics feel comfortable praising. Not to keep bringing this back to CMBYN, but the fact that I found it so ordinary really is what surprised me the most about it. It's hard to call Moonlight underrated in comparison, because it was last year's BP winner and all, but the fawning over it from gay circles was nothing compared to what CMBYN, and Timothée Chalamet ("this seasons IT girl," ugh), are receiving.

To bring this thread back to its ostensible subject, it will be interesting to see how Sivan's career plays out during 2018. Like, is this really something that the music press is going to be all over, or is he benefitting from being the first thing to happen in music in 2018 (besides a crap Timberlake single)?

He's playing the L.A. game so he'll do the usual cycle of festival appearances, I think.

"Are no longer oppressed" is simplifying it, yes. What is interesting to me is hearing that North American teenagers are now identifying so easily with non-straight labels that the GSAs that we were fighting for in Catholic schools eight years ago are now no longer relevant. But: the historical oppression of white gay men seems to be, now, a useful tool for privileged white gay men to create drama or systems of injustice where there are none, idk, it's complicated obv and I'm just typing, something something Sam Smith please stop talking like that

"overpraised twink mediocrity" has the advantage of both being what many gay men want to consume and what many hetero critics feel comfortable praising

Clocked, yep.

fgti your posts in the call me by your name thread (i don't post in ile but read it sometimes) are basically what encouraged me to use the phrase in this thread title. like obviously i was being jokey but only somewhat.

i didn't realize sivan had such a history! that "for them" song is hilarious. i figured he had just gotten famous via tumblr-tweens liking his face enough to make his vlogs popular or something, had no idea he was that intentional about it/thirsty for it. (i don't know what he actually posted on youtube, for all i know he might have gotten famous for surprise egg videos altho i presume it had something to do with singing.)

yes we are definitely at a point where media gatekeepers do seem to really want to see more out-of-the-closet queer people (or representations of queer people) in the spotlight, but where the range of queer people that they are actually comfortable pushing in front of the curtain is still woefully narrow. and we end up with this bizarre climate of excitement around art that is, at least in my view, not quite there? (tangential, but i liked-not-loved call me by your name.)

the p4k review praising this song upthread ends with "'I’m just trying to show people that you can be queer, live your life, and be happy,' Sivan told Teen Vogue last year. Mission accomplished." and i struggle to understand what it is about this song that is supposedly accomplishing this mission. it's like we're meant to feel inspired by his mere existence and the fact that his gayness hasn't prevented him from getting a not-bad song released, pushed to radio, and prominently hyped via spotify billboards. like, is that all? some mission.

oh and to be clear, i think it's bad at all that songs by queer artists can be thematically run-of-the-mill and artistically mediocre and still generate palpable excitement -- it's what straight artists do all the time. in fact, it would truly be lovely if queer artists could routinely make mediocre art and not experience their queerness as a barrier to favorable reception. but so far the scenario seems to be, well, your queerness isn't a barrier and might even be an asset, but only if you tick every single one of these other boxes that have basically been advantages from the dawn of mass media onward.

* don't think it's bad at all lol

OTM, yeah. This all has opened up so many cans of worms for me (and so much unbridled vitriol) that the lesson I learned this week is that I should really channel this anger into fuel for my own work I guess

i would pay hella USD's for your angry political music

ha lol I feel like my music is way angrier than people think but anyway thanks

[redacted addendum about how this is the future that Grizzle Bear's "Two Weeks" warned us about: "always / sometimes / easy / time"]

i had no idea about any of this context but i was pleasantly surprised when i heard this song, felt like something more substantial than everything else i discovered trawling through the generic tropi-pop youtube algorithm playlists

i'll cop to having eventually quite enjoyed Sivan's first album, Blue Neighbourhoods.

in a similar way to the Years & Years album, it initially struck me as middle of the road pop and slowly grew on me until it wormed its way into my head. his voice suits the slick vaguely melancholy pop brooding.

there's also an overwrought ballad that's apparently about grappling with one's queerness in the context of a religious family/Jewish day school etc.?

anyway, 'My My My' is dancier and more upbeat and more anonymous but far more on-trend and more likely to actually be successful. it's a relatively good pop song, and it will probably get more attention than it otherwise would for the video, but i'm not sure if it's really worth handwringing over a la Call Me By Your Name.

like, the white mediocrity of Call Me By Your Name is notable because it's presented as deep, meaningful art with something to say.

'My My My' seems to aspire to be a run of the mill or better than average pop song, you know? it doesn't have a thesis about queerness, but...i'm perfectly fine with Fifth Harmony songs not having a thesis either.

this isn't going to get the sort of critical acclaim that Frank Ocean does, and unless he's getting a much bigger push than I'd expect, he's pretty much going to be a Charli xcx-level pop singer who occasionally hits the pop charts, but mostly is popular on the internet, no? one BNM for a single feels kind of premature as a basis for predicting that the music press is going to be all over him

cf. as a point of comparison Hayley Kiyoko's 'Curious', which similarly is a pretty traditional pop song whose only really notable difference is that the singer is a lesbian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXTzMOmmEfE

would I prefer for MNEK to finally blow up into a massive pop star in 2018? absolutely.
do I prefer these to 2010's wave of vague inspirational songs dedicated to gay teens by presumptively straight pop stars? also, yes.
do I prefer them to 2013's Macklemore raps about marriage equality song? also, yes.

We are definitely in a better place with this than we were with the Great Gay Pander-Offs of 2010 and 2013, yes.

also, halsey and kehlani are both queer too, right? i feel like in general we've seen a quiet rise of a bunch of out queer pop singers in the past few years. i'm sure there are a few more i'm forgetting.

i was wondering if the hayley kiyoko song would be brought up! that is another song that, aside from the playful use of the title word, i would also call "not quite there". but alas it too is getting pushed to radio and altho i haven't read it i saw someone post a billboard thinkpiece about how she and troye are 'boldly' normalizing queer affection in the mainstream or something

i would agree that what we are getting now is indeed preferable to the aforementioned phases. also that phase where that awful underwear-model-turned-country-singer steve grand was generating huffpo hype thru his mere ability to release a completely bland song/video centered on same-sex desire (which incidentally was heavy on the thinly-coded white-worship). (at least hopefully that's over now -- wouldn't be surprised if gay media were still talking about him tho lol.)

it's true that neither sivan nor kiyoko is going to receive the level of acclaim of e.g. frank ocean (whose good graces with music media predated his coming out but still). and i actually like quite a few things about this song! it is kinda catchy and the interplay between the production and his vocal lines at the beginning of the second verse is fun and hits the spot. but idk i just get disappointed when i see media takes, in whatever volume, that suggest that some social barrier is finally being destroyed by otherwise unchallenging art's existence.

i believe they both are xp, and halsey's latest hit does make it pretty clear. it's my favorite of the few songs i've heard by her, altho it seems a number of ppl here aren't feeling it based on posts in other threads

Didn't know about Halsey (not a fan) or Kehlani (don't know enough to have an opinion). I just wish Shura would become a beneficiary of all this.

yeah both kehlani & halsey have released songs which are directly queer in their lyrics recently
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3hjpNuvapQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wVB6pfWwnE

i liked that brief period when the internet's "girl" was on r&b and adult r&b radio (not very high up on the playlists but still)

I don't mean to be hyperbolic or anything but even just the mention of Frank Ocean in this thread makes me feel so soothed and relaxed like "it's OK the world is full of beautiful things, you don't need to type anything negative this evening"

but idk i just get disappointed when i see media takes, in whatever volume, that suggest that some social barrier is finally being destroyed by otherwise unchallenging art's existence.

i was wondering if the hayley kiyoko song would be brought up! that is another song that, aside from the playful use of the title word, i would also call "not quite there". but alas it too is getting pushed to radio and altho i haven't read it i saw someone post a billboard thinkpiece about how she and troye are 'boldly' normalizing queer affection in the mainstream or something

i mean, that article sounds tedious and wrong-headed. and yeah, media takes that overstate the impact of this stuff are probably annoying, but breathless overstated coverage of pop music is kind of...de rigeur.

the Kiyoko song is definitely all the way 'there' for me, though. I haven't paid any attention to her since we covered Girls Like Girls over at Singles Jukebox in 2015, which was definitely not quite there, and which made me write her off, but 'Curious' works for me. the beat is post-MustardWave but less minimalist, and the chorus is really smart about building momentum, from that initial touchyatouchyatouchyatouchya to the double-time patter of lines running together 'Did you takehimtothepierinSantaMonica' etc. and then the cleanly punctuated 'I'm just curious / Is it serious?'.

again, it's a completely typical pop song narrative, just written from a lesbian perspective, and...that's all it needs to be? i have plenty of other queer music that's actively political or angry or boundary pushing or experimental. there's nothing wrong with also having a Tinashe-style bop about Kiyoko's feelings when her ex-girlfriend makes out with some dude at a party.

(anyway, sorry for taking us so off-topic)

Years & Years use pop as a trojan horse for songs that capture the mix of shame, tentative fear and consuming lust that's unique to the experience of non-hetero early sexuality, the questioning of who you are and why you feel like that and recognising that it can be enjoyable as much as it can be terrifying. I also think they just write better songs and Olly Alexander is a proper popstar.

on the other hand this came on YouTube autoplay last night while I was tidying up and it just sounded like mediocre pop music from an uncharismatic singer? I played an earlier EP back when I first heard about him and it was just aural candy floss. The video makes it a bit more interesting but at the same time, I've met this guy/seen this aesthetic on Instagram/not replied to on Grindr, this exact archetype of gay man so many times.

Kehlani being on record about "Distraction" being about a woman, then having the video featuring her cavorting with a man, is exactly the kind of intersectional privilege issue that needs unpacked around discussion of queer oppression in pop spheres.

for the sole reason that I am now imagining the impact that it would have had if any of the 80s or 90s boy band thinks had been this conscious of, and pandering to, their gay audience back then

in the UK we had Take That, who as far as I understand it only really had one hit single in America, the serious and chaste ballad "Back For Good", which to me has always felt like an outlier in their early narrative. They had a run of hits in the early 90s and were huge to the point that Robbie Williams leaving the group and the band splitting up were both national news stories and there was even a helpline set up. They reformed after about fifteen years apart and have occupied a safe space in pop since, sounding like Scissor Sisters and Coldplay at once.

so what was really interesting about Take That is that they were basically about taking a gay man's view of sexuality - specifically, manager Nigel Martin-Smith - and selling that persepctive to a female audience. Their 1991 debut single "Do What You Like" came with a video which is three minutes of four attractive guys (and Gary Barlow, who can sing but clearly recruited for his voice unlike the others), rolling about in leather and rubbing jelly on each other's shirtless bodies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpqAXZI0s0s

the single was a flop and even the band treat it as a punchline now. But move forward a few years to something like their number one single "Pray" which recasts "Wicked Game" with five men on a beach.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbsAqs3YHyg

there's still a shameless fetishism to these men and their bodies and the sexuality of them. The song is better, the video is less cheap, but the intent is still there.

in the UK now this model still lives on. Pop stars and soap actors still do shirtless photoshoots for both gay mags and women's weeklies (at least, the ones that still survive). It's a world away from the 80s model of new romanticism, where Spandeau Ballet and Duran Duran were just as desireable but in a fully-clothed, fashion-and-style, repressed way.

Googling 'Simon Le Bon shirt off' will get you LOTS of examples of him posing topless for 1980s pop mags.

Good discussion, and, yeah, I'd wondered how Years & Years fit; to my ears they do it right.

probably worth noting that halsey's newest single is a terrible duet with her gross boyfriend g-eazy called "him and i"

they couldn't even get the grammar right!

RIGHT???

who did it better: halsey or zooey

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_%26_Him

Troye will be on SNL!

i guess i read troye less as like... part of the "sanitized white gay into the mainstream" conspiracy and more as part of the "let's figure out how to upstream youtubers into mainstream pop culture" conspiracy. there's some crossover b/w those two things (connor franta etc) but frankly i'm more concerned about the second one personally & as such my interest in the "my my my" video is just noting what it might look like when a vlogger really tries to assert himself as society's very traditional understanding of a pop star. i find the video pretty clumsy and hard to watch, he's trying to sell it so hard but needs more practice. but i'm sure for the intended audience it works.

the other thing is that for all the praise about queer representation yada yada whatever i find it funny that troye and the guys in this video (who fwiw are styled acutely well) don't ever touch each other. the men kind of dance in place in the shadows, hovering around troye but never interacting with him. if they were caged the scene would represent a zoo, where foreign species can gaze at each other with interest but no danger. small step for queer kind and all that but i think there you really get a sense for how calculated this all is -- we can expose this audience to shirtless slightly older men, but there can be no touching -- and so i understand where the cynicism would start to creep in.

yeah, the ultra-cynical take on this is "Jake/Logan Paul with good production"

I've decided I won't ever make another video without a shot of me sucking dick in it

Frankly

*at the climactic moment of The Riverbed, a thought bubble appears above the protagonist's head*

yo this song sucks

Johnny Gill, about whom there are questions about his private life too, already released the superior "My, My, My."

i love that song! (johnny gill's.) the growling and ad libs!

lol omg i didn't know that halsey and g-eazy were dating, how awful

A lot of girls I know are thrilled by the video clip for the Troye song. Whereas with all the hype I was surprised by how tentative it then seemed.

I wonder if maybe the way the clip presents a younger, relatively androgynous-looking Troye implicitly objectifying older, rougher-looking dudes who do not much but lurk suggestively without shirts in the background suggests a dynamic that - while incredibly familiar within gay culture, particularly gay clubbing culture, and particularly-particularly over the last five years or so - feels more novel if yr notion of male objectification is effectively split between boy-band twink and, I dunno, Daniel Craig as James Bond emerging out of the sea or something.

Sivan appeals to the sort of woman like the one I met a decade ago who boasted about how many gay boys were her friends.

Hmm I don't know how true that general archetype is these days, at least in my world of gay-friendly straight people - the kind of women i'm thinking of would not just have more gay male friends than straight male friends but would move in circles where that is totally unremarkable (literally - it would not occur to anyone to remark on it).

The separation really comes down to how people intersect with gay ~culture~ rather than gay guys per se - you can have brunch with a dude every Saturday morning and be pretty close to him while being effectively ignorant of his Saturday night habit of going to parties wearing a jockstrap and harness.

that's my life!

As for your first paragraph: it's a musty archetype for sure; the mid 2000s were the last time when a gay man would even allow himself to be subjected to this tokenism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ay4S61byZo

i like this one more, the synths are gorgeous

Fucking hell, this is great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrMAfMbZOmg

Sivan is the weakest part of this song

His voice is too wan.

man do I dig "Bloom."

Yeah, that song really grew on me.

there's an official extended mix streamable now but i feel like at 3:36 it's still like half as long as it should be?

“Got Me Started” is the new single. I think it’s okay on first listen tho the melodic line that comes in during the chorus is wild familiar, can’t place it though.

you mean the "shooting stars" sample? it's very funny here, just a completely different vibe to the rest of the song

song is pretty nice though

Yeah the sample feels a bit on the nose in an Australian context, though I guess deliberately and unashamedly so, and as such it sort of fits with the general 'twink in a Balenciaga t-shirt' vibe Troye is generally going for right now

it's quite strange because it's a very four-to-the-floor filter house sample but the song is breezy 2-step

lol see this is how little i know about this sort of thing— i know that shooting stars song and have heard it many many times but had no idea what it was or what it was called cuz it has generic bar song all over it

it was a minor hit here before really blowing up years later as a meme internationally

it got a lot of play in whatever hipstro clubs I was going to when it came out stateside like alongside classixx and treasure fingers and these sorts of things

yeah i mean i worked for XLR8R at the time it came out so i definitely heard it but probably lumped it in with a lot of other stuff that i didn’t like— that filter house sound got really tedious real quick.

Ew. This song is excruciating.

Say more?

The title of this song reminds me of that Molly Shannon bit, “don’t get me started, don’t even get me started”

i like "got me started" a lot... my interactions w/ this sample have been very minimal. the production is a cool melding of like 2 step and organ house. also dig the way the chorus vocals are treated.

i feel like one of the few gay guys alive who finds him non compelling to the point of boredom as a visual artist but musically speaking is quietly one of the more compelling pop stars going from a taste & execution standpoint. curious if he can string it together for a whole full length

"i feel like one of the few gay guys alive who finds him non compelling to the point of boredom as a visual artist"

this is a lot of words to say that you're not into twinks

to each their own in that regard— fwiw he does have mild Marfan syndrome, which does tend to yield…twinkier results whether or not one wants them. in his case, he’s embraced it.

as far as aesthetics beyond just the bodies in the videos, i think that one of the elements that feels interesting to me is that there is a mainstreaming of certain queer signifiers via his videos and etc. while i can ramble about assimilation til my face turns blue, the unapologetic queerness of the videos is refreshing, particularly because we know it’s not just some pandering shit.

i like the new song too, cautiously anticipating the album

great album

also, this video!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhGl8McrOHo

that video is amazing but also… cue the discourse lol

have had the album on repeat for the past couple of days, so good

I've warmed up to "Got Me Started" and this thing has a handful of strong tuneful mumbly jams.

lol only just noticed the Star of David he wears in the video which is always but esp in the context of this past week... a choice

my my my

Lol @ the Rush - "Power Windows" tee.

I like this song the least of the singles so far, but the video the best

was a bit iffy on it at first, but now am obsessed with the song, I guess the video helps

My fav on this was actually the closer, "How To Stay With You." Pretty solid record. Much better than the last one.

Is there something missing about this video? Makes me feel more comfortable to show off my own chicken legs but aside from that I'm... not gonna watch it a second time

Really digging this thing after walking, exercising, and driving to it for a week.

I am taking a break from grading papers -- one of my students wrote about the rejection of hedonism in "Got Me Started" (he was describing hedonism and I was like...there's a word for that :)