NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

If I could describe the music of this year in one word, I would say that the music of 2023 has been derivative. To some extent, music is always derivative and we could argue that there has been nothing in music since [pick a date].  But a year of derivative music isn’t necessarily a bad year in music. The music from quarantine in 2020 until last year drew on familiarity and nostalgia. Maybe this year familiarity has peaked with the shameless credited interpolation. KINDA MISS USIN’ MY BODY. I discussed the shameless interpolations of David Guetta with “ I’m Good” (Blue) and “ Baby Don’t Hurt Me ” and Jason Derulo ’s “ When Love Sucks ” earlier this year. I talked about how both of those artists' uses of the original material felt like they were forcing nostalgia onto their listeners rather than letting it happen organically. But today, we’re looking at Troye Sivan ’s “ Got Me Started ,” the second single from last week’s Something to Give Each Other . The song borrows the hook fr

  It’s been five years since Troye Sivan released his sophomore record, Bloom . Next month, the singer will release his long-anticipated third full-length studio album, Something to Give Each Other . In the heat of northern hemisphere summer, on July 13, the lead single, “ Rush ,” was released with a racy accompanying music video. Along with “Rush” and the album announcement on July 13, Sivan also released the artwork for the upcoming album.  Between the video for “Rush” and the cover art which features Troye Sivan’s head between the thighs of an apparently nude muscular man, it seems that the singer is continuing his horny era which began with his sophomore album.  TRUST THE SIMULATION. The time between Bloom and Something to Give Each Other was unintentional. In 2020, Sivan broke up with his long-term boyfriend, model Jacob Bixenman, which influenced several of the songs on the singer’s late-summer 2020 EP release, In a Dream . But Sivan doesn’t spend the whole EP pining about hi

  In October, Troye Sivan will release his first full-length record since 2018's Bloom.  While other pop stars have entered prolific eras with frequent releases, fans have had to wait a long time for new music from Sivan.   His last major release was an EP in 2020 titled In a Dream , but the singer has been releasing singles since then; however, whether or not they will be part of the upcoming work is yet to be disclosed. Sivan's sophomore LP, Bloom , was a celebration of love and gay sex; however, In a Dream is an introspective collection of songs--with the exception of "Stud"--dealing with heartache and a failing relationship.  TELL ME WE'LL MAKE IT THROUGH. The single " Easy " is the second track on In a Dream. The song was remixed by producer Mark Ronson and features a verse by Kacey Musgraves . Sivan had appeared on Musgrave's second Christmas album in 2019, and the reunion between the two singers on the 2020 single not only coincided with S

Following  Blue Neighbourhood ,   Troye Sivan released another collection of songs celebrating queer love in 2018. This time,  Bloom   was less about love in the abstract and more about sex. Songs like the  title track  dealing with anal sex, the Apple Music edition of the album's opener " Seventeen " recalling how the singer lost his virginity to an older man on Grindr when he was seventeen, to a song about his boyfriend who "Tastes like  Lucky Strikes " may take a few listens to understand the euphemisms. SHINE ON, DIAMOND.   Bloom  holds an 85% on  Meta-Critic , meaning that most reviews were favorable. In America, though, Sivan's music mostly is confined to the LGBTQ+ community,  and  Bloom  didn't make a splash in the mainstream pop market. But looking at the promotion, Sivan's team clearly had the young star's sights on conquering the charts.  A track with Ariana Grande , a performance, albeit a polarizing performance, on  Saturday Night

Spring is a time of youth and renewed life. Flowers are blooming and pollen is swimming in the breeze. We have seen this happen year in and year out, perhaps never really thinking about how Mother Earth is regenerating herself. Indeed sex is all around us as the bees inseminate the flowers in the garden. The vibrancy of springtime in a garden is an appropriate cloak for today's song as Troye Sivan wraps the metaphor of young horniness in the beauty of the natural world in the title track to his second record Bloom . While Sivan's track is undeniably queer, the journey into the garden feels universal--a trip that all will take when leaving youth behind. TAKE A TRIP INTO MY GARDEN.   Troye Sivan's sophomore record, Bloom, takes the singer-songwriter into more adult themes. The singer's previous work Blue Neighbourhood intentionally steered away from overtly sexual topics. When Sivan made the music video trilogy "Wild," "Fools," and "Talk You Dow

In 2015, Troye Sivan released Wild , an EP of six songs. Three of those songs would be released on Sivan's debut full-length, Blue Neighbourhoods , while the other three would be included on the deluxe edition of the album. Wild was Sivan's second EP signed on a major label, though the then-teenager had been singing, writing his own songs, and producing his own music since he was 12 years old. As a YouTube generation musician, Sivan had grown followers on the platform, his viewers watching his journey discovering his sexuality. Sivan came out in 2013 just before his career took off. LEAVE THESE BLUE NEIGHBORHOODS. The eponymous lead single from Wild  alludes to the upcoming album with the line "blue neighbourhoods," which Sivan has discussed to mean the mundane life in suburbia. In Sivan's case, the city of Perth, Australia is where the singer was raised. Perth is a major city in Australia, with over 2 million people, yet the city is separated from the other ma

Austra-South African YouTuber-turned pop star and actor  Troye Sivan  creates a kind of infectious electro-pop that brilliantly celebrates love, acceptance, and sexuality. From my vantage point in South Korea, I saw the rise of Sivan's career. With his debut album,  Blue Neighbourhoods ,  Sivan could be heard everywhere in 2016 and not only was his music making an impact, him and fellow LGBT+ singer  Sam Smith  were starting conversations around sexual orientation that would have been considered taboo even five years before. My middle school students, in their free time at school, would often play Sivan's music videos. " Wild ," " Fools ," and " Youth " depict a teenage secret relationship between two boys. Being a teacher at a Christian school and working in a conservative country where it  was illegal for teachers to talk about LGBT+ issues at the time,    undoubtedly these middle school students were trying to press some buttons. Still, with som