(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ONE OF YOUR GIRLS")
TROYE SIVAN: (Singing) Lining down the block to be around you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Troye Sivan is a rarity in pop music. He's a huge global superstar with killer dance moves, an impeccable falsetto and millions of hardcore, devoted fans. None of that is unusual, but unlike Harry Styles or Justin Bieber or Bruno Mars, when Troye Sivan sings about love and dating and sex, he sings about men. And he gets specific, including on his new album, "Something To Give Each Other." Heads up that our conversation will also talk about sex in ways that you might not often hear on public radio.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ONE OF YOUR GIRLS")
SIVAN: (Singing) But nobody wants you bad as I do. Baby, let me plead my case.
SHAPIRO: Growing up in Perth, Australia, Troye Sivan used to listen to pop music. And I asked if he would change the pronouns in his head like so many queer people did - girl to boy, she to he. Troye Sivan told me he wasn't even brave enough to do that.
SIVAN: I don't think I would have dared because I was definitely not comfortable with my identity, and for some reason, I was hyperaware of it. Some of my earliest memories are me trying to suppress my sort of difference in identity. I don't know where that came from, but unfortunately, that was a really big part of my internal monologue as, like, a kid.
SHAPIRO: And so how much are you today making the music that that kid would have wanted to have, that the teenager would have wanted to have?
SIVAN: It's interesting because I really am doing that in so many ways, you know? Of course, there's a big element of pride in the fact that I am now so comfortably openly gay. I'm so thankful to be gay, and I love being queer. But I also just musically - especially on this album, there's so many little nostalgic references to the pop that I grew up listening to, pop stars of, like, the early noughties. And, you know, even down to the choreography and the music videos and everything, I really am doing it for, you know, 6-year-old me who just wanted to be a pop star so badly.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ONE OF YOUR GIRLS")
SIVAN: (Singing) Give me a call if you ever get lonely. I'll be like one of your girls or your homies. Say what you...
SHAPIRO: You know, it's one thing to write a same-sex love song. You often go farther than that. You've written about aspects of queer life that do not always get a mainstream audience. Like, the big single from your last album, "Bloom," had an explicit double meaning. On this album, the lead single, "Rush," could describe the general feeling of being on a dance floor, or it could reference the specific brand name of a borderline legal product that makes people feel great on a dance floor.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RUSH")
SIVAN: (Singing) Blazing. I feel the rush - addicted to your touch. Oh, I feel the rush. It's so good. It's so good. I feel the rush.
SHAPIRO: Is there ever a part of you that thinks, should I really be letting people in on this particular aspect of the queer experience?
SIVAN: You know, it's really interesting because I actually don't think about it that much. I think, you know, I feel very emboldened by a supportive family and supportive friends that I feel kind of bulletproof when it comes to talking about whatever I want to talk about. And so, you know, maybe to other people, that can feel like maybe a bit more intentional or radical than it does to me.
SHAPIRO: It's funny because you and I were both raised in observant Jewish families that were liberal and supportive.
SIVAN: Right.
SHAPIRO: And I sometimes feel like, oh, I can't believe my parents are going to see this or hear this. And I'm not making music videos in a jockstrap or chaps.
SIVAN: Right.
SHAPIRO: Like, you never, ever feel that way.
SIVAN: No, no, no. OK, so that - you know, I don't care about the world hearing it. My parents I care about definitely.
SHAPIRO: OK.
SIVAN: And my hope is that it just kind of goes over their head a little bit, and I kind of just leave it up to them to educate themselves.
SHAPIRO: So you have not had the "Rush" conversation with them.
SIVAN: No. No, I have not.
SHAPIRO: But you trust that they figured it out at some point.
SIVAN: I know that they have figured it out. I know that they've figured it out.
SHAPIRO: How do you know that?
SIVAN: Because I have siblings, and they talk. And, you know, it's just, like, I know. But the - but it's the - you know, it's - singing about anything intimate, I worry much, much, much more what my older brother is going to think than I do what the rest of the world will.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RUSH")
SIVAN: (Singing) It's so good. It's so good.
SHAPIRO: One of the other things that you explore on this album is the way casual encounters can be more than just hot. They can be an opportunity for real connection, not...
SIVAN: Totally.
SHAPIRO: ...Despite their anonymity but, in a way, because of it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOT ME STARTED")
SIVAN: (Singing) He's got the personality. Not even gravity could ever hold him down. He's got the sexuality of a man who can take a room and drown it out.
Well, so, you know, I have always kind of been geared, I think, towards long-term relationships. Then I found myself single for the first time, really, since I, you know, became an adult. And I just had a few encounters that really, really changed the way that I look at intimacy.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOT ME STARTED")
SIVAN: (Singing) Let's go. You just got me started, and I don't think I can stop it. And I don't want to go home alone, all right? Oh, baby, baby. Boy, can I be honest? Kind of miss using my body just like this body did tonight. Oh, baby, baby.
You know, when you're cuddled up to someone that you met a few hours prior and you're, you know, like, really enjoying that moment, that's not fake. It's just different. And I just got such joy and such a pleasure out of these, like, quick encounters that can totally, totally fulfill you. So that's ultimately where the album title came into it - was me realizing that everyone has something to offer each other and something to give each other.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOT ME STARTED")
SIVAN: (Singing) We got something to give each other.
SHAPIRO: There's a great specific lyric in the song "How To Stay With You" - I feel like my brother might like you, just not in the same way I do.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOW TO STAY WITH YOU")
SIVAN: (Singing) I feel like my brother might like you, just not in the same way I do. Yeah.
SHAPIRO: What do you think makes that level of detail work for a broad, general, global pop audience?
SIVAN: Well, that's something that I really learned listening for the first time to "Back To Black" by Amy Winehouse. You know, she was writing these super, super-specific lyrics, and you would think it would kind of alienate the audience. But I think it does the opposite. I think it just brings them in, and I think people are really good at taking a feeling from a song and applying it to their own lives. And the more specific that feeling is, I think, the better. So that's something I try and do, you know, always in my songs - is just really, really write from a place of real life.
SHAPIRO: People take different paths to pop stardom, and yours led through video blogging. Almost exactly a decade ago, you posted a coming out video at the age of 18. You'd been out to your family before but not yet to the public. And you were...
SIVAN: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: ...At the time, in talks with a record label but had not yet signed a deal.
SIVAN: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: From where you sit today, what would you want to tell that teenager? What would you want him to know?
SIVAN: You know, it's interesting. I think - I don't know that I would say too much to him. I mean, maybe I would just, like, give him a little hint that, like, music is going to go well, and you're going to be really happy with how everything goes. Like, maybe I'd show him just a tiny snippet of a music video or something just to get him excited.
SHAPIRO: How would he react to that?
SIVAN: I think he would be really, really excited. I think I would be scared. You know, when I was a kid - speaking of that early internalized homophobia, I think maybe there would be a little bit of fear, you know? Like, oh, wow, you're doing that? Or, wow, sometimes you, you know, wear makeup? I think there would be fear, but I think there would be a huge sense of relief as well. And I'm sure that he would be very, very excited for the future.
SHAPIRO: Troye Sivan. His new album is called "Something To Give Each Other." Thank you so much for talking with us today.
SIVAN: Thank you so much for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF TROYE SIVAN SONG, "HOW TO STAY WITH YOU")
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