After taking a 5-year break since his last album release, Troye Sivan has announced the release of his next album ‘Something to Give Each Other’. With this announcement came the lead single Rush. The upcoming album, which as been described by Sivan himself as, ‘a kiss on a dancefloor, a date turned into a weekend, a crush, a winter, a summer. Party after party, after party after after party. Heartbreak, freedom. Community, sisterhood, friendship,’ is set to be released on October 13. While we wait in anticipation for this long-awaited album, Sivan has given us the fun, party anthem that is ‘Rush’.
‘Rush’ is a song about sex, partying, and dancing. Paired with a video that shows the sexy, sweaty parts of queer joy, this song is the queer anthem of the summer. We aren’t the only ones that think that. The chart success of this song speaks for itself. Rush debuted at number 135 on the global Spotify charts and peaked at number 23 making it Troye Sivan’s biggest solo debut of his career. Not only that, but the song also received over 2.6 million streams in a day, making it Sivan’s highest charting solo song and most streamed song ever in a single day. This is both a reflection of Sivan’s growth in popularity as a public figure, especially with his role on HBO’s ‘The Idol’, but it is also a testament to how good the song is.
The disco anthem features a sensual pre-chorus followed by a chanty, catchy chorus which repeats the lines ‘I feel the rush/Addicted to your touch.’ The chorus describes the feeling of a high that you get when partying, dancing, and being in the heat of the moment with someone. Its simple yet its simplicity paired with the delivery makes for the perfect dance track. The line is likely also a reference to the poppers brand ‘Rush’ in which the ‘rush’ that he is describing is literally the high he feels from these drugs. The video pairs beautifully with this song. The queer, sexy video perfectly matches the vibe of the song. Directed by Gordon von Steiner, the music video features half-naked, sweaty bodies, a bright and colourful atmosphere, and dance sequence, choreographed by Sergio Reis. The video encapsulates the essence of the song in the way that a music video should, making ‘Rush’ the perfect comeback song for Troye Sivan.
It’s hard to talk about the Rush music video without acknowledging the backlash that the music video faced. While this video is an expression of queerness, the video only depicts a certain type of queer person: thin and conventionally attractive queer people. Many people took issue with this (rightfully so). For a video which is meant to show queer joy and queer sexuality, it is upsetting to see only a certain type of queer person represented. In response to this backlash, Sivan said “I definitely hear the critique. To be honest, it just wasn’t a thought we had — we obviously weren’t saying, ‘We want to have one specific type of person in the video.’ We just made the video, and there wasn’t a ton of thought put behind that.” While I’m sure this is true, it can be frustrating to see something which happens far too frequently; queerness being shown through such a narrow lens that isn’t reflective of the diversity seen within the community in real life. Does this make the song any less of a bop? No. Does it make the video any less fun and aesthetically pleasing? No. But it is important to note that while Sivan’s new song and video is an expression of queer joy and sexuality, it is not representative of the huge amount of diversity within the queer community.
The song is still a bop and the video still slays and we at Manic cannot wait to hear the album that will be released on October 13.
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