is this what you want to inhale drugs to?

July 14, 2023 6:23 AM

Is Troye Sivan’s ‘Rush’ Sexy Fun or Gay Detritus? "We decided to get one gay who remembers the release of Kylie Minogue’s 'Locomotion' and another gay who is too young to remember the release of 'Can’t Get You Out of My Head' to debate whether this track is actually a Bop or Flop."
posted by mittens (20 comments total)

"Meh" for me, but I think it has been carefully crafted to hit its target audience... Not aware of the current psycho-stimulative trends from today's generation, but definitely not into this — prefer chocolate and power naps.
posted by Roverlaw at 7:03 AM on July 14, 2023

Free Troye [ungated]
posted by chavenet at 7:06 AM on July 14, 2023

"I truly don’t mind the vintage nature of this track." Oh fuck off with that, you damn millenial. (He's not wrong though. And I love how super-gay this commentary article is.)

But hello it's me, the target audience for this video. At least I certainly appreciate fit young men kissing with their shirts off. Still got bored about 90 seconds in and started doing something else while the video played in a corner, distracting me every 15 seconds with some new horny scene.

I'm genuinely surprised at the young man pissing at 2:46 with his perfect butt exposed. Hot, very gay, more than a little taboo in mainstream media.

Some alternatives to the "body fascism and emaciation": I want a bear and the Eurovision classic Bearforce1. Sadly neither video is as sexy as this one.
posted by Nelson at 7:19 AM on July 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

"Jason, where were you when you woke up and first heard the new Troye Sivan? Did you recognize your surroundings?"

Amazing.
posted by mhoye at 7:29 AM on July 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

Mod note: Comment and response removed. If you don't like a post or its content, feel free to skip it, instead of leaving a dismissive comment.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:58 AM on July 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

"Sadly, neither video is as sexy as this one.": believe me, there are plenty of different videos that are way sexier than this one, even in completely unexpected ways. This guy's young and fit, and he's enjoying his youth (and that's okay!), but sex appeal is like an onion, with multiple layers that can be surprisingly deep and unexpected. It's a matter of gaining enough XP.
posted by Roverlaw at 8:18 AM on July 14, 2023

I'd have fun if this came in in a club. I like dancing to house music, and this is quality move-your-body music. I don't know that I'd seek it out, but if a DJ wove this into a set I'd have a blast.
posted by hippybear at 9:28 AM on July 14, 2023

Sorry for being dismissive in my comment. I thought I was answering the question raised in the article, but perhaps more clearly stating I think "gay detritus" captures my feelings about the song in question would be more acceptable.
posted by mediareport at 9:44 AM on July 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

Since I broke my own rule about doing drive-by sneering comments (twice), and didn't mean to shut down the conversation, please allow me to explain the "get off my lawn with your hot young peeing bodies" reaction. I can see the value of hot young gay influencers, sure, and when Troy's marketing of the new song bled over into my socials last week it came with folks' comments about the stuff Choire Sicha mentions in the linked article - the kind of emaciated muscle twink idealized body that can be so shitty for so many folks, especially young queerlings. I hadn't heard of Troy before that (I know, right? Amazing what no Insta or TikTok can do), but he sure was cute so I clicked around, listened to his music and felt what I usually feel with influencers - mostly meh, with a bit of "sexy like all those muscle twinks on videos above dance floors I've seen at gay bars for decades" appreciation for the porniness of it all. Good for him, and for his fans.

But what really sent me over the edge is the music. It's so, so dull to me. I've been rolling my eyes at the lameness of the music in the standard gay male clubs in my town for a long time- the same boring beats that don't change up, etc (luckily there are other options at queerer, more diverse spaces). Sicha got it right: "It doesn’t feel transgressive. It feels like Twink Marky Mark." I wish Troy had better taste, or better producers, or better drugs, or whatever he needs to stop making such dull music. I'm sorry I dissed the video in such an offhand way; he does push the boundaries with the smutty peeing visuals, and includes POC and (briefly) slightly varying body types in some of his other songs.
posted by mediareport at 12:44 PM on July 14, 2023

*Troye
posted by mediareport at 12:55 PM on July 14, 2023

It is a house music track. That's what house music is, "the same boring beats that don't change up, etc". I don't know if you've listened to any of the tapes that were recently digitized from Fire Island in the Nineties, but yeah, that's what it is.

I understand wanting different music, but this is house music. You can't ask George Michael to create Stairway To Heaven. It isn't going to happen.
posted by hippybear at 1:05 PM on July 14, 2023

For me--someone who liked a lot of Troye's older work (y'know, from the late 2010s, a time history has almost forgotten)--I was surprised how much I didn't like this track, although I loved the back-and-forth about it. (It would have been better to also have had a Gen X commentator supply their aged wisdom, but I could understand them not being able to see their phones well enough to participate.) Also being introduced to the concept of flop stars made so much sense to me--all these people I see on Spotify all the time, but they don't seem to have quite broken through into the larger social consciousness? It's always weird to listen to a song twenty or a hundred times and realize no one around you has any idea what it is. Which feels a little like the reverse of earlier dance music, where you'd hear a song and then five years later Revlon was using it for a commercial during daytime soaps or something.

Also I don't think I've ever felt so exhausted, watching a music video. Someone make these children behave.
posted by mittens at 2:10 PM on July 14, 2023

(It would have been better to also have had a Gen X commentator supply their aged wisdom, but I could understand them not being able to see their phones well enough to participate.)

I'm 55 and commented on this. I was in Europe when The Locomotion was released. I know much about this, and also a gentle denigration of you for saying this.
posted by hippybear at 2:23 PM on July 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

That's what house music is, "the same boring beats that don't change up, etc"

Oh my goodness I couldn't disagree with you more, and kind of feel for you if you've never heard slippery, funky, oozing house music that shifts and changes as you groove and shiver to it - tossing little stutter steps into the beat, dropping new percussion lines in and out...I could go on and give examples like, oh, Dubtribe at their best live, sitting on their blankets with the equipment on floor, mixing samples smoothly and quickly into a beautiful danceable flowing collage of sound, but here, check the section from 20:00 to 30:00 or so from track 1 of this cassette, which I did the dishes to the other night, for a good example of what I'm talking about. Sure, it's got lots of nice repetition to groove extensively to, but so much more as well.

I certainly don't need any schooling on house music; it's been in my queer blood since I still had hair and was grinding my teeth at warehouse parties in the 80s. Stating that an integral aspect of house music is that the beat be boring is mind-boggling to me.

"Rush," however, is boring house music, no doubt.
posted by mediareport at 4:15 PM on July 14, 2023 [5 favorites]

I want the Loquacious review.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:30 PM on July 14, 2023

Oh my goodness I couldn't disagree with you more, and kind of feel for you if you've never heard slippery, funky, oozing house music that shifts and changes as you groove and shiver to it - tossing little stutter steps into the beat, dropping new percussion lines in and out...

Exactly!!! When people say house music never changes I always wonder. Good house music does all kinds of things, often in subtle and interesting ways.
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:12 AM on July 15, 2023

I've been doing house music dancing for literally most of my life, and yes house music DJ sets are full of amazing variations and transitions and carry a long journey if you're there for several hours under the same DJ.

That doesn't mean house music TRACKS have much variation. The individual songs are woven together across a DJ set to create something more, but generally each individual song doesn't really do much.

This is a single song. As I said before, if this came up on the dance floor, it would be a lot of fun to dance to. I don't want to dance to this for 2 hours straight.
posted by hippybear at 1:40 PM on July 15, 2023

That doesn't mean house music TRACKS have much variation.

Deeply disagree. Guess we listen to different stuff!
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:45 AM on July 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

It would have been better to also have had a Gen X commentator supply their aged wisdom, but I could understand them not being able to see their phones well enough to participate

Uh I think Choire is gen x?
posted by ch1x0r at 8:12 AM on July 16, 2023

Uh I think Choire is gen x?

TIL he's only a few months younger than me (?!). I must discover his skincare regimen.
posted by mittens at 5:22 AM on July 17, 2023 [2 favorites]