But did the candle smell like Troye?
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Claire Biddles: I’m a fully committed Sivan stan (I once bought a £30 Troye-branded scented candle from his merch stand when I went to see him play live) so the prospect of his first new material since 2015 left me trembling with excitement. Unfortunately “There for You” is sadpop-by-numbers, clichéd both musically (pitched up vocal sample chorus) and lyrically (“love is a road that goes both ways”). The strength of the singles from his debut Blue Neighbourhood came from the combination of his (explicitly queer) suburban teen drama lyrics, and the lush and imaginative soundscapes of writer/producer Alex Hope, neither of which are present here. On a song like that album’s “Fools”, Troye met the high bar of the music, but here Martin Garrix doesn’t give him nearly enough: In the context of a dance guest vocal, his voice is relegated from subtle to boring.
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Ryo Miyauchi: Troye Sivan throws out that he woke up pissed off this morning like a loose tweet, and hearing the passiveness he puts forth on this, his supposed frustration has the lifespan of one too. It’s easy to blame Martin Garrix and co. for that with their overtly clean production scrubbing away any hint of anxiety. But Sivan could’ve also shared me with at least one reason other than him having to catch drags on the balcony to convince me why I got to pick up his call to hear him out.
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Thomas Inskeep: Sivan’s voice is warm and inviting, a good match for the lyrics he’s singing, and Garrix has constructed a good bed for them, not at all typical EDM-pop but almost (I stress almost) soulful. The chorus does the rote DJ drop thing, unfortunately — you gotta WHOOSH up the crowd, I suppose — but apart from that, this stands fairly strongly.
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Alfred Soto: “You’ve Got a Friend” for the EDM crowd, with a hint of sex, and if Troye Sivan’s dark-hued tones weren’t there for me, this song wouldn’t be.
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Scott Mildenhall: Welcome incremental gain of addressing a “boy” aside, shouldn’t have been so keen to give up your youth.
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Stephen Eisermann: Something about Troye’s voice is instantly familiar, which is why Blue Neighborhood worked as well as it did; however, here the familiar and soothing tone of his voice is both an asset and a hindrance. Many electronic songs aim to be cathartic, hoping to help release any sadness or pain through their melancholic beats, crescendo and all. The lyrics are often nothing to write home about, usually a combination of words referencing loneliness and sadness, and that is no different here. What is different is that Troye’s voice gives the admittedly-pedestrian lyrics a bit more oomph, but while that may work for the chorus, the silk in his voice is counterproductive when the beat is about to drop. It just doesn’t fit. Even the final crescendo feels weird, not bad, necessarily, but definitely not what is expected and, really, needed in a song like this. Any emotion the song manages to muster up with its verses is quickly lost in the chorus, but at the end of the day the song manages to hit me right in the feels at some point, so I guess mission accomplished?
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