Review: on 'She's the Best,' Troye Sivan trades dance-floor euphoria for the afterparty comedown — with a Madonna sample, Nicole Kidman in the video and Charli xcx on backing vocals

Three years after 'Something to Give Each Other' (2023), a record built for peak dance-floor euphoria, Troye Sivan released 'She's the Best' on Friday (Oct. 9) via Interscope. This is a review: FAMEFILE listened to the album and weighed it against the first critiques published by Clash, NME and Rolling Stone Australia. The starting point is different: instead of the party, it is the small hours after it, with a narrator searching for someone who hasn't arrived yet and leaning on the women in his life.

The title track, the lead single, is the most polished: a love letter to his friends, with Charli xcx on backing vocals and Nicole Kidman starring in the video. 'Party,' the second single, loops a snippet of Madonna's 'Music' almost like a mantra and got a video narrated by Ian McKellen. The shadow of Madonna's 'Erotica' (1992) also hangs over the deep house of 'Canada Dry,' while 'Le Boy' has a hook NME links to Air's 'Sexy Boy.' The album closes with 'Lost Time,' which opens with a French monologue by Lily-Rose Depp.

The credits help explain the loose mood: Leland co-writes much of the record, Jack Antonoff brings his feel-over-precision production, and The 1975's George Daniel is also among the collaborators. The high points sit far from the obvious four-on-the-floor: 'I Do This For You,' built on an obscure sample and featuring a bridge made of pop-up ads that captures dating-app loneliness, and 'Embarrassingly,' a gently strummed song about an ex that sounds lovely despite its frankness.

Not everything lands. NME rightly notes that the languid tone sometimes drifts into meandering, and 'FF' drags past the four-minute mark. Clash describes stylistic whiplash from track to track, which makes the record harder to sum up in a sentence than its predecessor. But that is exactly what makes it more human: 'She's the Best' isn't asking to be loved instantly, it wants to be lived with — and it rewards those who return. Score: 7.5/10