Troye Sivan Finally Drops "Rush"

Better late than never, right?

Don’t let the name fool you. Troye Sivan’s latest single has finally arrived at anything but a rushed pace. In fact, its arrival made a snail's pace look fast. Troye initially announced the single on June 9, but didn’t even announce the release date of July 13 until June 30, the last day of Pride month. It was an audacious, and outright stupid marketing plan to announce and promote this catchy and very queer house record, with a poppers brand-inspired title, during Pride month, and then not release it until mid-July. Honestly, it’s homophobic. This is why straight people shouldn’t run record labels. 

At any rate, a month and a half later, “Rush” has finally arrived. The song clocks in at just 2:36, following the trend of keeping songs short, sweet, and able to rack up more streams than the longer ones. It certainly leaves an impression in the little time it’s here. A punchy piano pounds out chords in glorious 90’s house fashion alongside a throbbing bass line and drum machine track that sounds like a sped up cousin of 2018’s Ariana Grande-collab “Dance To This.” The crowd-chant chorus of “I feel the rush, addicted to your touch” is an instant earworm. 

Lyrically, though it’s a bit of a mixed bag. He opens with a nod to a healthy sexual encounter, “big communication, tell me what you want,” before progressing into the irresistibly salacious, “kiss it when you’re done.” It’s just another sexual step from the man who gave us “I bloom just for you,” the unapologetic anthem for bottoms everywhere. However, lyrics like the disjointed second verse closer “pocket rocket gun” leave something to be desired. 

The music video debuted at the same moment the song dropped, and has managed to trigger a slew of discourse across social media. The video has everything: gloryholes, dancing twinks, a kegstand, someone peeing in the bushes, jockstraps, ass, assless chaps, and a glaring lack of body diversity. It’s like a taste of Fire Island, as many have joked. But seriously, it does demonstrate the need for continued conversations on how we portray our community, which has a history of being exclusionary in visual media.

To add insult to injury, Troye’s new dance-pop album (with quite an eye-catching album cover), Someone To Give Each Other drops in mid-October, long after everyone has receded inside for the cooling autumn. Seriously, who is running this campaign and why? Maybe if they actually took a hit of poppers and felt the rush all of this would have happened sooner, like it should have.