Troye Sivan Talks ‘Chaotic’ New Album & Getting Madonna’s Approval for ‘Party’: ‘I Was Pleasantly Surprised’

After a painstaking pursuit of what he calls “perfect pop” on his euphoric 2023 album Something to Give Each Other, Troye Sivan could have easily stuck around the dancefloor for his next project. After all, Something was somewhat of a breakthrough for Sivan, 31, bringing him his first three Grammy nominations, two new Billboard Hot 100 hits (“Rush” and “One of Your Girls”), and a pair of high-profile tours: his own solo trek and the blockbuster Sweat Tour with Charli xcx.

Instead, Sivan leaned into the swinging pendulum of life on She’s the Best, his fourth album, out Friday on Interscope. “I wanted there to be this kind of push-and-pull between going from the stage and feeling like this hyper-empowered, hyper-sexualized, connected version of myself to then the reality of going back to the hotel and at times, honestly, feeling the most isolated that I felt in my life,” Sivan says. “That tension made me want to make something that felt really layered.”

To achieve that depth, Sivan ­surrounded himself with his closest collaborators (read: real-life friends) to co-write and co-produce, including a trio that goes back to his 2015 debut, Blue Neighbourhood — Jack Antonoff, Allie X and Leland — as well as Charli, his ­brother Tyde Levi and even, for the first time, producing himself.

Previewing the album’s duality, Sivan first released the moody, talky title track (complete with a Nicole Kidman-­starring music video) followed by “Party,” a Madonna-sampling club banger. “It was a constant feeling of pressure, and then immediately realizing that the only antidote is to completely f–k it off,” says Sivan. “I would have been really disappointed in myself if I had made something that I thought other people wanted from me more so than something that I wanted to make.”

In a sit-down interview with the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Sivan was joined by Leland (“We would be friends even if neither of us were musicians,” the songwriter says of Troye) and Levi (“I’ve known Troye since the day I was born!” the rookie producer laughs of his big brother) to talk about how the album came together and why much of its magic was found outside the studio.

Was there any sort of mission statement while making this album?

Troye Sivan: That was one of the pressures. On the last album, it’s very easy to sum up where I was in my life at that time in a single sentence that felt very marketable and easy to understand. Some of the tension that I felt was, “Life doesn’t feel like that at the moment.” The album ended up being all about that.

Leland: It’s very unique and such a gift to be this close to one of my favorite collaborators. So it’s not a one-off session one day where we’re trying to write something that has depth. Not every day is going to be Troye going into a session and being like, “I’m feeling like I felt when we made ‘Rush’ — let’s make that again!”

What was that dynamic like in the studio, bringing together one of your longest working relationships in Leland and also one of your closest family members in Tyde?

Sivan: On my last album, I was very focused on trying to create this sort of “perfect pop” — and I still absolutely love that and will forever for the rest of my life — but I’m really inspired by people who act really instinctively, and that reminds me of when I used to make music when I was 13 in my room. So I recorded a lot of the vocals at home, and I’m a producer on this album for the first time on a couple of songs. Then Tyde and I have always had this constant conversation about music because we both just love it so much, and one day, he sent me a track that ended up becoming “Canada Dry.” Instantly, I ended up writing a little chorus at home and then FaceTimed Leland. Tyde is on three songs on the album, and they’re all very different from each other. Tyde is on “Cowboy” and he’s also on “Party,” and I don’t know that we would have made that together had we been sat in the room.

Tyde Levi: Honestly, I was shocked when Troye wanted to take “Party.” I feel like I’d made it basically in my bedroom with my friend, and I didn’t know if he would like it. And we sent it anyways.

What was the genesis of “Party”?

Sivan: We were writing a really sad song, and then I was like, “Let’s also write something dancey and up.” And we started coming up with this lyric that was loosely inspired by the Lady Gaga interview, where she’s like, “Bus, club, another club.” Then we wrote it, took it home, I recorded myself trying some new production on it, sent that to Tyde just to kind of gauge his thoughts. Tyde gets with Rob Feher, and they make the track that you now hear. We then take it back to [engineer] Styalz Fuego, who I’ve worked with for a million years as well. Even the credit list on this song is like a party. It just felt so natural to be passing it around, back and forth.

How did you get permission from Madonna to sample “Music” on the song?

Sivan: It’s kind of a lame story…

You’re still trying?

Sivan: Don’t joke! Because we were filming the most ambitious music video of my life while still figuring out the clearance of it all. So I was like, “This better work, because God knows what’s going to happen if it doesn’t.” But no, we literally just asked and I was very pleasantly surprised that they made it really easy.

Levi: Don’t think that we weren’t waiting by the phone to hear whether Madonna was on board or not.

Sivan: My first memory of music is “Like a Prayer.” I used to run around in our playroom at home and just sing it and sing it and sing it. My parents said that’s when they realized that I had a nice voice. Then the “Girl Gone Wild” video made me gay, basically.

Leland: Same.

Sivan: I mean, that was the hottest video I had ever seen at the time.

I hope all of these moments were part of your pitch to Team Madonna…

Sivan: Yeah. I’m like, “By the way, you made me want to make music and you made me gay.”

There are unexpected production touches throughout the album, like the sound of a phone busy signal or heavy breathing. What was the intention behind those?

Sivan: I liked the idea that we could introduce these sounds that really place the album in the real world that make it feel like this living, breathing kind of chaotic thing in the same way that life does. To me, this is a very walk-around-and-listen album. It feels like you’re a part of the world still.

Levi: The three songs that I’m on were all made in my bedroom at Troye’s house in Melbourne. We’re not in the biggest studio with the craziest equipment, and I think that did bring a roughness that Troye wanted to go after.

Leland: So much of this album happened outside of the studio. Lyrics were finished at dinners, songs were talked through at lunches or over morning FaceTimes, and a second verse was finished here [at home]. Of course, there were some proper studio sessions to get things going and record vocals sometimes, but truly, a lot of this album happened outside of the studio.

Also on this week’s Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, we’ve got chart news on how Taylor Swift is back atop both the Billboard 200 albums chart and the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, thanks to the deluxe Encore reissue of her The Life of a Showgirl album. Plus, Tinashe and Kenny Chesney debut in the top 10 on the Billboard 200.

A version of this story appears in the Oct. 3, 2026, issue of Billboard.