Troye Sivan - Blue Neighbourhood Trilogy (2015)
Review:
The Blue Neighbourhood Trilogy is a collection of three songs with accompanying music videos by Australian singer Troye Sivan. The songs are Wild, Fools and Talk Me Down, and the music videos have been collated into the Troye Sivan - Blue Neighbourhood Trilogy (Director’s Cut). I especially like the dreampop style of the songs and how both the music and videos have a very nostalgic feel. The music videos are emotional, and together hold weight as a short film in their own right, taking place in an Australian coastal suburb, which Troye sees as his ‘Blue Neighbourhood’.
Looking at the music videos: in Wild we see interspersed clips of Troye (who is gay) and his love interest, Matt (Matthew Eriksson), holding each other in a bedroom – but around these clips we see flashbacks of the two growing up and playing together as children. They’re clearly best friends who do everything together and they are seen getting up to all the things kids get up to in suburban coastal towns. Matt’s father is also shown to be an alcoholic which causes him to fall out with Troye’s father. Wild ends with Troye and Matt kissing in the bedroom which is where the video for Fools begins. In Fools, Matt’s alcoholic father catches the two of them kissing and forces Troye and Matt to stop seeing each other. Matt is seen working with his father and when Troye comes to see him, Matt sends him away in order to please his father. Troye later sees Matt with a girlfriend, and they ignore Troye as they pass him in the street. The final video is Talk Me Down, and it takes place at the funeral of Matt’s dad. Matt is there with his girlfriend and is seen to be devastated. Troye also attends the funeral and after the burial Troye comforts Matt, until Matt’s girlfriend interrupts and hurriedly takes him away. There are a lot of short flashbacks to Troye and Matt as children, and it is implied that a distraught Matt commits suicide at the end of the video by jumping from a cliff, as it is foreshadowed by a scene of the two boys jumping off a pier as children.
These videos show a story of how lonely one can feel when one’s sexuality is not accepted. When families make people repress or hide their sexuality it can destroy a person’s self-esteem. This is evidenced by Matt likely committing suicide even after his controlling and abusive father had died. Matt still didn’t feel free from the internalised homophobia even though he was now free from his father’s judgement, and it overwhelmed him. And as we see from Troye’s perspective – sometimes we can love someone, but they may be unable to be in a position to love us back, or at the very least they feel that way. Even when barriers to love are removed, the damage of homophobia (internal and external) and societal pressures can cause us to continue to hold back, as the damage is already done.
The tone of the music videos matches the music itself and together they tell an emotional and nostalgic story. Looking at the music: in Wild, Troye sings of trying hard not to fall for someone (perhaps due to other peoples’ disapproval), but eventually being worn down and giving in, and thus falling wildly in love. It’s very much a song of living in suburbia and being in love. In Fools, Troye sings about a relationship having broken down and him struggling to let it go. He feels foolish for having fallen in love in the first place. Fools is about the memories of the good times and the hopes for the future that will now never happen, and it’s about regretting aspects of the relationship and also accepting that it’s now over. Troye is aware at how their ‘…lives don’t collide,’ and that they have differences – maybe the two weren’t compatible – but regardless Troye wants him back - ‘…your obsession with The little things you like stick, and I like aerosol Don't give a fuck, not giving up, I still want it all’ In a breakup there’s the logical side which accepts why the breakup happened and that things are over, but there’s also the emotional/nostalgic side which wants to return to the good times together and that’s in denial that the dreams for the future together will never come to pass. Talk Me Down continues this theme. Letting go of a failed relationship can be the hardest thing and denial plays a role. We may just want to start over and go back to the basics, and just be close again and hold hands. This is a song about grieving after the end of a relationship.
Overall, I would thoroughly recommend checking out this trilogy. The music and music videos work so well together and there are some powerful messages to be taken from them, and they sound and look good too. It’s a slight shame that the trilogy ends on a message about grief, as it would have been a good opportunity to send out a message of hope at this point – that things can get better. However, I do recognise that some endings aren’t positive though, and that not everything can be fixed. There aren’t many comparable pieces out there, so Troye is leading the way in representation in music of growing up gay, and how isolating and damaging it can be when we don’t talk to, accept and support each other.
Favourite lyrics:
Wild
Trying hard not to fall
On the way home
You were trying to wear me down, down
Kissing up on fences
And up on walls
On the way home
I guess it’s all working out, now
Fools
I see swimming pools and living rooms and aeroplanes
I see a little house on the hill and children’s names
I see quiet nights poured over ice and Tanqueray
But everything is shattering and it’s my mistake
Talk Me Down
'Cause you know that I can't trust myself with my 3AM shadow
I'd rather fuel a fantasy than deal with this alone
Tone: Sombre
Score: 9/10
Other observations:
I like the title Blue Neighbourhood. It captures the mundaneness of growing up as a closeted gay, waiting to escape to something bigger and better. It’s home, but we spend so much time waiting to leave it so we can experience the wider world and be our true selves.