20GAYTeen the Rate: WINNER!!

He's only got one song left and she didn't lose a song until the top 17. Ya'll are doing too much.

 

Troye to Verandi:

 

Y'all.

It's just my lowest score left. If his best is not as good as other singer's worst, that's out of my control x

Ok but tag me next time.

 

Oh yeah, let's lose those two subpar Troye and Y&Y songs before the top 10 please

 

'Americans' was an 11 contender for me. Wish it would've stuck around a bit longer, but not losing a song until now in a rate with so much good music is talent.

 

Just a bump to remind everyone that Dorian Electra's debut album is out 07/17/19.

 

Daddy Like has consumed my life, can't wait for the album.

 

If All For You and My My My! don't make top 10, I won't be happy.

 

You just love to torture me don't you?

 

Hello loves! I'm back from a wonderfully relaxing vacation with my fiance (!!!). I have to finish up my scores for @Lila's incredible rate then I will try to get the last elimination together! Things are about to get messy!

 

Getting this rate started up again is Alain Locke who helped get the Harlem Renaissance started! He was considered the Dean of the Harlem Renaissance and was the first black Rhodes Scholar! Dr King once proclaimed “We're going to let our children know that the only philosophers that lived were not Plato and Aristotle, but W. E. B. Du Bois and Alain Locke came through the universe.”

13. “My My My!”
By Troye Sivan
8.500

Highest Scores: 11 x 2 (@slaybellz @Remorque)
10 x 17 (@CorgiCorgiCorgi @GimmeWork @dylanaber @ufint @Reboot @londonrain @Blob @happiestgirl @inevitable @Riiiiiiiii @Lost Boy @Hurricane Drunk @Music Is Life @Untouchable Ace @kalonite @KingBruno @Trouble in Paradise)
Lowest Scores: 1 x 1 (@LE0Night ) 5 x 2 (@Cutlery @The Hot Rock)
My Score: 10

Spark up, buzz cut
I've got my tongue between your teeth
Go slow, no, no, go fast
You like it just as much as me
​

I feel like my desire to wait and do this right should be understood now that we all know what happens at Unlucky #13! Our beloved Prince of Pop Troye Sivan departs the rate before the Top 10! Before anyone goes awff, @LE0Night provided overall artist commentary defending his scores and his Troye scores demonstrated a range of scores showing he clearly listened and scored fairly. Also, I let some of y’all get away with giving every Troye song a 10 (with accompanying commentary!).

Remember when “My My My!” first came out? Remember how exciting that was? Before the MONTHS long album campaign and buffoonery. We all loved Troye! He was here to help save pop! And boy what a pop song is “My My My!” Those synths, that big ole chorus, the VIDEO! I’m glad the majority of us saw the light on this slice of pop perfection. Troye told Paper that "My My My!' is a song of liberation, freedom, and love," Sivan says. "Throw all inhibition to the wind, be present in your body, love wholeheartedly, move the way you've always wanted to, and dance the way you feel — hopefully even to this song." He further explained to Zane Lowe that the song was inspired by how he is "super super in love" with his wonderful boyfriend Jacob Bixenman.

Troye broke down writing the song with Billboard in this cute little video. The article is very focused on the fact that inspiration struck when he was at a sandwich shop and heard a muffled kickdrum beat over the radio. For me, the highlight is his discussion of coming to the final lyric of “My my my!”

“I was writing it with my best friend, Leland, and we were going back and forth,” Sivan says. The pair tried using the words “oh, my” and “oh, my my” before deciding upon “my my my.”

“I just loved it,” shares Sivan. “I didn't know what it meant at the time but I knew that it made me feel really good…to me, that's like what you say when you don't know what else to say, and so it just felt like this big release and it sort of ended up informing where the song went.”​

Now we interrupt this elimination for:

A Brief Defense of Troye Sivan, the Human Being​

Throughout this rate, the Bloom campaign and the whole conversation around 20GAYteen, Troye has become the butt of many jokes. While there’s a lot of thoughtful and well-done critique around Troye Sivan, the Pop Star and the media’s narrative of Troye Sivan, the Savior of Queer Music, it can definitely veer into personal territory. In a lot of the articles and interviews I read with Troye, he’s been thoughtful in his response to these critques. The interview from Them that I linked in the “Lucky Strike” write up does a great job placing Troye, his music, and his image into context and the discomfort some more “woke” listeners can feel about him. Further, I was happy that Paper Magazine asked Troye straight up about queer representation in the mainstream media:

There's a huge conversation within the queer community about representation in music. If you look at the biggest queer male artists, all of them are white, which is really a mirror to society. Why do you think that's the case, and what steps towards change are you seeing in the industry?

I think it's easy to get distracted by progress, and I think we've made a lot of really good progress in music during the last couple of years. I've definitely noticed a change, even since I got signed, which is now probably like four or five years ago — I've noticed a difference in the number of queer artists coming up, and queer artists from all different walks of life. I then think it's easy for them to be like, "We're 100% on the right track and everything is awesome," but then you have these reminders where you realize actually how far we are from where we should be. All it does for me is fire me up and keep me wanting to keep pushing forward to try and change that. I am really excited by so much of the queer music coming out right now. I look at Kevin Abstract and Kehlani and other artists who are completely different from each other, but the only unifying thing is we're all queer and that's really cool to me. That's an accurate representation of what the community looks like — it's a diverse group of people who couldn't be more different but are brought together by not identifying ourselves as straight. We're heading in the right direction, but we don't want to become complacent because of that.​

I really appreciated his answer even if I’d love to seem him taking more steps to actively support those artists. Having MNEK remix “I’m So Tired” was a great touch, but he could definitely take some notes from Olly on how to really hype queer creators of color.

Also I did have to laugh that he name checked Ryan Beatty since many forum members have more or less called Boy in Jeans the album they wish Troye released:

Are there any rising queer musicians you have your eye on?

Yes, Ryan Beatty. He just released an album and I've been following him. I remember way back in the day, he was making kind of just straight down the middle pop music and I've kept up with him over the years and hung out with him and the BROCKHAMPTON guys a couple of weeks ago. I've always been inspired by his voice and was so excited to hear his solo stuff and I'm obsessed with it. The videos are great, he's got such great perspective and such an awesome voice. I'm really into it.​

And yes, I’m aware of the irony of Troye calling for more diversity in queer voices then recommending another pretty white twink…

Finally, he talked with Coup de Main Magazine and they brought up the way certain famous white gays fall into a trap of believing the LGBT movement is all about them and how they felt like Troye had avoided that trap. He gave a really great answer that I’m not allowed to copy and paste for some reason so you should go read it!


Anyways, I felt a responsibility to share all of this in hopes of creating a bit of a civil discussion post this elimination. I’ll close with what makes this song so special for me:


In Kindergarten, the kids have to learn certain words that don’t follow the phonetic rules of English but are frequently used. Words like “said” and “you” can’t be sounded out using 1 to 1 letter correspondence but the kids need to be able to read them. We call these words “Sight Words” and “my” is one of them. To teach the word “my” this year, I played the kids “My My My!” They obviously had never heard it and were rather confused. I explained that it was my favorite song and after listening to it 3 times, they came around to its charms. The kids took the song on as their own and as Mr. Paradise’s favorite song, often requesting it when we had dance parties (a daily occurrence). The sight of 22 five and six year olds screaming “MY MY MY!” together cemented my love of the song.

Eventually I played them a video of Troye performing on Ellen (the music video, while amazing is NOT Kindergarten appropriate). Many of the kids commented on how Troye moved and that he “danced like a girl.” Whenever kids express these views I simply challenge it with a question “What does dancing like a girl mean?” My favorite was one kid said “He dances like Mr Paradise and (name of a student who is 100% gonna be gay).” So yes, Troye isn’t the be all, end all of queer music but he’s a thoughtful artist who is helping make queer expressions more visible to the mainstream.

Now onto you all!

Ufint First anthem of 20GayTeen and definitely in the top 20 of the year.

Posh Spears Not the big gay pop boy moment everyone initially thought it was

Untitled i love Betty Who

Reboot One of my most-played songs of 2018. Just amazing.

Pop3blow2 Bop Bop Bop!

Constantino Bloom may be dogshit otherwise, but the wispy twink finally gave way to the wind and snapped on this one, lads.

Gimmework Perfect lead single and still my favorite from the album.

The Hot Rock I don't know. I have nothing against Troye personally but his voice/overall presence doesn't do it for me? At least not on this song. I've listened to the full album two or three times before this rate and this song still is one of my lesser faves.

Music is Life This bops, and I had heard this song before this rate.

Verandi This grew old in one week after the release. He was sleeping already on this one.

KingBruno Compared to the general gloomy atmosphere from his earlier work, “My My My!” is such a big change of sound for Troye. Yet, the grinding, glitchy club-inspired production feels like a natural progression from the toned down electronics he embraced on Blue Neighbourhood. It’s his potential unlocked; he never sounded as confident before.


Slaybellz Although his album was a bit of a disappointment overall, I would be lying if I claimed any other song as my song of the year. I’m just a sucker for big pop bangers like this. It makes me wanna dance, makes me want to strut a runway, makes me want to fall in lust. Can’t get enough of it.

 

Unpopular opinion but I think the majority of the Bloom album, which I quite like, is better than My My My! It's a cute, solid song (a 7) but it's never really done it for me.

 

My My My! is definitely a good pop song, but I feel that it is a pretty appropriate time for it to go.

 

Ya'll couldn't even let this get into the top 10 huh?

 

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