“Bloom”

Troye Sivan belongs to a growing crop of young pop artists, like Kehlani and Tove Lo, who are unafraid to be candid about their queer sexuality. His 2015 “Blue Neighborhood” video trilogy offered a moving portrait of two boys falling in love, and didn't shy away from depicting the sensual aspects of their relationship. Pop music has a long history of encoding queer themes in music coy enough to be palatable to straight audiences, but Sivan has come of age in an era when being direct about your sexuality won’t blacklist your music from the Top 40.

If Sivan’s debut album, Blue Neighborhood, ringed its discussions of queer love with nostalgic melancholy—it was an album about growing up, after all—then his latest single, “Bloom,” is all about living in the delicious present. A gentle, rolling beat and stripes of electric guitar cut through airy synth pads, lending the track a bright 1980s mall pop sheen that could’ve been borrowed from George Michael. Vocally, Sivan’s as open and earnest as he’s ever sounded, breaching his falsetto during the chorus. But instead of merely hinting at the possibility of getting fucked, like you had to in the ‘80s, Sivan dives into the experience in exhilarating detail. “Might tell you to/Take a second, baby, slow it down” he sings. “You should know I/I bloom/Just for you.”

He claims the song is “100 percent about flowers,” as if he expects us to believe he’s not using that imagery like a gay Georgia O’Keeffe. “Bloom” is quite possibly an anthem dedicated to first-time bottoms, and it uses such a gentle, playful metaphor that it's hard not to be enchanted by it. It's one of the few mainstream pop songs to imagine queer sex as not just a good time, but as something natural, pure, and innocent: two boys rolling in the grass inside their own private paradise.