Troye Sivan found two things on the road when he joined forces with Charli xcx: a nonstop rager and a deep loneliness he couldn’t ignore. The Australian pop star and Queen of BRAT were old friends by the time they teamed up for their co-headlining SWEAT Tour in 2024 and 2025, and that’s where joy and heartache—as well as inspiration in an unexpected form—met Sivan every single night. “It just felt like an absolute tsunami in both of our lives at that time,” he tells Apple Music. “It was a party for every single person who came to those shows. It was like a nightclub. There was this crazy experience of ultimate connection and joy, just feeling so one with the world—and then I had no idea how to rationalize the feeling that I would have when I would go home afterwards.” She’s the Best, his fourth studio album, came from the soul-searching that followed the SWEAT Tour’s emotional hangover. Single and searching for love, Sivan describes it as a project “dedicated to this man that I don’t know, to this person that I have never met—or maybe I have, and I just haven’t realized yet.” “When I’m making something, I know that I can only ever stand behind it if it’s true,” he says. “And so, this record is tougher for me, because it’s, like, uglier.” There’s nothing ugly about the jangling chords and confessions of “Embarrassingly,” or the witty frustration of “Sex Star,” in which he daydreams about the guy he’s impatient to meet. “I love that song ’cause it’s like, what do I have to do to, like, meet this guy?” he says. “A fake tan, I got a personal trainer—I’m like really, really throwing all of this stuff at the wall.” He may be searching for romance across She’s the Best, but he’s celebrating love in all its forms throughout the album—starting with the women and scenes he adores. Charli xcx lends her voice to the chant that closes out “She’s the Best,” which was inspired, in part, by a supportive teacher who made a huge difference in Sivan’s adolescence. Lily-Rose Depp, his co-star from TV series The Idol, appears on bittersweet closer “Lost Time.” And “Party,” a club anthem that bottles up the adrenaline and excitement of a great night out, riffs on “Music” by Madonna, an artist who played an early hand in shaping his musical taste. “I’m so comfortable and my happiest, honestly, when I’m existing in the orbit of a woman,” he says. “It makes me think about getting ready for house parties: I would get ready in five minutes at home early and then go and just watch the girls get ready. We would just talk and hang out, and it was always so much more fun than the parties. This is something that comes from so deep within me.” But “Troye Meets World” encapsulates his feelings about the controlled chaos of his situation, from the frenetic pulse of the dance floor to the hopeless romanticism and musical flourishes he’s pushing himself to explore throughout She’s the Best. “There’s this self-awareness there where I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, this is fucking mental.’”