Once again proving that he’s studied under the School of Brat (as also evidenced by “She’s the Best”), Troye Sivan’s second single from She’s the Best, “Party,” is a loving (even if monotone) ode to the art of, what else, partying. And if any group of people knew how to get especially debauched, it was the knights and/or lords of the Middle Ages. Perhaps that’s part of the reason Sivan chose to set his latest Gordon von Steiner-directed video within that “landscape.” In addition to even non-hetero boys romanticizing what it must have been like to fight battles on horses while looking “gallant” in the cumbersome armor of the day.
As if to further cater to this personal fantasy of Sivan’s, he enlists none other than Ian McKellen to voice the narration at the beginning of the video, which shows Sivan riding his horse against the backdrop of an unspoiled land…well, save for the bodies and fires in the fields where the battle is taking place. McKellen enhances the picture with his assessment, “The conquest is nearly behind us. Fires blaze from one end of the realm to the other. But what is victory if not celebrated? For at long last…a party.” It’s at this moment that Sivan, the chainmail-wearing knight, removes his helmet and traipses by his still-fighting fellow knights to deliver, in his now signature Australian deadpan, “Party in the park/Party in the bush/Party under the bridge/Party at the restaurant/Party at the club/Party in the day/Party at my house/Party on the way to the party at the park.” Mind you, because of Sivan’s accent, “party” instead sounds like “pahty.” So, you know, potty.
No matter though, because once the beat drops at the thirty-three-second mark as he repeats another variation of the chorus, all focus ends up being on the triumphant Sivan returning to his castle where this “fluid location” party he keeps talking about ensues in real time. And it would be difficult for any party-loving type not to bust a move (as the many medieval men [and women] in this castle do). Especially since Sivan even got the green light from none other than Madonna herself to sample her 2000 banger, “Music.” Specifically, the famous line, “Music makes the people come together/Music, mix the bourgeoise and the rebel.”
The sample first creeps in at the one-minute-thirty-seven-second mark, with the warped-sounding, “Do you like…acid rock?” that Madonna fans know so well. Then, at the two-minute mark, that aforementioned line is sung by Sivan, with the use of “do you like…acid rock?” being intermittently interwoven underneath the vocals throughout the rest of the track. And thus, both Madonna and her producer on the album, Mirwais Ahmadzaï, are given a rightful co-songwriting credit on “Party.” To be sure, Sivan has reached a new echelon of legitimacy as a Pop Star to have been “anointed” in this way by Madonna, for she isn’t exactly known for freely sanctioning the use of her music by other artists. Hence, the irony of her being, at another point in time, the one who needed to grovel a bit in order to get ABBA to let her sample their 1979 hit, “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” for 2005’s “Hung Up.” Thus, perhaps she’s now “paying it forward” on the hard-to-get sample front.
But, of course, Madonna likely has her own selfish motives for “bequeathing” the sample to Sivan, making no secret of her desire to ensure that her music catalogue isn’t forgotten or unknown by the “current” generation that’s more interested in listening to people like Sivan on their phones. Sivan, however, seems determined to remind his fans of the past in manifold ways with this single. Somehow managing to make the Middle Ages look like a gay man’s paradise. And perhaps it was if you were someone who managed to live on castle grounds (for it’s no secret that those with wealth could always behave however they wanted, sexually or otherwise). Sivan himself appears to be playing the part of an affluent lord who has fought in battle, now returned to his castle to see what “entertainment” can be provided. And soon enough, one of his “houseboys,” as it were, simply flashes his tongue at Sivan as the two pass by one another in the garden.
Moments later, Sivan is entering a bedchamber where that houseboy is only too keen to pull his pants down and show his “lord” some ass. To be sure, this proud display of gay lust and sex is what very well could have convinced Madonna to give the “Music” sample. After all, there’s no LGBTQIA+ ally more “OG” than her. And at a time like this, showing images of gay men together in this way is as important as ever, what with various conservative governments throughout the world trying to make all things gay totally invisible in mainstream media.
Perhaps even more “progressive” still is Sivan parading himself as a lord who parties with the common people. Joining in with the imbibing and gruel-eating “rabble” around the one-minute-forty-six-second mark. Elsewhere, Sivan is even generous enough to spotlight some straight people having their sexual fun by a tree (more specifically, a lady lifts up her dress while sitting down so that a squire can gleefully eat her out—obviously, Sivan wants to make a point about the importance of female pleasure…once again proving he’s gay).
As the video’s partying imagery crests, the buildup leading to the end shows Sivan experiencing something like Joan of Arc-esque ecstasy as he’s given a push upward by a crowd, ascending into the sky while looking as if he’s in a rapture. Thus, von Steiner fittingly intercuts between Sivan’s levitating and a scene of him in the bedchamber practically salivating over an ass that’s being presented to him (and no, not necessarily even the same one that belonged to the previous houseboy) before he proceeds to “take a bite” out of it. Von Steiner cuts to the next scene just before that happens to reveal Sivan engaging in some impassioned choreo with the inner circle of his household.
Rounding out the conclusion of the video with a series of shots that include a pig eating (as if to serve as a symbol of the sexual gluttony that’s going on here), the final shot is of Sivan back on the battlefield as he says the final word, “Party.” And clearly, Sivan does want to be a person who has the final word on what makes a fabulous fête. Though he’ll still have to get in line behind his unspoken mentor, Charli XCX.
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