Blue Neighbourhood

***Blue Neighbourhood*** is the debut studio album by Australian singer-songwriter Troye Sivan. It was released internationally on 4 December 2015 via EMI Music Australia and Capitol Records America. The album is preceded by Sivan's fourth extended play *Wild*, which also serves as a six song opening instalment to *Blue Neighbourhood*.

## Music videos

The album is accompanied by three music videos following the storyline of two male childhood friends involved in a romantic relationship, and the struggles their same-sex relationship faces. The first two videos for "Wild" and "Fools" were already being labeled under the umbrella term *Blue Neighbourhood* by Sivan prior to announcing it was the name of the album. Both were released in September 2015.

On 14 October 2015, Troye Sivan released a video teaser announcing the studio album. In the teaser, snippets of "Happy Little Pill", "Wild", "Fools", and a then unreleased song from the album titled "Youth", which became the final single from the album, are heard in the background. The last video, for "Talk Me Down", was released on October 20, 2015. It portrays the death of Sivan's childhood love interest by him jumping off a cliff after his father's funeral, having suffered through years of homophobia. Sivan provided suicide prevention hotlines after its release.

## Critical reception

*Blue Neighbourhood* was highly commended by contemporary critics. Everett True from *The Guardian* gave the album five stars, calling it "difficult to find fault with Blue Neighbourhood" and praising Sivan for "capturing the sound of now so well". James Reed from *The Boston Globe* found the album to be "darkly seductive" but "riddled with coming-of-age anxiety." *Rolling Stone Australia* gave the album four stars, describing the album to be "charming" and praising Sivan's vocals.

Bernard Zuel from *The Sydney Morning Herald* described Sivan as having a "coffee-and-cream voice artfully caught between childhood and adulthood." Jody Rosen from *News Corp Australia* praised the lyrical content of the songs, which do not obscure Sivan's sexuality, stating "Sivan does not shy away from pronouns. He's fearless and honest in a way most pop stars aren’t." Rosen compares Sivan's mellow voice with artists such as Lorde and Lana Del Rey.

## Release and Promotion

In October 2015, Sivan revealed *Wild* served as an opening introduction to the album. Pre-orders for the album opened on October 15th, 2015, with the album reaching No. 1 within hours on iTunes in ten countries, including the United States. "Talk Me Down" was included as a promotional single to those who preorder the album and was the only previously unreleased song made available before release. Those who had already purchased *Wild* received a discount to purchase *Blue Neighbourhood*. Sivan also launched merchandise bundles on his site, selling jumpers with the album logo, candles scented to match the mood of his songs, CDs, vinyl, posters, digital downloads, bags, and notebooks. "Youth" was released as the third single from the album. The song premiered exclusively on November 12 on Shazam Top 20 at 7PM AEST and was officially released worldwide after midnight in each country on November 13.

## Artwork

Before starting designing the artwork, Sivan saw the works of Taiwanese artist Zheng Xiaorong on Tumblr and immediately contacted her to paint the cover for the album *Blue Neighbourhood*. Zheng meticulously depicts Sivan's figure and gentle expression in his hometown. While drawing the street, he also outlines Sivan's inner world.

*Blue Neighbourhood* the album has two different artworks between the standard version and the deluxe version. The artwork in the standard version looks more light and gentle, which is coloured with some light blue and flesh colour. The deluxe version gets more deeper blue, and light colours are less. CDs also get different colour-designs.

The deluxe version that released in some places gets a bonus paper case, such as in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, South Korea and China (also with a monopoly obi with some Chinese on it). The paper case is printed with the deluxe version artwork. Taiwan version gets a special paper case artwork with some Chinese on it.

The special edition that released in Asia gets a entirely white paper case outside of the Jewel Case, and its front is written in a glittery font with the album title "Blue Neighbourhood". On the back there's a tracklist and other information. Inside the box is a CD and some unique bonus tracks.

The vinyl has two different versions, and they get different artworks. The standard artwork is only used on the pink vinyl edition, and the deluxe artwork is only used on the blue vinyl edition.

## Track listing

### Suburbia Edition

*Main article: Blue Neighbourhood (Suburbia Edition)*

*Main article: Blue Neighbourhood (The Remixes)*