Trophies is, in actuality, American pop musician Greyson Chance's third studio album following 2011's Hold on 'til the Night and 2019's portraits, although he would probably say that it's his sophomore album, and I totally understand why as even I, in some ways, consider portraits to be his debut album. He did not have full creative control over Hold on 'til the Night and was just a tween who hadn't yet come out as gay, with many of the album's numbers - such as "Heart Like Stone," "Little London Girl," and "Cheyenne" - featuring girls as their subjects. The album therefore isn't authentically Greyson Chance, so I totally understand why he would want to distance himself from it (even though I absolutely adore "Summertrain" and would love to hear him rerecord and/or perform it live now). Moving to discussing Trophies, however, it opens with "Holy Feeling," the album's lead single. Since I already reviewed that song as a single, I won't say too much about it here, although I don't know how I feel about it being the opening track. It doesn't really introduce the album's mood or set the stage like "shut up" does on portraits, and it sounds more like a song that you would hear in the middle or near the end of an album. "Nobody" is the latest song to have a music video released for it. It's a little bit more upbeat than "Holy Feeling" and reminds me so much of a One Direction song when the tempo slightly changes when the chorus comes in, and while I can't say with 100% confidence, I think that it's "Never Enough" of which I am reminded. It's a catchy and fun pop song with a heavy beat, acoustic guitar, and distorted vocals, and I am fairly certain that it nods toward my favorite portraits song, "black on black" (possibly because both songs are about the same person). In the first verse of "black on black," Chance croons, "I think I've seen you before on a poster that I hung on my door," and here in "Nobody," he sings (also near the beginning of the song), "The posters in my bedroom still remind me of you." The song is lyrically about being hung up on someone who really isn't any good for you (and maybe you no good for them). The speaker (likely Greyson himself since he tends to be a very confessional songwriter) knows that he needs to move on but keeps going back to this guy because of how great that they are together sexually: "Your hands, like the way they feel all over me... Every night, you get it right. Nobody know my body like you."
"Hands" is a little bit slower than "Nobody" and, with Greyson's falsetto verses and the gently strumming instrumental combined with a gentle beat, is a bit sultry and atmospheric. I think that there are a number of ways to interpret its meaning lyrically, but I personally think that it might be from the perspective of a gay man (again, likely Greyson himself) drawn toward and pining for a man who cannot or will not return the feelings because he is straight or at least unsure of his sexuality, a theme that I think might have been similarly explored on the standalone single "Dancing Next to Me." "I wonder if you'll ever understand," Chance reflects in the chorus of this song, "what it's like to be loved by these hands... Take a chance on the holy grail. Make me wonder if you'd ever waste it." I also love the part of the song in which he sings in the pre-chorus, "Then what's the point of chasin' pavements if you end up at home?" It's a very obvious nod toward Adele's song "Chasing Pavements," which is about pursuing someone whom, for one reason or another, you can't have. In fact, when that song was released way back in 2008, some people interpreted it as being from the perspective of a straight woman who has romantic and sexual feelings for a gay man, an interesting parallel with what "Hands" is very likely about in my opinion. We then get "Same People," kind of an interlude as it's only one minute long and lyrically only one verse: "Been meeting the same people, a never-ending sequel. Found myself too jaded seeing the same faces. Nothing is original. Maybe it's a miracle. Baby, you're just everything I needed. Maybe you're a little different." Greyson, in past songs such as "Hit & Run" and "Walk Away," has lyrically expressed a desire to stay romantically and sexually unattached, wanting rather to explore and stick to casual relationships, and he even expresses some regret regarding that in his song "Low" when he sings in the first verse, "I think about us back together someday... I needed space, so I left home, but now I'm desperate for the things I know, like how you made me laugh on a bad day. Where are you now? I need you, babe." I therefore believe that "Same People" - an acoustic, lulling ballad with Chance's vocals a bit distant and echoed in a way that reminds me a lot of Troye Sivan's usual style - is likely about his current boyfriend Ben, expressing gratitude that he has finally found someone with whom he is comfortable and happy staying, and with it being so short, I am thinking that it's likely a poem that Greyson wrote that he then set to music.
The title of "High Waisted" is likely meant to be a play on words. It's spelled to indicate waist as in the part of the body right above your hips, but the words high and wasted are both words used to describe someone who has ingested alcohol and/or drugs - a theme quite familiar to Greyson such as on songs like "Twenty One" and "stand." I just feel like the pun is likely intentional, especially since, when
he sings in the first verse, "Light blue, high-waisted," he sings it in
such a way that it kind of sounds like he is singing "Labatt Blue." The thematic focus of the song, however, is more so on a relationship or at least an ongoing tryst that is destined to fail: "You'd get too close if I'd let ya. We're too uneven together, so leaving's on my mind 'cause it's high-waisted love, and it's too tight on us." The song starts off with an airy and atmospheric instrumental, and I especially love the summery and feel-good sound of the chorus. "O Violet" is another highlight on the album, as it's definitely one of my favorites. It's a beautiful acoustic track with Greyson's voice layered in different registers for a rather haunting effect. The song is, to me, about finding who you truly believe to be your "better half," someone who encourages you to be the best possible version of yourself, and he has confirmed that it's about Ben. "I'm mad like crimson," Chance's layered vocals sing in the beautiful chorus. "You're sweet like blue. We found the space between us two. Worlds collide when I found you, oh, violet." I love the song not only because of how melodically and sonically beautiful that it is but also because of the several nuanced ways that it is lyrically subversive. For starters, it obviously makes sense for him to refer to the color made between him and his boyfriend to be violet because he refers to his own color as crimson (or red) and his boyfriend's as blue, and red and blue of course make purple (or violet). Even more interesting, however, is the fact that children's establishments such as summer camps color-code gender by saying that girls are red and boys are blue and that purple is a no-no, meaning that it's against the rules for boys and girls to fraternize. Greyson also seems to refer to his partner as Violet, traditionally a female name. He is therefore, on more than one level, turning heteronormativity and gender norms upside down.
The seventh track on Trophies is "Hellboy," but like "Holy Feeling," it was released as a single prior to the album's release on June 25th. I had therefore already reviewed it, so I won't discuss it here other than to say that it's definitely a highlight on Trophies and is amongst my favorites. Trophies then closes with "Clothes," a song that Chance has described as being about "me looking into my own self and thinking, 'Why am I so certain that I'm going to lose it?' And then I started noticing that I've felt that way not only about my relationships but about my career in a long sense, so lyrically... it's tear the house down, burn the clothes. It's just this fear that I have of the end." In the chorus of the song, for example, he sings over a strumming instrumental that persists throughout the entirety of the song, "...So fuck it if we fight. We'll always get it right 'til we don't." I quite honestly don't really know if I like it being the album's closing track. In part because of Trophies being so short but also because of the album's overall direction, I listen to Trophies from start to finish and kind of feel a sense of... longing as a result. It, to me, does not feel like a complete body of work, and it leaves me wanting more. As I said, this is probably in part because of its length; the album is only about twenty-five minutes long, effectively making it more of an EP than an album. (He, in fact, has referred to it as an EP here, but I have also seen it referred to as his new album.) The main reason why its brevity is really disappointing to me is that over the last couple of years, Greyson has released a number of singles that are now standalone singles, most of which were singles that were supposed to have been featured on this album. (If I remember correctly, "Boots" was always billed as a standalone single, but "Dancing Next to Me," "Honeysuckle," and "Bad to Myself" were all advertised as being singles from Trophies even though they ended up not making the cut.) He also teased several other songs such as "Overloved," "Cold Water," and "The Champion" which are not included, so I just wish that this work had more content since fans were teased with so much that wasn't followed up on. The other problem, however, is that I don't come away from Trophies feeling like I was treated to a narrative or even an overall theme; it just kind of feels like a random batch of songs, and I find portraits to be a much stronger body of work. With all of that being said, I definitely enjoy the music and am happy to have new music from Greyson, especially with "Nobody," "O Violet," and "Hellboy" serving as the main highlights in my opinion.
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