Allie X’s new song ‘Love Me Wrong’ featuring Australian singer-songwriter Troye Sivan is a slow, mournful and thoughtful rumination on the complicated nature of affection and romance. Fuelled by a sharp, powerful acoustic guitar, Allie Xi’s silky, shaking voice steers this ballad through its melancholic effects.

Troye Sivan veers away from his traditional electropop energy into a pace that is far more measured and aching, exploring the different beats in his vocal range. Although they do touch upon the heartbreaking pitfalls of a relationship, the true meaning of the song is kept rather vague, perhaps deliberately so. Some impulses are best left to the listener’s interpretation, as they absorb it through the senses and derive their own versions. 

Allie X is no stranger to creating complex, catchy material out of real-life experiences. The Canadian singer-songwriter moved to Los Angeles in 2013 and began to write music for some incredible artists out there, including the likes of Lea Michele, Jaira Burns and her fellow collaborator, Troye Sivan. She wrote up to nine songs for Sivan’s album Blue Neighbourhood, and thus it is no surprise that Sivan chose to lend his voice to this delicate work of art. Allie X has cited Kate Bush, ABBA and Lady Gaga as some of her influences and her admiration is reflected in her musical aesthetic; she holds a visual flair that is simultaneously retro and futuristic. 

This song is off her new album Cape God set to out in early 2020, and with a couple of tours under her belt with Charli XCS and Marina, she wants to make her mark in the pop music canvass. Speaking on the themes that drive her to write and record music, she says, “I think that being a certain age and a certain maturity level, and being able to reflect on all these things that had happened to me in my teenage years, I felt like I had an understanding of what I went through,” she says. “And that was also very useful in getting the note finally. When anyone goes through something tough, at the time you can feel very dissociative and disconnected emotionally, and that was certainly the case for me.”

 Singer-songwriter