The Ho Chi Minh Art Pop Track About A Crush That Never Got Said Out Loud
Two years after its January 2024 release, white boy i sat next to on the plane still works because of what it withholds. Kiey built the track around a feeling most people recognise and almost nobody acts on. You sit beside someone for hours, you want to speak, and you say nothing. The Art Pop production keeps its distance to match.
You can listen to our full playlist which contains the artist’s music, and know more about the artist’s work by scrolling down the page.
White Boy I Sat Next To On The Plane And The Art Of Not Saying It
The title does a lot of work before the music starts. It is specific, slightly awkward and completely unglamorous. That is exactly how the situation it describes actually feels. Most pop songs about attraction reach for the grand gesture. This one stays in the seat.
Consequently, that framing is why the track has held up. A song about a missed connection has to resist resolution, otherwise it becomes a different song. Instead, Kiey lets it sit unresolved. The arrangement circles rather than climbs, and the vocal stays conversational instead of pushing into a big final chorus.
For a publication like ours, the subject matter is not incidental. A quiet song about wanting to speak to another man on a plane, and not doing it, carries a weight a straight reading of the same scene would not. The restraint is the closet, described without ever using the word.
The reception reflected that. KIMU heard an intimate single that teased a third album. Uranium Waves called it a melodic whisper into the void of missed connections. Both landed on the same thing from different angles.
Alternative Pop, Art Pop And Commercial Pop Held In One Arrangement
Kiey works across three registers that rarely sit together comfortably. Art Pop supplies the layered production and the willingness to leave a hook underdeveloped. Alternative Pop brings structural freedom, so a section can arrive once and never return. Commercial Pop provides the melodic clarity that stops the whole thing drifting into an exercise.
Naturally, holding all three takes discipline. Lean too far into the art side and the song stops being hummable. Lean commercial and the ambiguity that makes it interesting disappears. In the end, this track sits in the middle and stays there.
The wider catalogue does the same. Kiey has worked this territory since the Sunday Sanctuary releases, and Plastic Magazine filed this one straight under dream pop. Music and Entertainers and Mystic Sons both covered the single and its video.
QueerPeople.News’s curator team: “The best decision on this record is the ending. Kiey does not give the moment a resolution, because the real version of this story does not have one. That takes more nerve than a big finish would.”
For Listeners Who Follow Perfume Genius, Rina Sawayama And Troye Sivan
This one is for people who like their pop with the feeling left slightly exposed. Take Perfume Genius first. On the records where a fragile vocal sits inside a carefully built arrangement, the balance is the same one Kiey strikes here.
Rina Sawayama is the second reference. Her work moves between polished commercial pop and something stranger without apologising for either, which is the genre-holding this track pulls off.
Finally, there is Troye Sivan, and that one is not only our read. Kiey has named him among the influences behind this material. The shared instinct is treating queer longing as an everyday thing rather than a spectacle.
Those are stylistic reference points, not claims of association. All three treat restraint as a tool rather than a limitation, and so does this.
Kiet Vuu, the artist behind Kiey, put it plainly: “This track was a deeply personal exploration for me, and I’m incredibly proud that it continues to find new listeners and resonate with people. Its blend of styles was always intended to offer something unique.”
Where To Watch White Boy I Sat Next To On The Plane And Follow Kiey
The track has an official video, and it is the best way in. After that, the rest of the catalogue rewards a proper sitting.
Stream Kiey on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and Tidal. The single itself sits here on Spotify, and the Sunday Sanctuary smartlink opens the earlier material on whichever service you use.
Socials run through Instagram, TikTok, X and Facebook. The full video archive lives on the YouTube channel, and the Linktree hub collects everything in one place.
Two years on, it still gets the feeling right. Put it on and sit with it.
