This summery collaboration with Swae Lee finds Miley updating her hip-hop experimentations with the psychedelic feel of her Dead Petz project. Swae Lee & Mike WiLL Made-It)” (from She Is Coming) The whole second verse is Ke$ha (with the dollar sign) in the best way, and you just can’t beat that! 37. She’s committed to the bit for the whole song. What ties together this mélange of foreboding EDM synths and trap kick drums, however, is Miley’s vocal performance. Miley switches from hilariously awkward rapping to unsuspecting belts over a boisterous will.i.am beat, ultimately creating a glorious hot mess befitting of a true messy party girl. Sandwiched in between mammoth singles are tracks like “Do My Thang” - an unabashed ode to the glittery grime of pop culture’s shiniest late-2000s party girls. Nonetheless, seven years have passed since the album debuted atop the Billboard 200, and conversations about the record rarely focus on how consistent of an album it is. With Miley’s sole Hot 100 chart-topper (“Wrecking Ball”) and Grammy nomination (Best Pop Vocal Album, 2015) to its name, it’s hard to act as if Bangerz is underrated. 13) of “Flowers,” the lead single from her forthcoming Endless Summer Vacation album, it’s time to reflect on 40 of Miley Cyrus’ best songs. In Miley’s discography, rousing covers of rock and roll classics (take her stunning version of The Cranberries’ “Zombie,” for example) sit next to country-rap fusions like the Nelly-assisted “4×4” and the brain-melting acid trip that is “Tangerine.” The most fearless pop star of her time, Miley’s range is vast and her commitment to exploration is second to none. From the reflective country-inflected pop balladry of Younger Now to the hip-hop-indebted psychedelic sleaze of She Is Coming, Miley has always made it her mission to expand her musical boundaries. Following in the footsteps of Madonna, the Queen of Pop Metamorphosis, Miley transforms into a new iteration of herself with every album, but each new version of Miley builds on the previous one. Instead of straddling the line between teen pop idol and provocateur extraordinaire, Miley now seeks to straddle all of the different musical worlds that tug at her heartstrings. In “Best of Both Worlds,” the show’s theme song, Miley sings, “Mix it all together and you know that it’s the best of both- / You know the best of both worlds.” In a way, this has been the governing mantra for most of Miley’s career. The electro-rock rush of much of 2020’s Plastic Hearts finds its roots in Hannah Montana soundtrack songs like “Rock Star” and “Nobody’s Perfect,” and the entirety of Bangerz and Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz exist in direct opposition to the saccharine cookie-cutter teen pop gloss of the Hannah brand. The show, which centered on a regular teen named Miley Stewart who lived a double life as a pop star named Hannah Montana, has both defined Miley and threatened to box her into a hyperspecific brand of pop stardom. Nearly two decades ago, Miley Cyrus captured the hearts of millions of kids, topped the Billboard 200, and launched a gold mine for Disney with the debut of Hannah Montana. From America’s Sweetheart to America’s Nightmare to the latest mastering of subverting Americana iconography, Miley Cyrus has been a kaleidoscopic mirror to American society since 2006. There are some things that are undeniably American: baseball, fireworks on the Fourth of July, and Miley Cyrus.
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