Miley Cyrus

One Liner: Hannah Montana turned sexy weirdo rocker

Wikipedia Genre:  pop, country-pop, rock, hip hop
Home: Nashville

Poster Position: Headliner!
Day: Friday at 8 on the Honda Stage
Both Weekends.

Thoughts: Ahhh, Miley.  Such a weird artist.  She's spent time being a pop princess, a country girl, a rocker grrrrl, a sex symbol, and about 50 other things.  My youngest continues to watch the Hannah Montana show, like a decade after it went off the air.  And I'll readily admit that I think "Party in the U.S.A." is an absolute wonderful and perfect pop dance song.  Like, undefeated in making people happy.  If you don't get it, then you just don't understand what is happening in the world.  It is also her most streamed track at 796.1 million.  Undefeated.

Who hasn't felt worried about fitting in when you go somewhere for the first time!?  And who hasn't felt better when a great song comes on?  Nobody!  That's who.  I know it's a pop songs smeared in auto-tune, that rhymes "yeah" with "yeah," but it jams.  

That was from 2009's The Time of Our Lives.  At that point in her career, she'd been acting on Hannah Montana for a few years and had been touring as Hannah Montana, singing songs from the show.  She was a Disney star, doing Disney star things, and using her little raspy voice for the kind of sweet, vaguely salty, cutesy things that Disney asks of TV stars.  But by 2009, the show was over and Cyrus was trying to push for a more mature look and sound.  Her next album Can't Be Tamed continued that move, leaving behind the Disney image in favor of stronger lyrics and dance tracks.  And she started doing crazy stuff - posing topless, posting photos of her smoking a bong, buying Liam Hemsworth a penis-shaped cake and licking it (?).  She later married Hemsworth.

Her actual name is Destiny Hope Cyrus.  That very much sounds like something Billy Ray would name his daughter.  Yeah, if you didn't know that this is Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter then you need more background than this blog can likely provide.  Her parents nicknamed her smiley because she smiled a lot as a baby, and by 2008, she legally changed her name to Miley Ray Cyrus.  Her brother Trace ended up being a vocalist for a band called Metro Station, and her sister Noah is a singer as well ("July" is a lovely song).

By the mid-2010's she had fully left behind the child actor innocence and started doing weird shit with the Flaming Lips.  She released Bangerz, which had more of a rap feel, but also included two huge hits.  "We Can't Stop" is the bigger streamer (and is legit a fun song), but "Wrecking Ball" was the one that people really locked in on because of the video.  546.5 million streams.

The haircut.  The ball riding.  Making out with a sledgemammer.  We are officially not talking about a Disney project anymore.  Gotta say, it is kind of satisfying to see that ball smash through that cinderblock wall. That video has been viewed more than a billion times.  Criminy.  But it did the trick and she was huge right now - MYV named her the Artist of the Year for 2013.

So, of course, she released a weird as hell album next - Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz - its an hour and thirty two minutes of weird nightmarish stuff.  Only one track has more than 10 million streams, so none of them really got her anywhere.  The cover of the album looks like a unicorn jizzed on her face.  But she followed that up with a more normal album - Younger Now - that featured "Malibu" as the hit track.  587.2 million streams.

A little more confessional, but happy, and a kind of bouncy indie feel.  I don't think I'd ever heard it before, but feels like it could have been a Lumineers song.  And she was still acting throughout this time, appearing in all sorts of smaller roles that didn't interfere with the music.

2019 brought SHE IS COMING.  Why do people need to use all caps in their album title?  Here's the thing, normally I'd say no before an album like this even got into my new music listening playlist, but for whatever reason I threw this one in there, and I kind of dig parts of it.  The opener is "Mother's Daughter," and it's highly catchy stuff.  I keep bopping it in my head after I've listened to it - lines like "don't fuck with my freedom," and "must be something in the water know that I'm my mother's daughter" aren't groundbreaking or anything, but they flow just right with the beat.  "Unholy" has a groove that is undeniable, although there are multiple times, showcased in this song especially, where I find her voice less than great.  "D.R.E.A.M." made me cringe at first, as a rip off and play on Wu Tang's "C.R.E.A.M," where it is drugs that rule everything around her, rather than cash, but the Ghostface cameo saves it from being terrible.  The next song is the one on here that I find truly terrible - "Cattitude" - with RuPaul getting nasty over a set of generic bounce beats.  Bad one liners like "I love my pussy, that means I got cattitude."  Ugh.  "Mother's Daughter" is, by far, the top track, with 227.1 million streams.

MMMkay.  Overall, the album (or it might just be considered an EP because it is short) isn't amazing or anything, I think I'm just personally surprised that I liked some of the songs.  

And then last year brought us the rock and roll Miley with 2020's Plastic Hearts.  I read someone authentically trying to make the case that this was the best rock album of 2020, which hurt my heart just a little bit.  But I figured I needed to check it out - I kinda like rock and roll.  ;)  The song that immediately catches me and makes me wonder if that might be true is the hella catchy "Midnight Sky," which interpolates a little "Edge of Seventeen" (and smartly ties Miley to Stevie Nicks).  But I think it is generous to call this album rock - it has an edge to it, but it's still mainly synths and drum machines and a more new wave/pop/disco sound.  But, that song jams either way.  Sounds like something that could have been made for the 80's station on Grand Theft Auto.  Just before the chorus each time, that lead in where the music bails out for a bit makes me want to point a finger gun at the stage and scream it with her.  Stream champ as well at 375.8 million.

Even going for the 80's Benetar haircut.  Her other big single from this disc is with another big singer who is trading in modern sounds for another decade's guiding aesthetic - Dua Lipa and her 70's disco thing.  It's not just Nicks she bites from - she full-on covers "Heart of Glass," evokes Joan Jett while duetting with her on "Bad Karma," does the same with Billy Idol of "Night Crawling," covers the Cranberries' "Zombie," and "Never Be Me" steals from The Cars' "Drive" pretty obviously.  I guess some of these songs are rock - if you make the rock tent wide enough to still capture something like Avril Lavigne or Ashleeeee Simpson or Pink.  Doesn't quite pass my rock sniff test - it's more like a Korean bar band who is trying to approximate American rock and roll.  But Midnight Sky is a damn jam - I love that song.

I'm gonna go watch George Strait.  I've never seen him live and I've listened to his music all my life.  But Miley is honestly a better closer for a day at the Fest - when you've been standing all day and drinking beer and soaking up the sun - you need a banger to end the day.  She's going to go high energy and freaky and bring the noise, while me and all the old fogeys will be on the other end listening to George sing sweetly about love, nodding off and hearing the bass from the other end of the field.  It's the right choice for me, but I'm sorry to miss the spectacle of this show.