Courtesy of Facebook.com
By Kristen Pinto
Miley Cyrus simply doesn’t care what anyone thinks.
If that has not become obvious to the average person by now, I don’t know what it will take. Well, Cyrus figured there was one thing she could do – surprise the world with a completely free stream of her latest 23-track album, titled “Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz.”
In case you missed it, Cyrus hosted the MTV Video Music Awards on Aug. 30, and much to my surprise, she killed it. Yet, as a big Miley fan, even I was sitting wide-mouthed when she chose to end the show with a trippy, raunchy performance of her single “Dooo It!” which comes directly off the album she dropped seconds before the show ended.
Still, after the train wreck that was the VMA performance, I knew I just had to listen to that album. I will be the first to admit, that night I stayed up until the wee hours listening to the whole album all the way through. I definitely had some strange dreams that night.
Cyrus took a risk – she went off and recorded an album without the permission of her record-label and gave it out for free to everyone in the world. The results were astronomical.
Her new album defies all of the odds set against her, and that is exactly why it is so awesome. As she claims in the first track, “Yeah, I smoke pot/ Yeah, I love peace/ But I don’t give a fuck/ I ain’t no hippie.”
This album takes experimental to a whole new level. While it is literally named after her dead pets (see “Pablow the Blowfish” and “The Floyd Song (Sunrise)”), it is a monstrous album full of tracks of all different styles that makes it downright fun to listen to.
The tracks cover pretty much all bases. “Lighter” is more of a powerful ballad whereas “1 Sun” is an upbeat, pop anthem song.
“BB Talk” begins with a 60-second dialogue from Cyrus where she talks about the struggle of falling out of love, or perhaps not. It’s followed by a chorus featuring a mix of hip-hop and trap music. She continues on with two verses of dialogue where she talks herself through a relationship based on emoji conversations and baby talk that made her sick.
The third track on the album, “The Floyd Song (Sunrise),” comes as a surprise initially after “Dooo it!” as it takes on a much more somber tone – rightfully so, considering it’s about her dog, Floyd, who passed away last year and left Cyrus completely devastated.
While the song itself isn’t very catchy or even flowy for that matter, it shows that Cyrus is taking this album seriously as a means of expressing her creativity.
One of my favorite tracks on the album is “Fweaky,” a track co-produced with Mike WiLL Made-It. While it’s totally a song about sex, it showcases that despite her crazy personality, Cyrus is, under it all, a really great singer. Her raspy voice in this song reminds me of why she became famous after all (what’s up, Hannah Montana).
“Space Boots” and “Milky Milky Milk” have an intergalactic feel to them with their
synthetic sounds. Other songs, such as “I Forgive Yiew,” have a more hip-hop funk feel to them that is unlike any other genre I have ever heard.
Altogether, the album is super long – it certainly could have been cut down. For example, the song “Fuckin Fucked Up” is a 50-second tune where she literally tried to swear as many times as possible and the 46-second tune that repeats “I’m so drunk, I can’t even explain what I feel right now.”
The album truly showcases Cyrus’ strive for independence that she flaunts. Her goal was to produce an album that was entirely her own without any outside influence over her artistic freedom, and ultimately I think she was successful. I completely commend her bravery for stepping out and producing something entirely her own, and some of the music featured on the album really has potential.
“She’s just being Miley.”
Essential Tracks:
1. “Twinkle Song”
2. “1 Sun”
3. “Pablow the Blowfish”