pop star reborn as rock’n’roller



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Last year, Miley Cyrus starred in an episode of Black mirror as Ashley O, a carbon copy pop star forced to take a shot after a shot of saccharin. When the real Ashley begins to rebel and write increasingly dark and experimental material, her direction puts her in a coma and pulls out a replacement hologram to play instead – her greatest song, ‘On A Roll. is a watered-down bubblegum flavored version. of Nine Inch Nails “Head Like a Hole”.

Read more: Rocking ball: why the ultimate badass Miley Cyrus is the rock star we need in 2020

While Cyrus’ journey is much less radical, his story still shares some parallels. Cyrus began his career playing fictional teenage pop star Hannah Montana. Since then – she retired the character in 2011 – the singer has spent a lot of time trying to escape that clean-lined Disney narrative. This has led her in multiple directions: from the provocative scream of 2013 album ‘Bangerz’ to vaguely psychedelic pop with The Flaming Lips (they formed the band Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz). “There were obvious similarities [between Ashley O and] the character that I played before has really become my life ”, she said Variety earlier this year.

In this Black mirror episode (spoiler alert) Ashley O breaks free and becomes a thrilling rock star. When they filmed her fictional escape from fine pop pop, Cyrus had just learned that she had lost her home in Malibu to the 2018 California fire, along with all the songwriting diaries she had. she owns. This disaster was the first in a chain of events that saw Cyrus’ life turned upside down in several ways; She went on to get married, then split from actor Liam Hemsworth and played a career-defining ensemble at Glastonbury, hitting the head at Metallica and Led Zeppelin atop a giant stack of speakers on the Pyramid scene.

She also announced – and later dropped – an EP trilogy, originally slated to culminate in a new album titled “She Is Miley Cyrus.” Earlier this week, Cyrus told Zane Lowe in an interview with Apple Music: “For the past three years, I’ve called the cocktail of chaos because [the universe] i just felt like the worst bartender ever … [It] just keep pouring that shit… and you’re dizzy ”.

Now this is all coming to a head. With album seven, Miley Cyrus tries to merge her innate talent for some really huge pop bangers (see: ‘Wrecking Ball’, Party in the USA ‘,’ We Can’t Stop ‘) with a love of rock’n’ roll and country music, which so far has not been very evident on its previous releases. While the 2017 album ‘Younger Now’ found her leaving with a similar mission in mind, the memoir didn’t quite come to fruition; there was new maturity on the show, but not as much country and western bluster. Fortunately, “Plastic Hearts” has infinitely more courage – and, most importantly, a sense of freewheeling fun.

‘Midnight Sky’, a recent, out of the ordinary single, with an 80s synth-rock panache. Cyrus’ gritty vocal performance is the best of his career and is reminiscent of a particularly crass Steve Nicks (which was sampled on the remix ” Edge Of Midnight ‘, which crushed the track with its 1982 hit’ Edge Of Seventeen ‘). Look at my lips on her mouth / Everybody’s talking now, baby ” she sings happily. The singer is equally energetic on Dua Lipa-featuring “ Prisoner, ” as they merge the neo-disco from Lipa’s recent album “ Future Nostalgia ” with the glam-rock tendencies of Cyrus, while also incorporating excerpts from Olivia Newton-John’s 1981 track ‘Physics’.

Loaded with an industrial undercurrent, “Gimme What I Want” also features a side of Cyrus that was previously only evident in his many well-received rock covers. “I just need a lover” she growls over the kind of brutally pulsating bassline reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails – “So give me what I want / Or I’ll give it to myself”. “Bad Karma,” starring rock icon Joan Jett, is propelled by a hard-hitting streak of suggestive moans and as they ring out a hell of a chorus.

The ‘WTF Do I Know’ opener manages to interpolate scuzzy guitars with an energetic production polish. “I am completely naked but I do it in fashion” Cyrus is singing, nodding to the music video for ‘Wrecking Ball’, “Maybe get married just to distract.” It’s over the top and playful, and somewhat reminiscent of Ashlee Simpson and Avril Lavigne’s best alt-pop moments.

Perhaps because of the power of rock songs, the quieter ballads tend to sound like interludes. The exception here is the smoked “ Golden G-String ”: “The old boys hold all the cards and they don’t play gin,” Cyrus sings with a smirk, “You dare to call me crazy / Have you looked around this place?”. While it’s hard to fault Cyrus’ honesty on “Hate Me” or “Never Be Me,” moments like the booming choral blooms of “High” seem a bit on the nose.

Overall, however, “ Plastic Hearts ” finds the popstar-turned-rockstar in hell for leather – and when Miley Cyrus is at full blast, it’s an absolute blast. Life imitated art and she became her own Ashley O.

Release date: November 27

Version label: RCA



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