{"id":269124,"date":"2020-11-30T00:00:51","date_gmt":"2020-11-30T05:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/25yearslatersite.com\/?p=174119"},"modified":"2024-01-25T00:03:13","modified_gmt":"2024-01-25T05:03:13","slug":"plastic-hearts-miley-cyrus-achieves-maturity-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tvobsessive.com\/2020\/11\/30\/plastic-hearts-miley-cyrus-achieves-maturity-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Plastic Hearts: Miley Cyrus Achieves Maturity"},"content":{"rendered":"
Perhaps no mainstream pop artist of recent years has had a more chequered journey to their destination than Miley Cyrus. The daughter of country-pop royalty (or perhaps jester would be a better word), she found fame at a young age as a teen idol and TV actor, before incensing the world by going through puberty and discovering sex. Her remodelling as a would-be sex symbol in the early 2010s was divisive, read by some as an attempt to regain autonomy over her life and body from the press (Lady Gaga, \u201cDo What You Want\u201d style) and as others as a shameless attempt to be shocking while pandering to the male gaze (thanks Robin Thicke, God music in 2013 was nuts!). This reshaping continued with possibly the most anti-commercial move of any artist on her level, her ninety-minute-long dream-pop album Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz<\/em>, which had absolutely no appeal to anyone and she gave away for free anyway.<\/p>\n She returned to the limelight somewhat with a more tasteful return to country-pop, following the path carved by Lady Gaga<\/a>\u2019s Joanne <\/em>on Younger Now<\/em>. Despite the quality of some parts of the album (\u201cYounger Now\u201d and \u201cMalibu\u201d are some of the best songs of Miley\u2019s career), it was an inconsistent release that didn\u2019t have the attention-grabbing spirit of the Bangerz <\/em>era. If Miley was to return to the mainstream, she was going to need something bold and in 2019 she announced her forthcoming album She is Miley Cyrus<\/em>, teasing it with an EP demonstrating her new direction: She is Coming<\/em> (as it happens, She is Coming <\/em>was the first piece of music I ever wrote a full review of). She is Coming <\/em>was indeed a bold fusion of trap, pop, country, dream pop and hip-house, but the execution was messy, to say the least. Now, I liked it a lot as it happens, but reception was not all that positive, not to mention the tumultuous year Miley had in 2019 (including not only her divorce but her house burning down), and in the wake of this, it seems She is Miley Cyrus w<\/em>as quietly scrapped.<\/p>\n However, Miley has proven that she\u2019s here for the long haul and earlier this year she finally seemed to discover a direction that might take her back to relevance. The predominant new trend in the pop music of 2020, trailblazed by artists like Dua Lipa<\/a>, The Weeknd and Lady Gaga (again), has been a resurgence of maximalist, glamorous new wave pop, rock and disco. Miley, therefore, grew out her mullet and came back with a new direction with \u201cMidnight Sky\u201d, a Debbie Harry style nocturnal glam rock dance bop, and the rest, it seems, was kind of history. Initially I considered \u201cMidnight Sky\u201d to be a fairly shameless copy of The Weeknd\u2019s \u201cBlinding Lights\u201d, but it was her cover of Blondie\u2019s \u201cHeart of Glass\u201d that really sold me on the latest iteration of Miley Cyrus. This kind of power-pop and glam rock fits Miley perfectly, her strangled but keen and smoky voice cries out for a sultry bassline and propulsive diva chorus and that\u2019s exactly what she finds with \u201cMidnight Sky\u201d.<\/p>\n