Recently, Miley Cyrus has been the focal point of social media for her distasteful choice in clothing, her obsession with twerking, and her awful bleached-tips/comb-over hairstyle. From being relatively normal to becoming a 90’s crop top-wearing, hip-hop space queen, her severe and sudden change of style has gotten everybody to wonder – what exactly happened? In Cyrus’s new album Bangerz, released on Oct. 4, the reason is clear; she is going through what I like to call the “crazy ex-girlfriend” phase.
The album puts listeners on a roller coaster ride through Cyrus’s high profile break up with actor Liam Hemsworth. She starts off at the beginning of her break up journey (when the relationship was perfect) with “Adore You”, a weak, lackluster love song with a basic R&B beat and dreary vocals by Cyrus. The song’s lovey-dovey lyrics is a contrast to the lyrics of the rest of the album, which are either about partying/having no care in the world or crying about her ex-lover.
Bangerz is essentially Miley Cyrus’s approach to the “Taylor Swift” break up therapy method. Almost all of the songs contain lyrics with messages to Hemsworth who obviously hurt her very badly. In “Drive”, Cyrus passionately belts out the lyric “You told me you were coming back, right back. You promised it was real and I believe that.” In “Wrecking Ball”, Cyrus uses the wrecking ball as a not-so-subtle metaphor for her failed attempt to break down her ex-fiance’s emotional walls. In both these songs, Cyrus conveys a clear message of still having feelings for her ex. However, in “FU”, which has a rather ill-fitting theatrical jazz vibe, sadness turns to anger as Cyrus claims she is “over it” and only has two letters for Hemsworth.
Besides the awful country pop song “4×4”, there are many songs on the album that are actually quite catchy. “We Can’t Stop”, though filled with grammatically incorrect phrases, is a popular hit that has stayed on top of the music charts for weeks. Although pop-oriented, the album features big names in hip-hop like Nelly, Big Sean, Future, and Ludacris, revealing more of this album’s musical diversity.
“On My Own”, one of the album’s final songs, is upbeat and contains the key lyric “I can do anything, yeah. And I’ll do it on my own,” suggesting that the end has really come to Cyrus’s painful break up. Although there are definitely quite a few misses in this long album, there are some fantastic songs with great vocals, reminding the listener that Cyrus really can sing. With the release of Bangerz, Cyrus has definitely shed her Disney star image for good. However, with her attention-seeking behavior, it is still hard to take her music seriously.
