Martinez Tribune The website of the Martinez Tribune.
BY XAVIER JOHNSON
For millennials and Zoomers, Miley Cyrus has been a constant presence in the pop mainstream for most of their lives. Twenty years in, she’s also become a rare child star turned solo artist who has undergone complete shifts in sound more than once and earned respect from even music nerds along the way. Her new album, Bass Persuades, adds one more change to the list.
She started as a Disney Channel sensation who earned her fame playing a fictitious rock star on Hannah Montana, then made mostly safe pop rock tunes with a mild country edge under her own name. Can’t Be Tamed was the first sign she wanted out, and Bangerz was the full break, as she aggressively shed that “Disney star” label with raunchy tracks like “We Can’t Stop” and a more hip-hop musical edge. This dramatic shift was met with plenty of criticism, but was necessary to declare herself as more than Hannah Montana.
What came next was a psychedelic collaboration with the Flaming Lips on Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, country-pop on Younger Now, glam-rock on Plastic Hearts, and the singer-songwriter record Endless Summer Vacation, whose “Flowers” won her first Grammys, including Record of the Year. Last year’s Something Beautiful went bigger and stranger still.
Bass Persuades, her tenth studio album, is the first Miley has released without her last name. This type of rebranding is typical among artists and usually signals a “return” to some core part of their artistry. It would seem to say that this record is the mission statement for who Miley is. She’s an elder statesman of sorts now, and she writes like one.
If the rebrand is evident anywhere, it’s in Miley’s confident, mature lyricism. Her songwriting craft has been the one constant through every sonic shift, and here it takes center stage. Bass Persuades was described by Miley as a love story, and these themes are clear throughout. It’s quite a poignant record that explores the concept of love from multiple angles. Lost love, self-love, primal attraction, and community are all tackled on the record. This delivers some of the best lyrical moments, like on “Orbit,” a gorgeous ballad that delves into strong emotional attraction that comes deliberately, tantalizingly close to codependent as she sings, “Place a marble on the floor/When you walk in the room, it’ll roll to you.”
Cyrus is a talented vocalist. While Bass Persuades isn’t necessarily a record created to highlight her vocal chops, there are several moments where she shines. “REDLIGHTS” serves a wonderful cowboy twang supporting its driving beat, and it’s no coincidence that Miley is at her best on this track. In “Let’s Get Married,” vocal-forward verses contrast beautifully with the saturated, almost bedroom pop chorus. Miley has some strong ideas here, and they land hardest when she sounds most like herself.
Bass Persuades is also interested in crafting a highly danceable experience, and the grooves on the record are fantastic. “Aftermath” has techno-level propulsion behind it, and “Innocent Ways” is made for the dance floor with its more EDM-style production that holds a beautiful message as Miley sings on observing her little sister walking in her shoes. It’s a move the record makes again and again, pairing music for the body with lyrics from the heart, and it’s the clearest sense of what the album is going for.
The songs are strong, but the record does have a derivative quality to it. This surfaces when she sounds least like herself. There are heavy notes of Lady Gaga and Madonna that almost become distracting, particularly on the second track, “Different Religion.” This is mostly due to her vocal delivery, though the production and the Model/Actriz feature push the track in the same direction. It doesn’t really feel like Miley. That’s a positive because she fits right into the track, but it also strips away some of her individuality.
This is also an issue that seeps further back to her Bangerz era, where Miley was suddenly this bad girl party animal, hopping on tracks like “23” and rapping in a way that fits the track, but doesn’t really feel like Miley. Homage itself isn’t her problem. Miley has done this well before. Plastic Hearts is a love letter to bodacious, wild glam-rock of a different era. You know exactly where she’s pulling the sound from, but it acts as a platform to highlight her artistry. Outside of a track like “REDLIGHTS,” Bass Persuades rarely manages the same.
Miley’s great strength has been her versatility. Every album in her 20-year career sounds different. She is fine with jumping into new sounds and throwing away listeners’ preconceived notions in favor of her artistic integrity. What is commendable about Miley is her full commitment to whatever sound she’s exploring at the moment. While the criticism of a derivative sound remains true, this album doesn’t read as cynical trend-chasing. Her artistic shifts are those of a person with the security and confidence to explore new sounds, even if they strip away what makes her, her.
On this record, her versatility becomes something of a liability. Her integrity is intact, but her identity occasionally gets lost in the sound. What keeps Bass Persuades from losing her entirely is the writing. She’s fully herself in what she says, even when she isn’t always herself in how she sounds.
