★★☆☆☆
Two Stars
Oh Miley! Having put her tongue in her mouth for long enough to actually record an album Miley should’ve been doing less twerking and more tweaking: this latest offering feels incomplete, clumsy and average at best. Whilst you have to admire the Disney star’s PR panache. having consumed our lives for the last couple of months following a couple of minutes of shock tactics that weren’t even that shocking (‘Oh no! She gyrated with a foam finger!’) this album has become one of the most highly anticipated of the year, but really doesn’t deliver.
The ex-Hannah Montana highschool sweetheart is obviously yearning for a second wind and a career into her latter years, but Miley comes off sounding like a 14-year-old who has just discovered the art of copulation with tracks such as ‘SMS (Bangerz)’ and ‘4×4’. In ‘SMS’, she collaborates with fellow Disney-nut Britney Spears to rap about vibrators with the line “They ask me how I keep a man?/I keep a battery pack!”, whilst in ‘4×4’ she talks of “Driving so fast I’m about to piss on myself” bringing into question whether she was actually ever potty trained. The track also sees Pharrell Williams turn his talents to a country-esque hoedown, referencing the roots that Cyrus still can’t manage to shake off .
Musically, the album is rescued by Williams’ usual stardust, sprinkled on tracks such as the irresistibly funky ‘#GETITRIGHT’ (not the dreaded hashtag…) The album’s main producer, Mike WiLL Made It, despite evidently being a bit of a Will.i.am knock off on the spelling front – let’s not get started on Miley’s grammar – remains highly unimaginative with the odd dirty synth, way too much autotune and some particularly bland mixes. Miley is saved by her vocal performances on ‘Wrecking Ball’ and ‘FU’ which point to a future career on Broadway and prove that she can actually sing behind all the twerking and foam fingers.
Despite the hype, this album remains a flash-in-the-pan, good for YouTube hits and nothing else.
