October 6th, 2013 
James Shotwell 
Artist: Miley Cyrus
Album: Bangerz
Genre: Pop
If you had told me at the beginning of 2013 that the world would spend the majority of the year obsessing with the activities of Miley Cyrus I would have called you a liar and expressed serious concern for your connection with pop culture. Then “We Can’t Stop” arrived and the world changed. In what seemed like a matter of days Miley Cyrus went from being a young woman people thought would never live down her childhood stardom to an overtly sexual being gunning for the top 40 crown. The pop world turned its focus squarely on her, and she still managed to shock once more by dropping “Wrecking Ball,” a heartfelt ballad with slick production, amidst the biggest twerk controversy of all time. Now the release of her album is finally upon us, and the world will finally learn if there was any heart behind the hype that’s fascinated them for so long.
Kicking off with “Adore You,” Bangerz aims to catch the listener off guard from the start. People expect Miley to open with her wildest side first, but instead we’re given a moving ballad about love and affection that reaffirms faith in her talent as a vocalist. For a few brief moments the gossip columns slip into the ether and you start to wonder if the crazy antics in recent months were secretly leading up to a heartfelt, compelling album about being lost in your early 20s and struggling to grasp the full meaning of complex emotions. After all, that would be the biggest surprise of the them all, right?
Well, don’t worry your fun-loving selves because heartfelt songwriting is certainly not what you’ll find on the majority of Bangerz. The ballad gives way to “We Can’t Stop,” which helps propel the album into its true state of high-gloss, wall of sound pop concoctions that attempt to simultaneously meld pop, urban, rock, and at times even country into a fluid album of theoretically radio-ready material. “SMS,” which features Britney Spears and samples Salt-N-Pepa, serves as a fitting example of the majority of the album’s material with frantic, sometimes glitchy production and non-sensical lyrics that tend to feel more like an immature person being profane than a provocative vocalist being sexy. “4X4” finds Miley talking about driving so fast she could piss herself (literally), while backed by production that feels pulled from a world where square dancing and the remake of Footloose collide. It could be described as “a little bit country and a little bit rock-n-roll,” but calling it unfortunate is much easier.
As Bangerz plays on, the album attempts to balance the wilder tracks with overproduced ballads that promote the idea Miley is a far deeper individual than people realize. When isolated, these tracks play well (“Wrecking Ball” being the perfect example), but when shoved into an album between songs about partying all the time (“Love Money Party”) and telling people to fuck off (“FU”) it’s a little hard to sell the heartache. I think Miley could do an entire album of softer material and find a lot of success, but in this setting it doesn’t work as well as it could.
If you can forgo the idea of an album being something intended to work as a cohesive listening experience you’ll find there is decent amount of material worthy of praise on Bangerz. The aforementioned “Love Money Party,” for example, features an infectious hook and a top shelf contribution from Big Sean. “#Getitright,” hashtags aside, is a fantastic quasi-ballad that finds Miley channeling a sexier side that is decidedly more lighthearted than the majority of the album. Similarly, “Maybe Your Right” finds ground between “We Can’t Stop” and “Wrecking Ball” for an empowering ballad about being sure of yourself even when people think you’re crazy.
Is Bangerz so good it justifies the amount of time and digital space dedicated to Miley Cyrus obsession in 2013? Not really. At it’s very best it’s a collection of mostly enjoyable songs that offer little-to-no cohesive value whatsoever. There is no doubt in my mind the material will spawn at least one more number one, if not two, but in the big scheme of things no one will care about this record in a few months time. There is nothing about the album as a whole worth remembering, and considering how much time Miley has spent making her presence known in 2013 that’s a damn shame.
Score: 6.5/10
Review written by: James Shotwell (Follow him on Twitter)
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