Is it possible to listen a Miley Cyrus album free of bias? If you’re, to use her parlance, a Miley hater, not only because of the music, but also the VMAs and her need to “shock,” then there’s nothing for you on Bangerz; your mind is already made up that Miley and her twerking team are vomiting out weak beats and even lamer lyrics. If you’re not so much a fan as someone whose blood pressure doesn’t rise every time you hear “Wrecking Ball” on the radio, then you’ll maybe add the singles to your iTunes, and will delete everything else. And if you’re a Miley lover, your Twitter is already clogged with lines from “4×4.” May god have mercy on your soul.
I fall closest to the middle camp: I find Miley neither offensively bad or impressively good, and that’s where Bangerz lies, too. It sounds like occasionally catchy, of-the-moment, beat-heavy pop put together by an ensemble of hip-hop producers, because it was. It’s frustratingly all over the place, with a decent ballad followed by one of Miley’s embarrassing attempts at rapping, but there are about as many hits as misses, except the misses are so much worse than the hits are superb. (Seriously, “Do My Thang” is as atrocious as it sounds. Kreayshawn-lite.)
So, yeah, Bangerz is in C plus territory, with one exception that’s pure F minus.
We, the human race, need to say NO to songs with hashtags in their titles. I’m talking to you, Mariah Carey, Cobra Starship, Busta Rhymes, J-Lo and Pitbull, will.i.am (of course), and any other pop stars who think they’re being trendy and cool, when in fact you’re instantly dating your song; it’s a keystroke warning sign that screams, “THIS MUSIC IS DISPOSABLE AND WON’T SOUND GOOD IN FIVE YEARS,” when Twitter is dead and we’ve gone back to carrier pigeons to deliver our witty responses to #singlebecause. Think before you tag.
