There’s a lot riding on Miley Cyrus’ “We Can’t Stop” because it’s Brand Building Season for the artist formerly known as Hannah Montana. As the first single from her next album, “We Can’t Stop” arrived around the same time she was voted Sexiest Woman an Maxim, months after she led the hook on a new Snoop Dogg song, and is brandished as front-page tabloid fodder. Her success as a post-teen pop artist hinges on this, her first teen-ish single of this new Miley era.
“We Can’t Stop” sets the table on that brand. I can’t swallow everything that’s served.
In the first frames, we see the singer putting a grill on her teeth and having sex with the air in skin-tight clothes. She’s partying with friends in the pool, in the Hollywood hills, dorking around with lavishly silly party favors and then of course there’s twerking. For 20 different shots of Miley Cyrus sticking her tongue out, go no further than this video and if you’re trying to create a meme from thin air, take some tips from the piñata, the grown man sucking his thumb, crotch smoke and the knit cap with the death veil on it.
Cyrus looks very beautiful. She isn’t above trying on seriously daring (and somestupid) fashion, but I like the freedom she has with her body and dressing it up in some fun ways. The colors are ON and the extras are hot.
Then taking from the page that all young female singers apparently must: writhe needlessly, touch yourself, strip-tease and, hell, why not just make-out with a miniature mannequin version of yourself. For a song so carefree as “We Can’t Stop,” she and her directors seem to be trying too hard on the gif-ready male gaze front. This brand opportunity reveals little on who Miley Cyrus actually is. Not that the song does us any favors there, either.
Start “We Can’t Stop” below.