Miley, Let Your Dead Petz Rest in Peace

At the MTV Video Music Awards on August 30th, host Miley Cyrus wrapped up the show with a surprise party favour for all: her new album, Miley Cyrus and her Dead Petz, available for streaming on her website. The LP, which she began working on in 2013, is a collaboration with psychdelic rock band The Flaming Lips and is brand new territory for the popstar. Full of 60s psychdelic influence and space themes a la David Bowie, it is a galaxy away from her last album, 2013's Bangerz.

When I decided I would review the new album for this week's issue, I took on the challenge with the sadistic enthusiasm of a pop music hater: I'd already read a few scathing reviews and felt it might be fun to add my two cents Let's do this, I thought. British Invasion/folk rock/90s grunge junkie rips Miley Cyrus to shreds!

My zeal dwindled when I fully realized that reviewing Cyrus' new album would mean actually having to listen to all twenty-two tracks--twenty-three if you count "Miley Tibetan Bowlzzz" an instrumental she added on a whim as a fuck you to producers told her the record was too long. Inarguably, Miley Cyrus is an artist who is keen on pushing limits. No one she may offend along the way -- not myself nor producers nor Nicki Minaj -- will stop Miley from doing exactly what she wants, when she wants to.

Her Dead Petz is, in its essence, an ode to just that. "I can literally do whatever I want," Cyrus has said of her creative freedom, "It's insane." So here is the product: a full-length collection of unedited, experimental tracks that, according to Meaghan Garvey of Pitchfork Magazine, "exist for no other reason than because they can." I would argue that they exist for a very calculated reason -- so that Miley can prove to all just how quirky she can be.

First on the 90-minute lineup is "Dooo it!", which Cyrus debuted at the VMAs. The lines "Yeah I smoke pot / yeah I love peace / But I don't give a fuck / I ain't no hippie" are repeated about ten dozen times too many as Miley denies her painfully obvious wannabe-hippieness. I get the vibe that Miley doesn't want anyone to think she's trying to hard, but as with much of the album, this track is a bit too self-involved to have any semblance of real apathy.

Next up: "Karen Don't Be Sad", a sweet ballad full of Velvet Underground vibes that is so uncharacteristic of Cyrus I'm not quite sure what to say. A few songs later comes "Space Boots", one of the album's high points. For a short time, the drawn-out indie synth noises are dropped in favour of an electropop melody that actually kind of works. The lyrics: another story. Somehow, in a song about a lost love, "the pain is so excrutiating I don't know what I'll do" transitions directly into "we're both vegan."

Fast forward to "BB Talk." A ridiculous, rambling, raspy-voiced monologue that confirms any suspected shallowness about post-internet relationships. Miley trashes a guy who smells great and shows affection and can even give her a fifteen minute orgasm because she doesn't like when he sends the queen Emoji. Apparently, "homegirl can't handle the goop."

Several more songs pass by without leaving much of an imprint. I wonder when the album will be over. "I'm So Drunk" is basically your childhood friend Crazy Frog on something like horse tranquilizers. "I Forgive Yiew" is about a cheating lover whom Miley tells "how dare you bring another girl into our bed / you're lucky I'm doing my yoga or you might be dead / nothing could take away my zen." Many of the same hippie-isms are put into play on the “Pablow the Blowfish”, a tale of a dead pet blowfish who's tragically getting eaten by Miley's friends at sushi dinner. “Can't you see the earth is crying?” whines Miley, owner of seven luxury cars.

Her Dead Petz was not made to sell. It was made as an expression of creative freedom and, perhaps, like all other things Miley, a shock tactic. In all truth the album probably wasn't worth this 800+ word analysis because it is likely going to disappear from the airwaves as quickly as it was thrown into them, and Miley Cyrus is going to move onto something new, maybe something more natural, less contrived.

She'll forget about this self-indulgent side project and the meager $50,000 spent on it. She'll realize that the “I Don't Give a Fuck” ethos she so forcefully embraces makes her seem like somewhat of an overprivileged brat, and she'll opt to create music that spreads greater messages of love and acceptance. I hope so. I hope, at the very least, that she grows out of this wannabe-neo-psychdelic phase. I think we can all hope for that.

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