Miley Cyrus - Plastic Hearts (Review)
Miley Cyrus - Plastic Hearts (Review)
12/1/20
With about one of the spottiest track records in recent pop history, fans and haters alike can never really know what to expect when going into a Miley Cyrus album. Known for playing Hannah Montana in a show with the same title, she was always known to be pretty screwed-up. This has always been a theme, or the main theme, you can count on in Cyrus' music, and generally it's been portrayed by a variety of genres mainly surrounding 2010s pop music. Growing up, her father was a country musician, which gives a lot of influence in her music, and especially shows in parts of her latest album "Plastic Hearts". This new Miley Cyrus album was released on November 27th, spans 12 original tracks, and around 40 minutes. Most of Miley's work has been easily able to categorize under "good" or "bad". However, it's pretty hard to define this album as either because there are so many deciding factors in the equation. Many fans will of course have many different opinions, and I'm aware that many fans are only supporting her for a certain type of her music or a couple of projects she's worked on. So, given her very interesting track record, it was very exciting to see how this album came out in the end.
There was a pretty decent handful of things that were negative; the first of which is Cyrus' vocal passion. This is probably the most subjective factor of the entire album, and can really go each way depending on what style you like and what your standards of quality and honesty are in a song. Personally, I find her delivery here to hardly exceed mediocre, especially in the album's first half. Thankfully, there was only a handful of verses that were delivered as cringeworthy as most of her other projects have been, but nothing really felt too honest. This whole album felt like one big rip-off of a pretty restricted variety of popular genres. You had a lot of basic synth-pop tracks, a few terrible gritty tracks that have been pretty well-known to kill modern pop, and some country-influenced tracks. The country-influences was where this album shined, but only when Miley took it to the furthest extent in terms of performance and production. When some of these elements were implemented awkwardly into the more pop-driven songs, it came across very stale and played-out. Speaking of the production, this album is pretty over-produced. A lot of its areas where her wide array of producers stepped back and let a single instrument or two portray the emotion made some of the best parts here. Finally, some of Miley's lyrics felt a little generic and overused considering she kept rinsing and repeating the same themes and formulas she's been using since her 2010 debut.
There are a fair amount of positives here though, and most of which pertain directly to the things I've disliked about the album thus far. Working backwards from last paragraph, let's start with the lyrics. There are a handful of wonderful and well-written verses and hooks throughout this album, but they sometimes have a hard time complimenting their instrumentals. All the tones fit, but sometimes the sounds themselves fail to meet the rest of the implications and emotion in the lyrics. While a fair amount of this album is very overproduced, everything still sounds wonderful and comes together great. Every producer listed in the credits of this album is something of a well-known master in their respective genres, and it really shows here. This album is brimming with tone-heavy instrumentals and arrangement, and while some things may not totally match others, most things still manage to come together pretty great. The country influences was definitely where this album shined. In tracks like "High", you could clearly see the inspiration and the urge that Cyrus probably has to just bite the bullet and make a complete country album. Sadly, putting these tracks out as soon as possible rather than saving them for something more tonally driven makes them stick out and very poorly contrast the feeling the rest of the album does a great job at portraying. Her passion in her singing and performance was great at some points. Though, it all still feels so fake when you consider the fact that she's only ripping off and imitating the way others sound in other genres.
It's pretty fair to say that I'm very torn on my thoughts about this album, and I was entirely from the get-go. While there might be more good things than bad on paper, inconsistency fails to bring that tone to the table that Cyrus was clearly trying so hard to portray, and it comes to ruin the experience at times. So much of this album feels fake and non-personal while some of the lyrics and the better deliveries contrast this entirely. Then you have the general wonderful production and harmonies on this album that make you rethink the negative parts that relate in any way to the production and the performances. Considering how torn I am, there's only one thing I know for sure: Miley Cyrus should just make a damn emotional country album. She should maybe try the less highly-produced route of Chris Stapleton's music. With some of the raw talent she displays on this LP, she could do great portraying her art and emotions through another more fitting style. My favorite track is "Hate Me", because it's a wonderfully produced pop song with a pretty driving groove and ranging dynamics to back up the lyrics and performances. It's basically what this album should have shown us through every track and combined her various sounds into this style a little better. My least favorite track is "Bad Karma", because it delivers a lot of those horrible "game on" themes that come of so cringeworthy and can honestly be album ruining. In this case it wasn't, because this was thankfully the only song that followed that "gritty" tone to its fullest extent, though it was still a huge low point in the track list. Giving this album a 1-10 using half numbers, I give this album a 5/10 with a five-word description of: "confusing, shocking, good and bad".
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