12/30/2023 0 Comments Miley cyrus plastic hearts tracklistA little like Endless Summer Vacation-which is not the sundazed party record that was promised but an exploration of how it feels when the party’s over.Although Cyrus’ various musical projects have rarely been good, a few have been, at the very least, historically significant. “Hope they have your eyes and that crooked smile.” Thrown into the middle of a horned-up dance jam, it comes as a surprise. “You could be the one, have the honor of my babies,” she sings. On its best songs, such as the vampy and lascivious “River,” Cyrus effectively showcases who she is at this point in her career: Mature but still messy, not above a theatrical turn of phrase (“You’re pourin’ down, baby, drown me out”) and, very occasionally, still in tune with the big-hearted optimism that characterized her earlier music. Thankfully, most of the album doesn’t fuel the impulse to speculate. Indeed, a search for any of these songs brings up dozens of tabloid articles purporting to explain how they relate to Cyrus’ personal life. A decade on, Cyrus has still not found an appealing way to sing the word “I’ma,” and the song describes a cheating partner with a maddening combination of vagueness and ultra-specificity. “Wildcard” unsuccessfully retreads the “I’m damaged” regretfulness of “You” with less panache “Muddy Feet,” a leaden collaboration with Sia, aims for tough talk and mostly lands at awkward. It feels as if, after exercising the kind of restraint that’s rare across her catalog, Cyrus finally let herself slip back into mindless excess.Ĭyrus has said Endless Summer Vacation is loosely divided into “AM” and “PM” sections, and it’s the nighttime songs, roughly beginning with “Handstand,” that grate. “Handstand” is built around a heavy-handed boat metaphor that never seems to go anywhere, and confoundingly introduces a character called Big Twitchy, a constant presence in Korine’s paintings. A run of understated early tracks, largely produced by Harry’s House collaborators Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson, is interrupted by the interminable Harmony Korine co-write “Handstand,” the kind of grooveless synth dirge that helped 2015’s Flaming Lips collaboration Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz sink like a stone. “You,” a gorgeous soul ballad that captures all the grit and tension from Cyrus’ ragged voice, counters devotional lyrics with a chorus that laments a breakup as a foregone conclusion: “I am not made for no horsey and carriage/You know I’m savage.” On streaming, Endless Summer Vacation is packaged with a demo version of “Flowers,” and although it is a demo in name only-it is as taut and shellacked as the final version, just quieter-it’s actually a neat bookend, making Cyrus’ lyrics sound yearning and contrite.Ĭyrus has never really made a great front-to-back album-2013’s Bangerz, weirdly, is probably most listenable the whole way through-and, with Endless Summer Vacation, “no skips” remains out of reach. On most of these songs, Cyrus is regretful, even mournful: “Rose Colored Lenses,” seemingly about a moment of post-coital bliss, wallows in the realization that such peace can never really last. But it is more interesting than a simple statement of self-confidence. Led by the hammy self-love anthem “ Flowers”-a chugging daytime disco song that aims for “I Will Survive” but lands more like “I Will Survive?”- Endless Summer Vacation has been sold as Cyrus’ stylish moving-on record, an unbothered counterpart to its snarky predecessor Plastic Hearts. Cyrus is only 30, but Endless Summer Vacation is marked by a blunt cynicism that seems like a product of both a recent divorce and a lifetime seeing her own image warped and criticized by the media. Early on she howls a backhanded apology to an ex: “I’m sorry that you’re jaded.” By the time the record’s played through-after she sings about her own callousness and her inability to settle down, and wonders “Am I stranded on an island/Or have I landed in paradise?”-it seems like she might be singing to herself. Its airy, mostly unfussy pop-rock production is streaked with the pink and red of a summer sunset emotionally, it carries the mottled purple tint of a bruise. On Endless Summer Vacation, Cyrus’ eighth album, that changes.
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