Miley Cyrus is back and bolder than ever with new album “Plastic Hearts,” which dropped Nov. 27.
From the moment the leading track “WTF Do I Know” starts playing, Cyrus makes it perfectly clear whose record “Plastic Hearts'' is. It’s loud, abrasive and blunt, and sets the strobe-lit stage for many of the lyrical motifs that arise throughout the album.
One prominent motif is her hyperawareness of her own unpredictability. She takes us to the gravestone memorializing her marriage, which ended in January, then proceeds to dance naked on top of it.
“Am I wrong that I moved on and I don’t even miss you,” she sings. “Thought that it’d be you until I die, but I let it go. What the fuck do I know?”
There’s just something about this record that feels even more authentic than the rest of her catalogue. She’s almost always been brazen about who she is, but this time, it feels less like an ostentatious exhibition of who she wants us to think she is and more like the full truth.
She achieved this by packaging varying amounts of vulnerability into each song. Though the title track “Plastic Hearts” explores typically one-dimensional themes of partying and getting wasted, she adds a second layer by examining the emotional numbness she’s trying to curb.
“Never Be Me,” which comes toward the end of the album, is a touching confessional of Cyrus’ turbulent personality.
“I walk the line, I play with fire,” she sings. “If you’re looking for stable, that'll never be me, if you’re looking for faithful, that’ll never be me.”
“Angels Like You” is a thrilling confirmation of the internet's declarations that Cyrus’ voice was destined for rock music. It falls somewhere in the middle of her musical ghosts of genres past and present: pop and rock, respectively.
The next three songs on the tracklist, “Prisoner” featuring Dua Lipa, “Gimme What I Want” and “Night Crawling” featuring Billy Idol are all fun and well-constructed; however, in succession they don’t quite stand apart from each other.
Cyrus’ better collaborations are with the female legends she invited onto “Plastic Hearts.” Be wary of those who criticize “Bad Karma,” featuring rock n' roll giantess Joan Jett. Their voices, while each distinctly their own, hold a fantastic mirror up to each other in terms of tone and delivery. The two sing smokey one-liners over pops of breathy vocal percussion.
And then there’s Stevie Nicks, who contributed samples of “Edge of Seventeen” to lead single “Midnight Sky,” released in August. That unmistakable guitar intro instantly heralds Nicks’ appearance, which elevates an already great song. “Midnight Sky,” with and without Nicks, holds all the self-assurance and glitz anyone could want out of a Cyrus track.
Still, the most enchanting song on “Plastic Hearts” is “High,” an emotional, ballad in which Cyrus flexes that effortless twang some Nashville-bred singers would kill for. If pop and rock are her ghosts of genres past and present, we can only hope that country rock is the future if songs like this one are the result.
“Golden G String,” which really should have been the album’s final song, takes the prize for Cyrus’ most intriguing track yet. It’s a lot like Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” except much more modern and even more feminized — rather than the entertainer chronicling the lives of the people he performs for in the bar, Cyrus finds herself in the strictly feminine position of analyzing instead how they perceive her as a woman, an entertainer and sexual being.
“The old boys hold all the cards and they ain’t playing Gin,” she sings. “You dare to call me crazy, have you looked around this place?”
Cyrus capped off “Plastic Hearts” with two live covers, which were also released prior to the album. Her versions of rock classics “Heart of Glass” by Blondie and “Zombie” by The Cranberries seemed to be Cyrus’ way of letting the world know which musical direction she was heading. Though both recordings successfully stirred up hype for the album release, they do take away some from the originality Cyrus spent the entire album cultivating.
All in all, Cyrus fully embraced her rough edges and past missteps on “Plastic Hearts,” which is easily her best work. She’s always been honest, but this record solidifies what her previous albums have only touched on — that she can be vulnerable, too.
