Album Review: “Miley Cyrus and her Dead Petz”
(no stars)
All Miley Cyrus ever needed was a real dad. And she’s found that in the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne, for better or for worse. Oklahoma City day-and-night trippers Flaming Lips peaked a while ago, although they have continued giving people a reason to do acid and MDMA simultaneously with their live shows. But on their Beatles cover album, “With A Little Help From My Fwends,”—their most recent act of musical necrophilia since their stunning cover of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”—you will hear surprising guest vocals by Cyrus.
Sure, Coyne is like the “Bad Santa” of role models. But Cyrus, having sat at the right hand of Satan himself for the past decade, could do far worse than look up to Coyne.
This collaboration continues with “Miley Cyrus and her Dead Petz,” also featuring the efforts of Mike will Made It, Sarah Barthel, Ariel Pink, and Big Sean. It was released following the used-to-be-cool MTV VMA Awards last Sunday, (warning: the following link may harm your brain) streaming free on Soundcloud. That’s fantastic, because it sure as hell isn’t worth buying. No calamity has ever been so boring to witness. Clocking in at over an hour and a half of tripe, it’s a series of half-thought-out, small-minded banalities that only serve to further disgrace both Cyrus’ ancestors and—God help us—her descendants.
It attempts to embrace the “mixtape” aesthetic, but it falls short. A mixtape isn’t an excuse to suck. Had she released “Miley Cyrus and her Dead Petz” a year ago, it would have been the stake through the heart of her career. However, as American pop “art” has swirled further down the cultural commode, it’s now laughably hailed as “a remarkable accomplishment” and “an essential listen.” Not that reviews have been unanimously brown-nosing; more appropriately, Mikael Wood of the L.A Times said, “This album is not very good — and what makes it even worse is that it’s by Miley Cyrus.”
No, it’s not very good. It’s atrocious and egocentric. It’s childish and uneducated. It is pitiably shallow on a musical level and vulgar to the point of self-parody. It is difficult to say that it’s the worst thing she’s ever done; her “Bangerz” tour and everything associated with it was an assault on the eyes, ears, heart, and mind. Rather, “Miley Cyrus and her Dead Petz” is predictably horrible but in unpredictable ways.
“Dooo It!” seems like it might be a poop reference. Rather, it’s an homage to marijuana. Cyrus’ worn-out attempts to shock an audience come across like cold leftovers. We get it, you smoke weed. Wow. The monotony of her shtick is so predictable that it’s hard not to just laugh anymore. “Yeah I smoke pot / I don’t give a fuck” might have been a shocker half a century ago. Tell us when you eat a pound of bath salts or take a shot of pure LSD, lil’ miss rebel.
On the heels of a parting exclamation, only semi-intelligible—something about a dick and a pussy (how sublimely 3rd grade)—“Karen Don’t Be Sad” is truly the Flaming Lips fronted by Cyrus. The melody and production are unmistakably Coyne’s penmanship. It’s to the point that Cyrus sounds like a puppet.
Try not to envision Coyne’s hand up her posterior.
Similarly, “The Floyd Song” is mellow and slightly echoey, and light electronics and playful production mixed with a lo-fi aesthetic again lend to the impression of a Flaming Lips with guest vocals. This is hard to ruin, and with Miley concentrating on singing rather than shoving her snatch in our faces or trying to wink and stick her tongue out simultaneously, we are left with—gasp!—a song!
However, for the third song in a row, “Something About Space Dude” is more of the same. If it weren’t Flaming Lips, it would be mistaken for a bedroom demo, but the faux-minimalist aesthetic is just how they roll. There will be ridiculous lyrics later in the album, so a hackneyed line like “Something in the way you love me” is actually refreshing. Enjoy the moment, because “Something in the way you fuck me” rears its ugly head soon enough.
As “Space Boots” creeps in and Miley again begins to pretend she’s black (ugh, the mere political implications are stomach-turning), the production begins to move away from ‘90s psychedelia, moving both back in time towards ‘80s synths and drum machines as well as forward towards … uh … what do we have in 2015? Ever so slightly upbeat, it completes the pothead-cosmonaut-themed triptych that “The Floyd Song” began.
“Fuckin Fucked Up” isn’t even a song. “BB Talk” is worse: the empty, pointless ramblings of a vapid pop star. Words cannot describe the awfulness.
Amy Winehouse rolled in her grave when Cyrus recorded “Fweaky.” It continues the themes of the past couple tracks: smoking weed, being incapable of intimacy yet constantly fixated on sex, having a 200-word vocabulary, and consistently unimaginative songwriting. Is there such a thing as an un-song? There is now.
“Bang Me Box” sounds like Cyrus broke into Sebastien Tellier’s studio and smeared feces on the walls. Not only is “I want you to bang my box” the worst lyric ever put to paper, Cyrus’ genuinely pitiable dissociation from her own body—this deep, dark level of self-objectification—is a black and sticky distillation of the inherently dehumanizing nature of Western culture so potent that it’s almost an accomplishment.
Like “Fuckin Fucked,” “Milky Milky Milk” stretches the definition of “song.” More accurately, it’s a gimmick set to a drum loop. The post-Yoshimi production does little to distract Cyrus’ explicit description of drinking it straight from the nipple.
“Cyrus Skies” opens with Cyrus at her remarkable huskiest, which does catch one’s attention. Whether it’s from years of screaming or smoking, she does a decent Tom Waits impression. That voice is going to sound like worn-out leather in a few decades. But otherwise, the song meanders rather aimlessly. However, it’s relatively inoffensive after the past several disasters, making it seem decent in contrast. For a rare moment, Cyrus simply sings, and it’s refreshing, if boring.
Unfortunately, it’s right back to the realm of pointlessness with “Slab of Butter (Scorpion),” which opens with this poignant line: “I wanna get fucked up / Get fucked up.” Perhaps this point wasn’t made clearly enough already in “Fuckin Fucked Up.” The Flaming Lips influence has come and gone over the past ten songs, mostly restricted to manipulated, wubby synth bass lines. Here again, there are only cursory elements in the mix, like tubby bass interjections, various whistles, and the ultimate psychedelic cliche: running drums through a phaser. If you can ignore the pedestrian lyrics, it’s probably one of the better (read: least bad) songs on the album.
“I’m so Drunk” is simply the sound of dicking around with auto-tune or vocoder technology for about 45 seconds. It only seems to be there to break up “Slab of Butter” and “I Forgive Yiew” which are nearly the exact same song with different words. Again, witness American shallowness refined into a ideological liqueur in lines like, “You’re lucky I’m doing my yoga or you might be dead.” Ugh.
“I Get So Scared,” like “The Floyd Song” and “Cyrus Skies” is bland enough to be palatable. “Lighter” follows, and it’s again saved by post-‘80s production. With these insubstantial offerings, though, one can’t help note how some could have actually been good rather than simply mediocre with a more capable or engaging singer. And to be honest, Cyrus can sing. She just so seldom does. One can hear Heart’s “These Dreams” waiting in the wings to take the stage, but of course, too blazed and addled to be able to focus on genuinely emoting—and with nothing of any consequence to say after a mere pampered 22 years anyway—Cyrus doesn’t even begin to approach the grandeur.
Similarly, “Tangerine” steers clear of both Cyrus’ vagina and her stash, but it really sounds like an SAE student’s homework rather than something worth publishing. “Tiger Dreams” and “Evil Is But a Shadow” are the same: only good because it’s not as bad and even a little confusing in their tame, diffused wandering.
It’s back to faux hip hop and echoes of disco and Lady Gaga with “1 Sun,” which kicks it up a notch energetically. And for one final enigma, witness “Pablow The Blowfish.” Musically, it’s as insipid as the worst of her output, but at least there’s a little interesting imagery inherent in a love song to a blowfish. It is perhaps the silliest and worst vegan anthem ever, like something Morrisey accidentally farted out in his sleep. Listening to Cyrus crying at the end—maybe real, maybe not—only makes it weirder…and worse.
“Miley Tibetan Bowlzzz.” NO. BAD MILEY. YOU ARE NOT THE LION KING. YOU ARE NOT ENYA. In the parlance of our times, *facepalm*. F-.
In “Twinkle Song,” she utters David Bowie’s name, defiling it forever, and—like the daughter of a Nashville singer-songwriter she is—she hammers out the same three chords that she did in “Pablow The Blowfish.” This song is an adolescent temper tantrum in every way.
Frankly, it’s sad what has happened to Cyrus. She’s received the typical celebrity child treatment to predictable ends. It came as no surprise when she went from being Hannah Montana to being the Jezebel of Pop. In addition, she’s talented (latently), and she was well-groomed by Disney. The girl can sing, but she has nothing in the way of gray matter or experience that would lend any taste or meaning to what she does. She ought to take four years and study music at a university—sans the intoxicants and partying. In short, she is a walking tragedy, rich and famous or not, and if she becomes another Hollywood suicide in the coming decades, it will be of no surprise, and society will ultimately be to blame for encouraging her antics.
Regardless, there is nothing that can prepare the listener for the sheer awfulness of “Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz.” It’s a hideous failure musically (par for the course with Cyrus), but somehow it simultaneously fails to even entertain. Chicken Little has cried that her panties are falling so many times that no matter how thickly she slathers on the profanity, no matter how many times she flashes a nipple, no matter how desperately she stomps and wails and begs for attention, it has become white noise. She’d already set the personal bar for tastelessness all the way to the floor. This drama queen misfit has sadly worn herself out at age 22.
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Less articulate than many previous, however, I get the point(s). Think I’ll pass on it. Thx!