”Yeah I smoke pot / Yeah, I love peace / But I don’t give a fuc
k / I ain’t no hippie”
There’s a certain image that I cannot quite forget about the VMAs this year – an event Miley Cyrus herself hosted, stirring controversy with her skimpy, glittery glamazonian outfit and a head full of blonde dreadlocks. It’s an image that I feel most sums up what the inspiration was for the unexpected
Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz: On the VMAs live performance of “Dooo It!”, the first single for the 90 minutes long record, she was accompanied by a myriad of iconic drag queens from the reality show
RuPaul’s Drag Race; amongst others, Laganja Estranja, Jiggly Caliente, Shangela, Gia Gunn, Vivacious, Alyssa Edwards, Carmen Carrera, Courtney Act, and the current reigning queen, Violet Chachki. Performing in bright pink costumes full of surreal & psychedelic Picassian shapes and one Alyssa Edwards dressed in a gigantic kiss emoji with teeth protruding cartoonishly, Miley sang as a whole host of gay icons were dancing with her and deathdroping like it was a normal day on the club.
For those unfamiliar with
RPDR: It’s a reality show in which a group of drag queens compete for the title of
America’s Next Drag Superstar and $100,000 in cash. Miley, having recently come out of the closet as Gender Fluid, has expressed her love for the show for its unapologetic take on gender and self-expression, having made an appearance as an spectator of the reigning queen’s coronation – Violet Chachki, the show’s youngest winner, who was only a week short of her 23th birthday when she was crowned. Of course, it’s no wonder Miley finds inspiration on the show: the queens competing are known for their outlandish sense of fashion, and their unabashed love for the carefree approach of the 80s and the 2000s party music, where freedom and self-expression – however crass or irresponsible – was not a right but a moral obligation. Also a theme of the show is the fight for liberation of the LGTB+ community; in the last years,
RPDR has become one of the most reblogged, retwitted and trending shows on television, and its popularity can only be a direct result of the liberation this new generation fights for, a group of politically-conscious teenagers ready for the political battle but with consigns of Peace & Freedom, aware that only love can change the world, and that everyone should just live and let live. They’re the internet-era hippie, well represented in the show’s crew; the ones who take selfies of themselves smoking weed and wearing neon-bright beads-lacen braids as the new flower crown, just so they can Instagram it with a message of “❤️
🍁🚬Love Conquers All🚬
🍁❤️” as its caption. It’s in this generation of a drunken youth in the permanent stupor of booze, but awoke and firm in their pledge for their right to be free – gender rules and fashion norms be damned – that Miley Cyrus (a party girl and also a Pansexual person herself) finds inspiration for an album that came out of nowhere but has taken the internet by storm.
As a simile to her previous albums,
Dead Petz is
Bangerz taken to its artistic conclusion: an style that Ke$ha gave birth to before her but never gave closure,
Dead Petz is the aural representation of the I-don’t-give-a-fu
ck attitude, but with the maturity to understand that today is fleeting and the uplifting belief that there’s something greater than ourselves awaiting for us in the future – it’s the stand of just living one’s life and fighting for the rights of others to live theirs too. If
Bangerz was the drug-infused party of wildness and indulgence, then
Dead Petz is the hazy and silent aftermath in which Cyrus finds the solace to reconsider what’s going on in her life and the world and letting her imagination run free, and it’s with the aid of none others than The Flaming Lips along with a host of producers that Miley sought to translate the psychedelia of those moments to record.
As such are the themes of the record,
Dead Petz is full of statements. Whether it’s a confession to a lover of hers, a gratuitous declaration that she does indeed smoke weed, or a testament to love’s power, Cyrus is holding no word back; as she herself declared,
”that’s what I’ve got the luxury to do,” to write an entire album expressing herself without second-guessing, and releasing it for free so the whole world can listen. All of this is done in a modern but surreal manner, as Miley and her collaborators take modern pop and translate it to what the 60s pop and blues would sound like were it made in the Twitter era, slappin’ jams and booming bass and all. Guitar licks garnish the background of pulsating beats as Miley coons about peace, acceptance, love and weed without much care for lyrical restrain and meticulousness. It’s one piece that’s sure to resonate with anyone young, confused but expectant and positive, if you’re able to get past its obtuse and psychoactive wrapping (it definitely makes more sense the more you listen to it).
But as solid as the concept might have been, the execution can leave one expecting more. The songs are all solid (quite an accomplishment on Miley’s discography of ridiculously inconsistent albums), but they can be too laid-back; at times, even wimpy. The beats are slow most of the time, and the synths make for great ambiance but provide no impetu to the whole. The songs are all well-constructed, you’ll find they’re not bad in any way at all (save for the rather polarizing “Dooo It!”) – but they are not effervescing either. The voice’s mixing fails to make use of either the processing nor Miley’s talent at the mic; the vocals sit at the midpoint between being drowned in reverb and lo-fi production (thanks to its 128kbps bitrate), and a stripped down performance of Miley’s voice alone, and as such it fails to deliver an statement to the listener. Given that this album is over 90 minutes long, such lack of energy can be deadly to the execution of the concept, and can make for a exhausting listen that breaks the spell cast by its place in current pop culture and the way it was presented.
It’s due to these problems that the album can’t quite fully capitalize on the roiling concept that takes place on itself. The cultural relevance of the themes subconsciously touched here could have made for a riveting piece on post-internet youth and their collective sociopolitical role, but it didn’t quite get there. However, as an music album, it’s a solid collection of songs that never dip in quality and each one is worth a listen.
It’s been a rather liberating period for Miley; stripping down her innocent Disney-Girl facade, coming to terms with her sexuality and gender identity, and gaining full control of her artistic endeavors, it’s been quite a ride for her in the last two years. Her performance at the VMAs was quite controversial – drag queens challenging gender norms, sexually open and schizophrenic fashion, a beef with industry fat cat Nicki Minaj – but aside from the political discussion that could be had about it, as a long-time fan of hers, a fan of music, and an LGTB+ person myself, I truly wish Miley the best of luck, and I hope she can finally release the album she’s capable of writing. As of today however, I’m just glad that she can finally be herself, and that this worthy release saw the light of the day to leave an dent on current pop culture.
