Review Summary: Miley and The Flaming Lips dream up one giant clusterfuck of ideas and backwards morals, and, in the end, that's what gets me about this album.
First off, let me reaassure you with a small piece of information. This is an album that, by all rational definition, should not work. As an album and as a total manifestation of the ideas that casually float through Miley Cyrus's head on a day-to-day basis. However, the marvel is at the fact that however strangely, this album does work. Soon after her Bangerz world tour came to a close, rumours started to circulate that Miley stepped back into the studio to record a few tracks (which were initially supposed to be on an 8-track extended play) and do bowls with Wayne Coyne and The Flaming Lips, with producer Mike Will Made It lined up to record instrumentals for a number of the tracks. However, this project soon birthed from its unholy uterus filled with the weed and acid binges took on by the crew every day of recording. When Miley came to her production team to talk about the album, they often bombarded her with accusations that the album was too long, too which Miley "passive-aggressively" inserted the "Miley Tibetan Bowlzzz" track onto the second to last track of the now 23-track album (clocking in at a staggering 92 minutes).
From its announcement on 30 August of 2015, which landed on the day Cyrus was slated with hosting the MTV Video Music Awards, she shocked the audience with the knowledge that "Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz" would be up for free download on Soundcloud. Miley then followed up that announcement with an extremely over-the-top performance of the album's lead single, "Dooo It!", accompanied by cross-dressing dancers, repulsive imagery, glitter and rainbows to be ejaculated from a giant dildo, and of course, Wayne Coyne himself. Miley finished the night by uttering "Why they put the dick in the pussy???" to Coyne, which he immediately responded, "I have no idea", and I'm afraid truer words may have never been spoken.
So what if the tracks themselves? As Wikipedia defines it, "Dooo It!" is Miley's more-than-obvious love letter to marijuana and peace, as if lines like "What the fuck is love? Love is what you need. Loving what you sing, and loving smoking weed", and screaming "Peace, motherfuckerz! Dooo It!" throughout the last minute of the song isn't evidence enough. Then we move on to more relaxed ballads like "Karen Don't Be Sad", which honestly sounds just like something out of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots or The Terror by The Flaming Lips, and the acoustic "The Floyd Song (Sunrise)", where Miley expresses sorrow for the loss of her dog Floyd, who was mauled by coyotes during her Bangerz world tour. This reminds me to divulge that "Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz" is honest-to-god about Miley's pets who have passed away. This brings us to the duo of the some of the strangest tracks on the album (but to be honest no song on this album can be defined as strange), "Something About Space Dude" and "Space Boots", where Miley is mostly crooning about her brief love life with an astronaut. From the interlude "Fuckin' Fucked Up" leads directly into the faux-atmospheric "BB Talk", which consistently bounces from a monologue of Miley's broken relationships with other people, resulting from incidents like making love in front of her partner's mother or regretting one-night stands, and Miley whole-heartedly singing about how she wants her boyfriends to stop acting cute towards her, or as she calls it, "baby talk". We then move towards the more Mike Will Made It section of the album, with overtly sexual tracks like "Fweaky", "Bang Me Box", and "Milky Milky Milk", where Miley ventures further and further into her sexual orientation with less-than-subtle lyrics about lesbianism. We finish off the first half of the album with "Cyrus Skies", where Miley discusses her spiritual awakening, and "Slab of Butter (Scorpion)", yet another sex jam featuring Sarah Barthel from Phantogram.
The second half of "Dead Petz" starts of with the short-lived "I'm So Drunk", which is fortunate, because the minute-long interlude is really nothing but those words. "I Forgive Yiew" is probably the only unbearable track on the album, not because it is necessarily bad, but because it does not fit into the general theme of the double album. This shows that Miley is best left in the company of Wayne Coyne and The Flaming Lips, as Mike's often sugar-coated production is really the downfall of the album. We soon get a return to form, though, with the psychedelic "I Get So Scared", where Miley shows her fears about getting over a breakup and, subsequently, staying single for the remainder of her life. Following the track is the Cyndi Lauper-influenced "Lighter", where Miley croons yet again about smoking pot and her reliance on her boyfriend. A looping tropical beat moves us forward into "Tangerine", where Cyrus questions the life ahead of her, contemplating descending laser beams, wizards, and sun-deployed morphine. "Tiger Dreams" follows after, with Miley and guest Ariel Pink conversing about violence, sex, and conformity. Another Wayne Coyne-produced ballad comes "Evil Is But A Shadow", where Miley finds herself singing about the balance of good and evil in the world. "1 Sun" is actually one of the better tracks on the second half of this album, as Cyrus goes on about loving the environment, saying, "We only have one sun, one me, one you". "Pablow the Blowfish" comes as a strikingly emotional track, a needle in a haystack of songs that lack much emotional sincerity in the first place (Why they put the dick in the pussy???). Again, as with "The Floyd Song (Sunrise)", this track really is about Miley's pet blowfish who passed away. Following the aforementioned "Miley Tibetan Bowlzzz" track, comes the last song on this album, "Twinkle Song", where Cyrus often questions her dreams which range from going to the moon and back to David Bowie skateboarding.
In the end though, this album isn't that great, but in retrospect, it is the only album of Miley's discography that wholly feels like her rawest, most uncut creation. Abandoning all ties to other producers and her record label, Miley dares to step away from the insanity of typical pop music and really wrestle with something, that, when it's all said and done, is really something to marvel at.
