That's it. I’m throwing my
Hannah Montana DVD box sets in the skip. Who does this outrageous woman think she is, poisoning the minds of children? Does she not think of the children? WILL NO-ONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
If cutting her hair and twerking
wasn’t enough to rile her original fanbase, the Disney Channel sweetheart has now decided
to abandon pop music entirely, teaming up with experimental rockers The Flaming
Lips and hip hop producer Mike-Will-Made-it to create this left-field psychedelic
album lyrically centred around sex, her love of the herb and her dead pet
blowfish.
It’s taken me a while to get my
head around what the hell is going on here. I can only assume that this is
Miley’s way of telling the world she’s no longer a pawn to the pop industry,
that she can do whatever she likes.
The album opens with the line: ‘Yeah I smoke pot/ Yeah I love peace/ But I
don’t give a fuck/ I’m no hippy’. Here we learn everything - that Miley not only wants
to rebel against her status as a pop star, she wants to defy all labels
entirely: ‘I’m no hippy’.
You’ve got to give some credit to Miley for
breaking free from her pop shackles and creating an album that is entirely hers.
Even when told by peers that the album was too long, Miley responded by adding another track
to the ninety minute leviathan entitled ‘Miley
Tibetan Bowlzzz’.
That said, as much of a beautiful
expression of freedom this album is, by doing away with editors Miley has now revealed her total and utter lack of song-writing ability.
The tracks on Dead Petz fall mainly into two categories: unlistenably obnoxious
and unlistenably boring. The unlistenably obnoxious tracks are produced by
Mike-Will-Made-It and see Miley trying overly hard to shock her listeners. The
result is lots of gross sexual imagery that no-one wants to hear (‘you fingered my heart’) and lots of use
of the word ‘fuck’ because Miley thinks that’s so fucking edgy. In contrast,
the unlistenably boring tracks see Miley desperately pushing forward her stoner
side to the accompaniment of droning Flaming Lips instrumentals. The lyrics on
these tracks are largely spacey babble and are moaned out in a style similar to
Lana Del Ray in order to sound druggy or alternative or something like that (I
already hated Lana Del Ray. You can imagine how I feel about a cheap Lana Del
Ray imitation).
Clearly, Mike-Will-Made-It and The
Flaming Lips are also to blame here, as they fail to produce any kind of
exciting backdrop for Miley to lay her shoddy lack of poetry over. I guess you could make
an exception with ‘Slab of Butter (Scorpion)’, which does feature a pretty
groovy guitar interlude that gets the shoulders moving. I also love the trippy sample in ‘Milky Milk
Milk’ taken from The Flaming Lips' The Terror (although the lyrics over the top about licking milky nipples kind of ruins the mood).
Overall, there are probably only two
good songs on this album lyric-wise (two out of twenty-three - not bad). The first is ‘BB
Talk’ in which Miley genuinely comes across as sincere whist discussing
previous relationships. The second is ‘Pablow the Blowfish’ in which
Miley genuinely comes across as funny, mourning the passing of her dead
blowfish and hoping he’ll find love in the afterlife with a seahorse named Sadie (I
admit, it made me chuckle). Both are surprisingly emotional and show that Miley can be
endearing when she wants to be.
Sadly, these tracks can’t make up
for the rest of the album, which tries so offensively hard to offend that they might as
well be cherries placed decoratively on the top of a steaming turd. In fact, the album is so desperately offensive in every way possible, I fail to see any audience Miley had in mind other than herself. It’s lack of hooks and experimental
instrumentation deliberately alienates pop fans, but it’s dumbed-down lyrics are
just as much an insult to chin-stroking indie fans (e.g. 'Why they put the dick in the pussy?'). Maybe Miley simply gets a kick out of being the sole person who enjoys her music - in which case this is a vanity project and whilst we are left feeling empty, she is left feeling complete. Selfish bitch.
★☆☆☆☆
TRACK TASTER: