ReportWire

Tag: Miley Cyrus Endless Summer Vacation

  • Barcelona Baby: Dua Lipa Channels Numerous Pop Girls in Video for “Illusion”

    Barcelona Baby: Dua Lipa Channels Numerous Pop Girls in Video for “Illusion”

    [ad_1]

    As Dua Lipa continues to build the anticipation for her long-awaited third album, Radical Optimism, she’s already brought us a third single in the wake of “Houdini” and “Training Season.” The theme of “Illusion,” as it’s called (and in keeping with a title like “Houdini”), is more closely aligned to the one in “Training Season,” with Lipa telling off any man trying to spin some false yarn. In order to help convey that message in visual form is the always impressive Tanu Muino, who has increasingly branched out into collaborating with American musicians in lieu of the Ukrainian ones she started out working for. In fact, it was, of all things, a Katy Perry video (2019’s “Small Talk”) that signaled her transition to working with some of the biggest names in American pop and hip hop/R&B music (including Cardi B [“Up”], Normani [“Wild Side”], Lil Nas X [“Montero”] and Doja Cat [“Attention”]). 

    Dua Lipa only adds to that growing list and, together, her and Muino bring one of their most elaborate music video concepts yet—one that relies on the sumptuous, intoxicating backdrop of Barcelona. Indeed, it’s as though Lipa is beckoning us to join her in “summer mode” despite many locations still being hopelessly trapped in winter mode (spring season or not). And yes, it’s apparent that Radical Optimism is vying for “album of the summer” status, not just with its release date (May 3rd), but its water-filled album cover (featuring Lipa casually swimming near/toward a shark, presented in the Jaws manner of protruding fin only). “Illusion,” too, is water-filled, thanks to being filmed at the Piscina Municipal de Montjuïc. Known for hosting major sporting events, including the 1992 Olympics, the pool’s location on the Montjuïc hill is what affords it such a glorious panoramic view of the city, complete with Gaudí’s Sagrada Família in the background. A feature that Kylie Minogue opted to exclude from her 2003 “Slow” video, during which she also relished the cinematic potential of the location, albeit solely with overhead shots of her writhing seductively around in an orgiastic heap with all the other poolside loungers on towels. Lipa, in this way, makes her first homage to a pop girl—except that she chooses to maximize the location much more than Minogue did. 

    This commences with Muino’s establishing shot of Lipa perched on the network of uniquely structured diving boards amid a sea of muscular men in matching attire (short blue shorts and white tank tops). As the men do various exercise-y poses, Lipa ascends one of the ladders while informing us, “I’ve been known to miss a red flag/I’ve been known to put my lover on a pedestal/In the end, those things just don’t last/And it’s time I take my rose-colored glasses off.” And yet, even if she’s taken them off with regard to her perception of her lover, the city of Barcelona can still be seen through rose-colored glasses even without any on. Drenched in that indelible Spanish sunlight, the cityscape steals the show almost as much as Lipa’s seemingly “Express Yourself”-inspired backup dancers. That’s right, it appears Lipa gives a stylistic nod to Madonna yet again (as she did in the “Houdini” video) with a setup that very much reminds of what M did in her David Fincher-directed masterpiece from 1989. Not to mention the scaffolding-style backdrop of Paula Abdul’s “Cold Hearted,” itself a recent inspiration for Ariana Grande’s “yes, and?” video. The aesthetic relationship between “Express Yourself” (which came out a month before Abdul’s single) isn’t a coincidence, what with Fincher having directed both. 

    Accordingly, each of those videos has plenty of mounting of/gyrating on industrial-looking “rigs” to help highlight the choreo. Of a nature that channels the exuberance Lipa is going for with the record as a whole, stating that she wanted to “capture the essence of youth and freedom and having fun.” The video does achieve that, even if the lyrics are indicative of someone who has been jaded by enough experience with relationships past. In fact, there is even an aura of the “Express Yourself” mantra in Lipa’s coming-of-age tone as she sings the defiant chorus, “Ooh, what you doin’?/Don’t know who you think that you’re confusin’/I be like, ooh, it’s amusin’/You think I’m gonna fall for an illusion.” This leads into her talking about how, at this juncture, she knows exactly what she wants, declaring, “Was a time when that shit might’ve worked/Was a time when I just threw a match and let it burn/Now I’m grown, I know what I deserve/I still like dancin’ with the lessons I already learned.” In other words, “Don’t go for second best, baby/Put your love to the test/You know, you know you’ve got to…” 

    But M isn’t the only pop girl Lipa conjures in “Illusion.” There’s also a clear-cut Britney Spears moment when Muino gives us an overhead shot of Lipa in the pool while lying on a floating circular object as she moves her arms up and down—in clear “Oops!…I Did It Again” fashion. For never was there a more iconic overhead shot of a pop princess lying on a circular ditty and moving her arms around than that. Spears might not have had a slew of synchronized swimmers around her while doing it, but the connection is still there. Plus, Muino is no stranger to orbiting Spears’ world, for she directed 2022’s “Hold Me Closer” (which shares many qualities with “Illusion” in that it wields a city’s—Mexico City’s—backdrop as a key character). Maybe that’s why there’s also echoes of the pool scenes from “Work Bitch,” wherein Britney stands on a circular platform in the center of the water as hammerhead sharks swim around her (this, too, perhaps some unwitting inspo for the Radical Optimism cover). 

    Talking of connections, there’s even one to Miley Cyrus when Lipa is lifted out of the water by the very “O” ring that previously encircled her, giving an immediate flash to the cover of Cyrus’ Endless Summer Vacation album. As the video starts to wrap up, a choreography breakdown in the 00s spirit of what someone like Lindsay Lohan did on the rooftop in the “Rumors” video occurs, with Lipa repeating, “I’d rather dance with the illusion”—than actually invest time in a full-blown, off-the-dancefloor relationship with the real, unvarnished version. Which always turns out to be so disappointing. 

    For one of her big finishes, Lipa mounts a “tower of men” (with some women peppered in between), making her way to the top for another overhead shot where she’s “chillin’ on a circle.” Obviously, it’s a metaphor for how she’s overcome all the necessary emotional obstacles to become secure and confident in knowing exactly what she wants—and what she doesn’t. As for the former, it definitely includes taking dips in Barcelona and repeating the mantra, “Dance all night, dance all night” (not so different from what she said in “Dance the Night”).

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” Is A Direct Assault on the “Purpose” of Men

    Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” Is A Direct Assault on the “Purpose” of Men

    [ad_1]

    As Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” continues to dominate charts and shatter records in 2024, it bears reflecting on the why of its enduring success. And the longevity it will likely have even decades from now (depending on whether or not humanity can still access streaming services at that point). Over one year on from its initial release—January 13, 2023 (a.k.a. Liam Hemsworth’s thirty-third birthday)—“Flowers” remains not only resonant, but eerily evergreen…in terms of men being, well, rather useless to women. Particularly when it comes to seeking validation and particularly when it comes to representing them as elected officials.

    If 2022 was “the year men flopped” (as if they haven’t been doing just that since time immemorial), 2023, the year that kicked off the Reign of “Flowers,” commenced as the year men were proven totally unnecessary. Granted, this might have already occurred on a more scientific level with the advent of artificial insemination. But, increasingly, the “need” for a man for “emotional support” (or much of anything else) is being called into question by women…well into 2024. Cyrus’ sologamist anthem provides no better example of that. To heighten the sentiment behind the lead single from Endless Summer Vacation, during the same week, there was also Shakira totally eviscerating her ex, Gerard Piqué, via her collaboration with DJ Bizarrap (unofficially called “Pa’ Tipos Como Tú”). It’s a track that addresses not only how he cheated on her with a much younger woman, but his many shortcomings as part of the male species.

    That both singles were released in the same week is telling of a generally “hostile” climate among the collective female psyche that keeps asking: what “purpose” does a man actually serve in my life? Or perhaps more politically correct clarification is required in the present: what “purpose” does a “straight” man serve in my life? But it’s crystal clear to anyone who observes pop culture that the hetero male has been on the shit list for quite some time—no further sexuality exegesis needed. Just say “man” to a woman and it’s enough to evoke all manner of rancor. To a degree that is rarely on par with a man’s reaction to women. Possibly because men are “allowed” to exhibit venomous attitudes in systemic and passive aggressive ways all the time thanks to patriarchy, therefore they’ve channeled their unrepressed rage and chauvinism rather regularly. Regularly enough not to shudder at the mention of the opposite sex, only quiver and cower when that sex puts them in their place. As has been happening with more celebratory frequency (see: the Greta Thunberg-Andrew Tate exchange of 2022). 

    Talking of jubilations, that’s precisely what Cyrus engages in on “Flowers,” which is an unabashed celebration of the self. And all the ways in which it can both survive and thrive without a man around to make a woman wilt rather than grow. To the point of surviving, “Flowers” also adds to the burgeoning list of post-breakup anthems, and goes one step well beyond the mainstay sonic trope for thumbing one’s nose at male callousness: Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.” Unlike this classic in the canon of songs that champions female empowerment and the resiliency to be able to move on after a man arbitrarily decides to abandon a relationship (as was the case in Shakira’s situation), “Flowers” doesn’t necessarily suggest any intention of wanting (or needing) to pursue another romance after recovering from the last. This marks it as a very singular contribution to the post-breakup song arsenal in that it defies the convention of suggesting that not only will she move on, but she’ll move on to a new and theoretically “improved” dude. In “Flowers,” Cyrus inherently suggests that she is the only person she needs to simultaneously “get by” and thrive, and that no one (read: no man) will ever be able to love her as well or as caringly and sincerely as herself. 

    While some would counter that the song is targeted primarily at her enduring muse (/ex-husband) of the past few years, Liam Hemsworth, there’s no denying her intent in rendering the lyrics as universally applicable as possible. Catering to the masses of women in this world that Cyrus knows have had or are having or will have the very same revelations after yet another botched attempt at seeking intimacy with a penis-packing human. For even Cyrus has fallen prey to the trap (more than a few times) of believing that she “needed” a man to validate her worth (whereas, at present, she merely wants one [Maxx Morando] for the presumable thrill). And she’s supposed to be pansexual, so what does that say about the “full-on” straight women who give far more credence to straight men than they deserve?

    What’s worse still is that men could easily “keep” a woman if they just made a few slight improvements to their behavior. But a general unwillingness to budge on even the most basic things accumulates into one big pile of bullshit, eventually forcing a woman to put an end to her masochism. Among such basic acts is the occasional ability to express care through a token gesture. Like, say, something as cliche as giving flowers. A trope that Cyrus wields within the chorus, “I can buy myself flowers/Write my name in the sand/Talk to myself for hours/Say things you don’t understand/I can take myself dancin’/I can hold my own hand/Yeah, I can love me better than you can.” Yet she also seeks to decimate the notion that a man is “required” at all to receive flowers. This by declaring that not only is she capable of buying her own bouquet, but that she can also do the other things a man is “supposed to do” (per the established norms of societal, literary and filmic indoctrination)—especially since there’s so few other purposes they can serve in the present apart from at least providing the every-so-often romantic display. 

    Cyrus is not the only one of late in the pop arena to use flowers as a larger metaphor for male inutility. In 2021, Billie Eilish was equally as scandalized by the fuckboy behavior implicated in not even bothering to offer up some goddamn flowers. This being evident on the Happier Than Ever single, “Lost Cause,” during which she laments, “Gave me no flowers/Wish I didn’t care/You’d be gone for hours/Could be anywhere.” This comes after Eilish highlighting the fact that she had to be the one to give him flowers, stating at the beginning of the song, “I sent you flowers/Did you even care?/You ran the shower/And left them by the stairs.” In other words, while she exhibited care for him and their relationship with this thoughtful expression, he, in turn, displayed his total lack of care by not even tending to the flowers—choosing to “water himself” instead. This being a grander allegory for the intrinsic selfishness of the male gender. With the latter lyric, Eilish also seemed to be loosely referencing the 1999 hit from Blink-182, “All The Small Things.” A track from a man that specifically calls out his own appreciation of “little gestures” (so why can’t he understand hers?). Among the few non-repetitive lines in that single being, “​​She left me roses by the stairs/Surprises let me know she cares.” And the least a man can do to return that care is put the fucking roses on display right away. 

    In a more pronounced form of repurposing a male song from the female response perspective, Miley’s “Flowers” overtly reworks the chorus from Bruno Mars’ “When I Was Your Man,” in which he sings, ​​“I should have bought you flowers/And held your hand/Should have gave you all my hours/When I had the chance/Take you to every party ‘cause all you wanted to do was dance.” Of course, these “insights” tend to come when it’s already too late, and a girl like Cyrus is explaining, “I didn’t wanna leave you/I didn’t wanna fight.” But, in the end, she had to leave for her own sense of self-worth. Which Cyrus can only truly find without the man she ephemerally thought would “complete” her. Thus, her braggadocious flex, “Yeah, I can love me better than/Yeah, I can love me better than you can.” 

    Apart from Eilish realizing this before Cyrus via a flowers analogy, so did MARINA that same summer of 2021, with a song also entitled “Flowers” from her Ancient Dreams in a  Modern Land record. Referring to her five-year long relationship with Clean Bandit member Jack Patterson, MARINA comes to the conclusion, “I would rather not/Betray myself just to keep/Your love at any cost.” The cost so frequently being ignoring the “little things” that add up to one big revelation: he ain’t the one (a similar epiphany had by Drew Barrymore as Julia Sullivan in The Wedding Singer). 

    MARINA expounds, “With every careless action, you let me slip away/If you just bought me flowers, maybe I would’ve stayed.” The flowers, as usual, are emblematic of something more telling: care. Consideration. Or rather, the absence of it. So, instead, she left Patterson and bought flowers for her damn self, posting a photo with a bouquet in April of 2020 on her Instagram account and captioning it, “I ordered flowers to: myself from: myself And let me tell you, it felt surprisingly great.” Cyrus, it appears, would tend to agree. 

    MARINA was, in fact, so determined to stay true to herself and her standards for how she should be treated that she even broke up with Patterson at arguably the most vulnerable time to do so: during the lockdown phase of the pandemic. Thus, at one point in the promotion cycle of the record, she declared, “I’m not seeing anyone at the moment, but I’ve always enjoyed my own company. I’m pretty good, fortunately, on my own.” As are many women (more and more) at this juncture—for it’s just so much less disappointing than trying to make it work with a man. More often than not, a toxic presence in a woman’s potential for “blooming.” As MARINA phrased it, “The seeds we planted grew/But not like roses do/We had the thorns and leaves/But the buds, they never bloomed/And now my future gleams/With colors bold and bright/In a home that’s filled with love and hope/And a life that just feels right.” “Just right” because, as Miley has pointed out more bluntly, “I can love me better than you can.” 

    To be sure, not every woman—far from it—will be so eager to jump on the anthemic single’s message in practice as opposed to theory (part of that theory translating to dancing one’s ass off alone in their room to it). Most especially the women who are not in the same income tax bracket as the likes of Miley, Billie and MARINA. For the feeling of “radical independence,” in this society, is inextricably linked to having money, and mounds of it. This being the obvious reason for why men have been so determined for so long to keep women out of the game as “exceptional earners” (to use a Britney phrase). As that glass ceiling persists in being shattered, the question of a man’s relevance to a woman’s existence will continue to have an easy answer: he’s not. 

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Between Anitta’s “Use To Be” and Miley Cyrus’ “Used To Be Young,” It Has to Be Asked: Are the Thirty-Something Women Okay, Perception-Wise?

    Between Anitta’s “Use To Be” and Miley Cyrus’ “Used To Be Young,” It Has to Be Asked: Are the Thirty-Something Women Okay, Perception-Wise?

    [ad_1]

    There was a minute there when it seemed like society, or at least the representation of it through pop culture, had come a long way from reiterating the message that women are “dead” at thirty. Or, more accurately, their youth is. This was perhaps most succinctly encapsulated by Lily Allen’s 2009 track, “22,” on which she sings such chirpy lyrics as, “When she was twenty-two, the future looked bright/But she’s nearly thirty now and she’s out every night/I see that look in her face, she’s got that look in her eye/She’s thinking, ‘How did I get here?’ and wondering why.” This is followed by the chorus, “It’s sad, but it’s true how society says her life is already over.” And yes, it’s sad but it’s true how even “modern” women are still thinking this way. Especially if we’re to go on Anitta and Miley Cyrus’ latest single releases, both of which have the phrase “used to be” in them. A term that easily connotes some form of lament.

    For Anitta, she’s slightly less sad-sounding about the fact that she “used to be a ho” and now she “ain’t no more.” Because, if we’re to go by the accompanying music video’s narrative, she’s getting married, and she needs to put her former “ho life” ways to rest. Although Anitta might have had the masses thinking this could be about Simone Susinna for a brief second after being spotted with the Italian actor/model all over Europe, she soon after declared, “I’m not dating anyone, I’m single. I’ve always been single.” Or rather, a serial “dater” (read: fucker). Which puts her much more firmly in Selena Gomez’s camp, the latter having released “Single Soon” the same day as Miley’s divergently-themed “Used to Be Young.” But where thirty-one-year-old Gomez seems to be embracing her “single girl life” without a tinge of sadness just because she’s now “over the hill,” Anitta and Miley are patently entering their thirties with something like a white flag. Surrendering to the notion that they have to “grow up” and fall in line, adopting a more “zen” state that only “old ladies” can. Anitta conveys this through images of herself getting married so as to shirk her erstwhile life of ho-ish “sin.” Repenting in her chorus with the lines, “I used to be a ho, but now I ain’t no more/Been swimmin’ through the water, now I’m back to shore/I look at who I did and I’m like, ‘Oh, my Lord.’”

    In the first verse, Anitta then switches to Spanish, singing, “Una perra de raza muy dura de matar/Pero ahora soy mansa y ya no muerdo má’/Rompí mucho corazóne’ y a mí no me lo rompieron/Pero ya yo no quiero, ‘toy tranquila y ya.” The Spanish lyrics translate to, “A very tough breed [more specifically, breed of dog] to kill/But now I’m gentle and I don’t bite anymore/I broke a lot of hearts and they didn’t break mine/But I don’t want to anymore, I’m calm and that’s it.” As though a “switch” has been flipped within Anitta as a result of entering her thirties and now she’s decided it’s time to, as Selena Gomez (and her bestie, Taylor Swift, for that matter) also said, “Calm down.” Or “settle down,” as some prefer to call it. Because, despite all the work Madonna did to negate the idea that you’re expected to put yourself out to pasture by the age of forty, now it seems women are admitting even earlier to being “old” as opposed to “being a slut and doing whatever they want” at any age. As so many women who came before fought for them to be able to (though again, mainly Madonna…and Cher). 

    Instead, things feel like they’re going backwards vis-à-vis women and aging. For example, the existence of a recently-circulating meme featuring Margot Robbie with the phrase, “Life doesn’t end after thirty, she’s proof of that.” It makes one want to positively vomit. As though we need a thirty-something representation of Barbie to assure us that one’s thirties (as a woman, mind you) aren’t a death sentence. A form of thinking that is so fucking retro that we have to wonder if we’re even actually in the twenty-first century, and any progress has truly been made with regard to women’s viewpoints about their own age. Some, of course, will try to say that it’s actually “positive” for women to have candid conversations about getting older, but, once more, it has to be emphasized that talking about being old at thirty only serves to reinforce the false belief that youth is a commodity reserved strictly for teens and twenty-somethings when that simply isn’t the case. The adage, “You’re as young as you feel” ought to be brought up more regularly. Especially for a generation—millennials—that has been so often accused of having Peter Pan syndrome. Now, it seems, they’re only too willing to pass the youth torch on to banal Gen Z despite not being anywhere near “old” at all. Alas, not if we’re to go by the current trend in pop culture to brand people in their thirties and forties as “elderly.”

    Although there did seem to be a blip of evolution, the culprit for this regression toward branding thirty as “old” is, undeniably, TikTok, which is overrun by thirteen-year-olds who are the “tastemakers” of society at this moment (and possibly for the foreseeable future). So, of course, they’re going to view women in their thirties as “old,” never imagining that they themselves could reach that age from their cush vantage at thirteen. Ergo, the callous ability to come up with a trend based on Lana Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful” that compares celebrity women in their current state to photos of them when they were younger, as though to highlight that their “jig is up” because they’ve committed the “sin” of aging. And yes, Madonna herself stated (with her sardonic tone) in a speech for the 2016 Billboard Women in Music Awards, “Do not age. Because to age is a sin. You will be criticized, you will be vilified, and you will definitely not be played on the radio.” Nor will you get as much film work if you’re an actress. Something Charlize Theron, at forty-eight, is starting to contend with as she, too, puts up a white flag and surrenders, “I’m old” the way Anitta and Miley seem to be alluding to already at the outset of their thirties. As though women themselves needed to give narrow-minded patriarchal perspectives about aging any more clout. And yes, it’s all still rooted in the primal idea that a woman is “old” once she’s not of “child-bearing age.” But with the advancement of science, we’ve seen that women can have children well beyond their thirties. Even if they’re not nearly as embraced for doing so as men like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. To boot, with the rapid progress of cosmetic products and surgery, we’ve seen Aaliyah’s “age ain’t nothin’ but a number” aphorism realized. And both Anitta and Miley (but especially Anitta) have enjoyed their share of expensive ways to physically “enhance” themselves. 

    This is, in part, why it makes it even worse that they should go to all that trouble to stay looking young and yet still slap themselves with an “older now” demarcation. After all, “The confluence of celebrity culture and the ability to manipulate every casual selfie has created the sense that we are not meant to look old at all.” So why should women who look young cause a further mind fuck by declaring that they’re old? It just seems sort of counterproductive to a positive self-perception. Because when the likes of Anitta and Miley arrive in their forties and fifties, what will they say about themselves then? That they’re crypt-keepers? And all while women who are actually in their forties and fifties work far harder to appear in Anitta and Miley’s age bracket. Including someone like Kylie Minogue, whose recent hit, “Padam Padam,” highlights lyrics that are decidedly “too youthful” for a woman in her mid-fifties. Meanwhile, Anitta and Miley are looking the gift horse of their youth in the mouth by casually writing it off as being “old.” With Cyrus essentially insisting that she can no longer be “crazy” or “fun” because those things have been buried with the teen and twenty-something Miley. As though all such traces of “wildness” ought to be if a girl is to “transcend” fully into a woman (not that Britney ever chose to, still overtly holding on to what she said long ago, “I’m not a girl, not yet a woman”). 

    Maybe Cyrus thinks she’s doing a service to the women her age by “mourning the loss of her youth” at thirty, giving them permission to finally “mature” and “let go of childish things” such as drinking, drugging and ho’ing (as Anitta more or less calls it). But, in the end, it serves to underscore the already damaging idea that only those who are “Lolita age” can be classified as young (and yes, that entails fairly perverse implications about our society).

    Carrie Bradshaw, who existed most potently in the 00s—a time now known for its deeply problematic worldviews—once said to Samantha Jones, “It’s time for ladies my age to start covering it up. We can’t get away with the same stuff we used to” (cue Madonna gyrating to “Hung Up” in a leotard in her fifties as a big “fuck you” to that statement). And “getting away” with such “stuff” is only going to be made even more of a challenge for those women who don’t want to “button up at thirty” thanks to vibrant thirty-year-old women like Anitta and Miley playing up the notion of being “aged” once a girl’s twenties have concluded. 

    Like her aforementioned contemporary, Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse also had her own choice words for “sad women” that dared to turn thirty. And they appear via the lyrics, “Don’t get mad at me ‘cause you’re pushin’ thirty, and your old tricks no longer work” (Winehouse, as we know, wouldn’t live to thirty herself to find out). Perhaps still taking such a message to heart, Anitta and Miley are using the “trick” of running an offense on being automatically perceived as “irrelevant” just because they’ve hit their thirties. A maneuver that itself seeks to make it harder for other women (even “normal” ones in addition to famous ones) to be seen as relevant just because their birth year is no longer keeping them in the “right” decade.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • The Singular Woes of the “Geriatric” Pop Star: Miley Cyrus’ “Used to Be Young”

    The Singular Woes of the “Geriatric” Pop Star: Miley Cyrus’ “Used to Be Young”

    [ad_1]

    In the spirit of “close-up videos” that have come before, including Sinéad O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” Gwen Stefani’s “Used to Love You,” Selena Gomez’s “Lose You To Love Me” and even Madonna’s “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” (with its slow tracking shot eventually leading to a close-up on M’s face), Miley Cyrus intends for her audience to know she means Serious Business with the earnest simplicity of the Jacob Bixenman and Brendan Walter-directed video for her latest single, “Used to Be Young.”

    For those who would rightly balk at Cyrus effectively branding herself as “old” at thirty, one need only look back at all the venomous flak Madonna got (and gets) for continuing to be a successful pop star into her thirties (and well beyond). Told to pack it in and cover up, Madonna refused to do anything of the kind. Indeed, despite all the barriers she broke down for women like Cyrus to continue into their “old” age, female pop stars are still keenly aware of the tick of the clock when they enter their thirties. Even someone as theoretically “untouchable” and “failproof” as Taylor Swift knows that “nothing gold can stay.” Which is why she commented to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, about a month from her thirty-third birthday, that she was a geriatric pop star. Therefore, amazed that she can still break all these records as she told Fallon, “It’s like, you know, I’m thirty-two. So we’re considered geriatric pop stars.” Both Swift’s and Cyrus’ sense of “jocularity” about aging in the pop arena is meant to mask an inherent fear about “losing their job” as a result of losing relevancy. 

    As Swift put it in 2020’s Miss Americana, “It’s a lot to process because we do exist in this society where women in entertainment are discarded in an elephant graveyard by the time they’re thirty-five. Everyone’s a shiny, new toy for, like, two years. The female artists that I know of have reinvented themselves twenty times more than the male artists. They have to…or else you’re out of a job. Constantly having to reinvent, constantly finding new facets of yourself that people find to be shiny… This is probably one of my last opportunities as an artist to grasp onto that kind of success. So I don’t know, like, as I’m reaching thirty, I’m like, ‘I want to work really hard, um, while society is still tolerating me being successful.’” In that sense, evermore‘s “tolerate it” could also be about society still “tolerating” her success. And oh how they’ve been tolerating it with the Eras Tour. The massive, arena-hopping juggernaut that has found Swift ramping up her parasocial relationships as Cyrus seeks to shirk live touring altogether. And yes, Cyrus received quite a bit of backlash for comments she made in a British Vogue article from earlier this year, during which writer Giles Hattersley described, “Cyrus was known to give everything on tour. She would perform for hours, take requests, not quit that stage until she was pretty sure every single person had had the night of their lives, swaying to ‘We Can’t Stop,’ bouncing to ‘Party in the USA,’ shedding a tear to ‘The Climb.’ Now she’s not sure she can do it anymore; certainly not in the foreseeable. He then quotes Cyrus as saying, “It’s been a minute. After the last [headline arena] show I did [in 2014], I kind of looked at it as more of a question. And I can’t. Not only ‘can’t,’ because can’t is your capability, but my desire. Do I want to live my life for anyone else’s pleasure or fulfillment other than my own?” 

    The answer appears to lie somewhere between yes and no, as she still works hard to please the fans. This latest single released so soon after her album, Endless Summer Vacation, being a case in point. And it seems she was planning “Used to Be Young” for a while, as she also mentioned it in that British Vogue article from May. Appropriately, it came up after she recounted how “a songwriter came to her with a track” that prompted her to say, “It was like, you know, the standard fucked up in the club track. And I was like, ‘I’m two years sober. That’s not where I spend my time, you know. You’re more likely to catch me and my friends literally walking through rose gardens or going to a museum… It’s not about being self-serious. I’m just evolved.” Hattersley then concludes, It inspired her to write a different song. She hopes to release it soon, she explains, as she recites a line from it to me, her eye contact steady, her voice calm. ‘I know I used to be crazy,’ she says. ‘I know I used to be fun. You say I used to be wild. I say I used to be young.’”

    Of course, to some, this comes across as though Cyrus is essentially saying you become boring and banal after your twenties, a trope that, quite honestly, doesn’t need to be reemphasized. Least of all to the already highly age-discriminatory Gen Z (see: the “Young and Beautiful” TikTok trend), which seems to have no awareness that their own “jig is up” fate as Alpha comes up the rear on “youth supremacy.” Then again, once everyone becomes a humanoid, perhaps age really will be rendered immaterial. In the meantime, Cyrus continues the tradition of confirming that one can only be “wild” in their youth (at least, “acceptably wild” anyway, for to continue that behavior into later years amounts to what we see on Britney Spears’ Instagram). Thus, she offers the staid, understated video for “Used to Be Young,” during which her figure cuts through a black space to approach the camera wearing a red sequined leotard with a white sleeveless Mickey Mouse shirt peeking out of the top. This being an obvious nod to her Disney days as Hannah Montana. The girl she ultimately had to kill over and over again with the type of wild behavior she also addresses on songs like “D.R.E.A.M.” (Drugs Rule Everything Around Me). Addressing it once more here, Cyrus appears to do it with a greater sense of gravity as she feels as though her youth is “spent” for real this time, whereas before she was merely talking about being “old” from the still-naive perspective of her twenties. But again, we apparently need to reiterate that being in one’s thirties isn’t old either. Even though Cyrus’ Disney star contemporary, Selena Gomez, also seems to feel that way if we’re to go on her comment about being “too old” for social media.

    But maybe there is something to why these pop stars who are still actually young tend to feel so old by their thirties. It’s a wizening lifestyle, after all. Even though you’re supposed to keep looking young no matter how old you feel—this belying the adage, “You’re as young as you feel.” If that’s true, no wonder Cyrus feels positively decrepit. Cyrus’ examination of age and it occasionally being “nothin’ but a number” were also apparent on 2017’s country twangin’ “Younger Now,” during which she claimed, “I feel so much younger now.” Six years later, that’s evidently no longer the case, with Cyrus both mourning and welcoming the loss of her youthful rebellion. This shining through as she gives Claire Danes a run for her “crying face” money right from the outset of the video, realizing that she’s “left [her] living fast/Somewhere in the past/‘Cause that’s for chasing cars/Turns out open bars/Lead to broken hearts/And going way too far.” This is something many a pop star has had to learn the hard way over the years, especially if they came of age in the 00s. Just look at Britney Spears, Lily Allen (who once sang vis-à-vis a woman approaching thirty, “It’s sad but it’s true how society says her life is already over”) or Amy Winehouse—the latter of whom didn’t even survive the follies and wildness of her youth. All three women were endlessly dragged through the tabloid mud for their “exploits,” though if they were men, such behavior would have been par for the course. 

    At the one-minute, eighteen-second mark of the video, a crack of light starts to appear as the doors to the soundstage part. As though to symbolically indicate there’s some positivity to growing “old.” Even for a pop star. For one thing, it means more leeway with creative expression, ergo the ability to release a song like this. With its frank subject matter and sparse piano instrumentation thanks to co-production from Cyrus, Michael Pollack and Shawn Everett, something about its intonation might also remind listeners of “Never Be Me” from 2020’s Plastic Hearts. A song that shows Miley, only two years ago, insisting that she could never be “stable” or “faithful.” Two qualities that are decidedly associated with being “old” a.k.a. mature. But maybe Miley could be those things now that she’s decided to relinquish the wildness of her past. Or so she says.

    However, knowing Miley (and pop stardom), it’s more likely she’ll flip-flop again to echo what MARINA sang on 2015’s “Can’t Pin Me Down”: “You ain’t got me sussed yet/You’re not even close/Baby, it’s the one thing/That I hate the most/All these contradictions pouring out of me/Just another girl in the twenty-first century/I am never gonna give you anything you expect/You think I’m like the others/Boy, you need to get your eyes checked, checked/You can paint me any colorAnd I can be your clown/But you ain’t got my number/No, you can’t pin me down.”

    And, as fellow “geriatric” pop star Taylor Swift mentioned, preserving one’s career as a female pop star depends on that kind of “elusiveness.” As she sardonically phrased it in Miss Americana, “Be new to us, be young to us, but only in a new way and only in the way we want. And reinvent yourself, but only in a way that we find to be equally comforting but also a challenge for you. Live out a narrative that we find to be interesting enough to entertain us, but not so crazy that it makes us uncomfortable.” Nonetheless, Cyrus might actually be making people too uncomfortable with all this talk of age and time passing. Decidedly “unsexy” topics in the realm of pop stardom. Even when you’ve had bouts as a rock and country star embedded within that framework.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Odes to Willful Oblivion: Taylor Swift’s “Lavender Haze” and Miley Cyrus’ “Rose Colored Lenses”

    Odes to Willful Oblivion: Taylor Swift’s “Lavender Haze” and Miley Cyrus’ “Rose Colored Lenses”

    [ad_1]

    Talk of being in the initial throes of an intense love (or, at least, an intense infatuation) is nothing new in terms of fodder for pop songs. In truth, it’s what most pop songs—the “timeless” ones, anyway—are renowned for. Because, in addition to Jane Austen novels and rom-coms, they peddle the beloved lie of a love that can last forever. Not just any love though: a passionate one that burns and endures long after the honeymoon phase. And yet, with Taylor Swift’s “Lavender Haze” and Miley Cyrus’ “Rose Colored Lenses” being released on the heels of one another (with the former put out as a single in November of 2022 and the latter unveiled on Cyrus’ Endless Summer Vacation in March of this year), the subject of being willfully caught in the veil of amorous illusion (presumably in a shade of lavender or pink) has made a surprising comeback. While one might have formerly associated such talk of young love (meaning a new love in general, not merely or solely being of a “young age” and also being in love) with the 1950s (e.g., The Platters’ “Only You,” The Flamingos’ “I Only Have Eyes For You” and Dean Martin’s “That’s Amore”), it seems that Swift and Cyrus each want to do their part to remind audiences that a “pop song kind of love” remains possible. Even in this epoch of sex robots and AI.

    With the aforementioned 50s in mind, it’s only appropriate that Swift extrapolated the title of “Lavender Haze” from none other than the “Golden Age of Television” itself. A term that Mad Men revitalized in a season two episode called “The Mountain King.” In it, Don tells Anna Draper (Melinda Page Hamilton), the widowed wife of the real Don Draper, that he’s met a girl. In this case, Betty (January Jones). Seeing the way he lights up when he talks about her, Anna remarks, “Look at you. You’re in the lavender haze.” At this time, it would have been the late 50s, so it tracks when Swift noted of the song, “…it turns out that it was a common phrase that was used in the 50s where they would just describe being in love. Like, if you were in the ‘Lavender Haze,’ that meant you were in that all-encompassing love glow, and I thought that was really beautiful.” Even if also kind of vomit-inducing.

    As for Cyrus, she opted to use a more conventional, widely-known expression by turning “rose colored glasses” into “rose colored lenses” for a song that very much echoes the sentiments presented in “Lavender Haze.” Chief among them wanting to stay in the bubble that a freshly-brewing love can accommodate. One characterized by sex-stained sheets and never leaving the bedroom. Cyrus addresses this indelible image (a common cliché for good reason) in the lyrics, “We could stay like this forever/Lost in wonderland/With our head above the clouds/Fallin’ stupid like we’re kids/Wearin’ rose colored lenses/Let’s just play pretend.”

    Indeed, that’s exactly what Swift wants to keep doing as well, even as the curious, prying eyes of the media start to encroach upon her. This much is addressed in that portion of “Lavender Haze” that goes, “I just wanna stay in that lavender haze…/Talk your talk and go viral/I just need this love spiral/Get it off your chest/Get it off my desk.” In other words, let a bitch keep fucking in peace without media gossip buzzing in her ear. And yet, as Swift acknowledged, even the hoi polloi are subjected to their lavender haze being burst sooner and with more ease in this modern era of social media. So it was that she remarked of its relatability to the “commoner,” “I guess theoretically when you’re in the ‘Lavender Haze,’ you’ll do anything to stay there and not let people bring you down off of that cloud. And I think a lot of people have to deal with this now—not just, like, quote-unquote public figures—because we live in the era of social media and if the world finds out that you’re in love with somebody, they’re gonna weigh in on it.”

    Cyrus clearly feels the same way about protecting a new relationship’s privacy as she croons, “Let’s just play pretend/Wearin’ rose colored lenses/Pretend we’ll never end/Naked in conversation/Drown me in your delight/Endless summer vacation/Make it last ’til we die.” When Cyrus refers to a “death” here, however, it seems to allude more to the Lana Del Rey sense of it when she woefully laments of being a couple in love before the inevitable breakup, “You and I/We were born to die.” But until then, Cyrus insists that they “make a mess of a nice hotel.”

    Swift, too, exhibits the sort of willful naïveté (read: denial) that makes her capable of ignoring reality for as long as possible. Six years, to be exact. For that was the extent of her “lavender haze” with Joe Alwyn, the muse who inspired the track (as he did numerous others of Swift’s from Reputation onward). As for the other “muse” of the single—the 50s—funnily enough, Swift mocks the very decade (and its narrow-minded views of women) that’s technically responsible for creating the song at all. This despite overtly paying homage to that period in time when love—specifically, “fresh love”—was painted with the very rose colored lenses Cyrus also speaks to in her song of the same name. Nonetheless, Swift rebuffs “quaint” 50s ideas via the lines, “All they keep askin’ me/Is if I’m gonna be your bride/The only kind of girl they see/Is a one-night or a wife,” in addition to, “Surreal, I’m damned if I do give a damn what people say/No deal, the 1950s shit they want from me.”

    In the end, though, it’s “1950s shit” that both Swift and Cyrus (along with so many others) patently want out of love. Which is why they know they must keep their tinted haze/glasses up for as long as possible in order to continue fostering the delusion that such a thing can exist. As everyone must…before the smoke clears, the tint of the glasses dissipates and all we see in front of us is a hideous monster that makes us want to take a Lysol shower as a result of ever allowing them access to our body and mind.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Miley Makes Us “Jaded” By Offering Tired Visuals Amounting To a Dolce Glow Ad That Kind of Rips Off Britney’s “My Prerogative”

    Miley Makes Us “Jaded” By Offering Tired Visuals Amounting To a Dolce Glow Ad That Kind of Rips Off Britney’s “My Prerogative”

    [ad_1]

    Giving us the third visual in five months from her Endless Summer Vacation era, Miley Cyrus’ “Jaded” video is not all that much different from “Flowers.” But, to the latter’s credit, it was at least far more dynamic (and so was the “River” video, for that matter—even if another instance of being overly derivative). Directed, once again, by Jacob Bixenman (though it’s hard to view “Jaded” as being very “directed”), the scene opens on a shot of Cyrus’ hands placed daintily on her white bedsheets (to accent her bronze skin tone, duh) as the opening guitar notes segue into her lamenting verse, “I don’t wanna call and talk too long/I know it was wrong, but never said I was sorry/Now I’ve had time to think it over/We’re much older and the bone’s too big to bury.” Obviously another song that addresses her complicated on-again, off-again relationship with Liam Hemsworth (culminating in un peu de divorce), Cyrus mimics the same sentiment from 2019’s “Slide Away” (“Move on, we’re not seventeen/I’m not who I used to be/You say that everything changed/You’re right, we’re grown now”) about being “too old” to deal with this shit anymore.

    What she’s never “too old” for, however, is imitating Britney Spears, which a lot of this video’s bed romping does. Spears, of course, learned most of her bed romping tricks from Madonna, who launched herself to mainstream fame by posing on one in bridal wear for the album cover of Like A Virgin. Thenceforward, audiences saw many other occasions when she was wont to loll around in a boudoir setting (e.g., her Blond Ambition performance of “Like A Virgin,” the “Justify My Love” video, the “Take A Bow” video and, more recently, her smattering of Instagram photo sessions featuring her “at home” bedroom stylings). And actually, about four years after the release of the Jake Nava-directed “My Prerogative,” a Rolling Stone article even called out the bed writhing similarities to Madonna’s during her “Like A Virgin” phase. Perhaps Miley could recognize Spears was paying tribute to M’s vibe as much as Britney’s, thus appearing in a jeweled cone bra number at one point in the “Jaded” video.

    However, before that moment, Cyrus is content to one-up Madonna and Spears’ provocateur levels by appearing topless in jeans (as opposed to topless in a blazer à la the “Flowers” video) as she does her rolling around. This transitions into her wearing a high-cut metallic gold one-piece bathing suit that manages to come across more obscenely than any two-piece ever could. In matching gold heels, Cyrus then serves “Hung Up” video vibes with her “practicing in the studio” aura, as complemented by a wood floor and wood-paneled wall backdrop. Bixenman then cuts to Cyrus outside in a setting that looks a lot like the Farralone House (which also more recently cameo’d as Amy’s [Ali Wong] vacation abode in Beef) from the “Flowers” video. But the palm tree backdrop indicates it’s a different home altogether. One she’s ostensibly carved out for herself without the “jaded” ex she refers to throughout the song. Either way, there’s still a pool. And one prolonged scene in particular of Miley sort of floating/standing as she stares at the camera in what’s supposed to be a “sexy” way actually comes across as super creepy, and could easily be soundtracked by a slowed-down, demonic-voiced version of the song.

    Billed as “dreamy” and “raw”—polite euphemisms for lazy and ill-conceived—the main purpose of the video appears to be for Cyrus to peddle her ongoing collaboration with Dolce Glow, a sunless tanner (because the 00s are never really over) created by “friend of Miley” Isabel Alysa. Hence, her “unfinished,” “au naturel” look. Complete with brunette hair for added “authenticity” (for, as Madonna showed during her Like A Prayer and American Life album cycles, a female pop star is taken more seriously as a “brownie”). Despite the Madonna influence, it’s Britney who emerges as the clear affecting presence. Indeed, it’s no secret that everyone rips off Britney at this point, but Miley has been a consistent “homage payer” to the Princess of Pop (as her own husband apparently likes to call her) being that she was the proverbial “voice of a generation.” Namely, Miley’s.

    Accordingly, the video concludes with a shot of Miley back on the bed looking “candidly” into the lens. In effect, it’s the same shot Britney opted to use for her final scene in “My Prerogative.” Except at least she did those scenes in black and white for a “tasteful” impact despite “ho’ing it up.” Cyrus hasn’t done that here. But it’s not because she isn’t willing to go full-tilt on emulating Britney, so much as the fact that a selfless tanner’s results don’t exactly translate well in B&W.  

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • It’s Raining Heteronormativity: Miley Cyrus Gets Wet With “River” Video

    It’s Raining Heteronormativity: Miley Cyrus Gets Wet With “River” Video

    [ad_1]

    One thing about Miley Cyrus is that she wants you to know she’s down for whatever and, accordingly, whoever. Among those who would like everyone to be aware of her “pansexuality.” And yet, in the years since that grand announcement, we’ve seen Cyrus dabble primarily in men (more to the point, men who look like they were sculpted out of marble). Oh yes, and then there was a brief dalliance with Kaitlynn Carter (long after an even briefer one with Stella Maxwell). So, yes, like the song from Katy Perry she inspired, “I Kissed A Girl,” Cyrus’ “leanings” toward the female sex feel primarily geared toward the thrill of the “novelty.” And while there’s nothing wrong with Cyrus playing mostly straight, it’s just that, by putting a big pansexuality sign over herself, she’s “unwittingly” (apparently) placed a larger responsibility on her shoulders to convey imagery and messaging that isn’t so, well, traditional.

    While it’s still “progressive” for a woman to show herself being pleasured by multiple men (a jarring thought for the patriarchy who want the concept of harems all to themselves), there is nothing new or exciting in what Cyrus is showcasing throughout a video that is, theoretically, meant to be drowning in sexual innuendo. That video, of course, being “River,” the second single from Endless Summer Vacation, and one that is in direct conflict with “Flowers” (save for the correlation that water does tend to make flowers “bud” and flourish). But that’s all in keeping with the many mixed messages on the record, all of which speak to the “pan” personality of a Sagittarius (unless you’re of the fairly consistent and straightforward varietal of the sign à la “The Archer” known as Taylor Swift).

    Shot in black and white, the video channels elements of Madonna’s “Cherish” (providing far more wetness, to be honest) and “Vogue,” but most especially her 2012 single, “Girl Gone Wild.” In it, she is surrounded by muscular men aplenty as well. The difference is, they aren’t so fucking butch. More to the point, the members of Ukrainian boy band Kazaky are among the male backup dancers wearing tight pants and heels as Madonna plays up the notion that boys can be girls gone wild, too (particularly when they’re gay). No stranger to less intelligently emulating Madonna, in fact, it’s a wonder Cyrus didn’t decide to call the song “Like A River.”

    As the video opens with “impressions” of Cyrus, followed by her silhouette (at one point in “superhero” pose), we then get a glimpse of just how much she looks like a young(er) Tish Cyrus (“must be somethin’ in the water/Know that I’m my mother’s daughter”), after which the camera pans out to reveal Cyrus on a runway-type stage with a bevy of spotlights on her. The decided “backstage”/“behind the scenes” photoshoot vibe of it all is compounded when Cyrus then appears against a giant white backdrop where she proceeds to mug for the unseen camera as she offers, “You could be the one/Have the honor of my babies/Hope they have your eyes and that crooked smile.” Not exactly a compliment/talk about using someone as a glorified sperm bank for bequeathing the desired attributes to one’s progeny.

    With regard to the lost potential for a concept centered around the “WAP” allusions of “River,” Cyrus places the most “gaze”-oriented emphasis on the male body (as they start to slowly creep in around the one-minute, twenty-second mark) rather than the female one (apart from her own, of course). Again, this indicates noticeably opting out of representing any other women in the mix that would indicate and make good on her pan(or at least bi)sexuality declaration. What’s more, because it’s the female “organ” that actually gets wet (subsequently providing wetness to the appendage that enters it) with river-esque proportions, it seems a waste that Cyrus should avert the viewer’s eyes from the very thing she’s actually referring to, even if it was done in a “subtle” manner (as subtle as Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion). Granted, male bodies like these are sure to incur the “river” “down there” that Cyrus is talking about…for straight women (and gay men alike). To drive home that point, Cyrus goes full-tilt “it’s raining men” (meets that famed scene from Flashdance) by the end of the video.

    All of that said, it’s rather undeniable that the song itself had far more potential to be “played with” than what Cyrus provides here. As for the defense/saying, “There’s beauty in simplicity,” that’s not quite the case with the visuals for “River,” which could have shown far more (to give another Madonna nod) girl(s) gone wild. Complete with them doing so amid the presence of an actual series of renowned rivers. Even the L.A. one, to be ironic…considering its near-constant state of dryness.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Endless Summer Vacation Shows Off Miley Cyrus’ Internal War Between the Carefree, Independent Spirit and the Hopeless Romantic

    Endless Summer Vacation Shows Off Miley Cyrus’ Internal War Between the Carefree, Independent Spirit and the Hopeless Romantic

    [ad_1]

    Although Miley Cyrus set the tone for her new record, Endless Summer Vacation, with the sologamist anthem that is “Flowers” (the track that also kicks off the album), there are many incohesive statements regarding love and attachment on what marks Cyrus’ eight studio effort. Billed as a so-called love letter to Los Angeles (though those moments feel few and far between), Cyrus isn’t exactly giving Lana Del Rey a run for her money on paying homage to that milieu. And it does bear noting that both transplants have seemed to make L.A. into their “forever home.” Though, when it comes to a Sagittarius like Miley, “forever” can be a more laughable word than it is to most.

    Cyrus’ Sagittarian steez indeed takes hold of the entire album. Not just in how schizophrenic the emotions expressed can be, but also the sonic landscape itself. For if listeners thought “Flowers” was going to be a consistent benchmark, they would immediately realize otherwise via the tonal shift that takes place on “Jaded,” a twangy semi-ballad in the spirit of “Angels Like You”—complete with the part where Miley takes the blame for a relationship’s inability to work out. So it is that she declares, “I’m sorry that you’re jaded/I could’ve taken you places/You’re lonely now and I hate it/I’m sorry that you’re jaded.” But not sorry enough to have been a little less “cuckoo,” as the opposite sex so often likes to brand women that are too “emotional.” Still, Cyrus isn’t the only one responsible for the “misdeeds” that led to the end of this whirlwind, reminding, “You’re not even willin’ to look at your part/You just jump in the car and head down to thе bar ’til you’re blurry/Don’t know when to stop, so you take it too far/I don’t know whеre you are and I’m left in the dark ’til I’m worried.” This echoes fellow L.A. lover Billie Eilish’s sentiments on “Happier Than Ever” when she sings, “You call me again, drunk in your Benz/Driving home under the influence/You scared me to death, but I’m wasting my breath/‘Cause you only listen to your fucking friends.” The bottom line appearing to be: men can’t deal with their emotions, so they drown them in the numbing agent of alcohol.

    The theme switches up sonically and lyrically again on “Rose Colored Lenses,” with Cyrus ruminating on the promise of a new relationship to an alt-rock tune. The promise of it, of course, depends on keeping the rose-colored glasses on (hence, name-checking the album’s title in this particular song). This usually involves never leaving the sex haze of the room (“Never wanna leave this room”) one is in with that new person. Perhaps like her own version of “La Vie En Rose,” Cyrus suggests, with the benefit of her glasses on, “We could stay like this forever, lost in wonderland/With our head above the clouds, falling stupid like we’re kids/Wearing rose-colored lenses, let’s just play pretend/Wearing rose-colored lenses, pretend we’ll never end.” Sooner or later, unfortunately, the door to the sex room has to open, and real life has to creep in. If for no other reason than to wash the sheets (“Somehow the bedsheets are dirty/Like sticky sweet lemonade”).

    Yet real life still doesn’t quite creep in on “Thousand Miles” featuring Brandi Carlile. Ideal for soundtracking the life of Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne) on Poker Face, Cyrus ramps up her twang again to sing, “I’m not always right, but still, I ain’t got time for what went wrong/Where I end up, I don’t really care/I’m out of my mind, but still, I’m holding on like a rolling stone/A thousand miles from anywhere.” A harmonica instrumental toward the end punctuates the “ramblin’ man” vibe of the song before leading into “You.” Sadly released too late to serve as the theme song for the show of the same name, “You” was already premiered during Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party. Another stripped-down, mid-tempo kind of ballad that the former Hannah Montana has perfected over the years, Cyrus insists, “I want that late-night sweet magic, that forever-lasting/I’m kind of crazy ’cause that’s how you make me/I don’t need Jesus ’cause, baby, you saved me, I’m done/But only if it’s with you, oh.” It’s the type of song one could also imagine being in a 90s romance road movie (maybe even, sardonically, Natural Born Killers).

    The transition from “AM” to “PM” that Cyrus mentioned while discussing the album for the Disney+ special, Miley Cyrus – Endless Summer Vacation (Backyard Sessions), occurs with “Handstand.” It instantly demarcates itself as the most auditorily divergent song on Endless Summer Vacation. And yes, “Handstand” also possess a few Del Rey connections. For one, the spoken word poetry sound of her intro that harkens back to Del Rey reciting T. S. Eliot on Honeymoon’s “Burnt Norton,” and, for another, flexing about being able to do a handstand while Del Rey recently admitted to far less agility via the lyric, “I haven’t done a cartwheel since I was nine.” So one imagines a handstand is out of the question as well. Cyrus’ commitment to fitness, however, has never been more apparent than it is with this album’s promotion. Not just in the Madonna-reminiscent (see: the image from the Sex book where she’s suspended in mid-air naked) cover, but in a video like “Flowers,” wherein she shows off her physical prowess as though to say to anyone who ever thought it was a good idea to leave her: look what you’re missing. To that end, Cyrus always comes across as the one to leave first, following the adage, “Leave before you’re left.” And, if possible, do a handstand on the way out. Perhaps some of the reason behind the uniquely different sound on this track comes from Harmony Korine collaborating on the lyrics (likely the spoken ones). But the following bravado-oozing lines feel like they’re all Miley: You’re questioning the science, ’cause you don’t understand/How I’m doing what I’m doing in a fucking handstand/You found it so impressive that I do it again/My other one is busy, so I use my left hand.”

    Shifting sounds like shifting gears (a car analogy for an “L.A. record,” after all), “River,” the second single from Endless Summer Vacation, switches things up after that brief foray into the auditory equivalent of a drug trip. “River” is instead awash in the 80s-inspired beats that characterized Bangerz (hip hop appropriating though it might be), “River” is as sexual as one would expect from a Sag like Cyrus, who can’t help but use the word to her innuendo-making advantage. This includes lyrics like, “Heart beats so loud that it’s drownin’ me out/Livin’ in an April shower/You’re pourin’ down, baby, drown me out.” If it was slightly more seductive-sounding, it could easily pass for lyrics on Madonna’s “Where Life Begins” from Erotica, during which she sensually notes, “I’m glad you brought your raincoat/I think it’s beginning to rain.” Splooge, cum, orgasm—get it? Anyway, Miley’s in good company now for making such overt allusions using water.

    With James Blake and Sia joining in on the songwriting credits for “Violet Chemistry,” there feels like a bit of tonal influence from both as Cyrus creates something like a thematic follow-up (nightlife-wise) to “Midnight Sky.” With the latter remarking, “Yeah, it’s been a long night and the mirror’s tellin’ me to go home/But it’s been a long time since I felt this good on my own,” “Violet Chemistry” offers, “Tonight, we’ll just be wrong/Ain’t done this in so long/We ain’t gotta talk, baby, we’ll keep the stereo on/Stay a while, stay a while with me/Stay a while, don’t deny the violet chemistry.” Cyrus is also sure to mention that she doesn’t really care if this is a one-night stand or “eternity,” she just wants that carnal flesh now, announcing, “There’s something between us that’s too major to ignore/May not be eternal but nocturnal, nothin’ more.” This might be the most L.A.-oriented element on the record, in fact.

    Returning to playing the jilted lover we first got to know on “Flowers,” “Muddy Feet” featuring Sia feels like another dig at Liam Hemsworth as Cyrus spits accusations like, “Back and forth/Always questioning my questioning/Get thе fuck out of my head with that shit/Get the fuck out of my bеd with that shit.” She also wants the person in question to “get the fuck out of my house with that shit,” having cultivated her own space in the wake of the divorce—reminding one of the Whoopi Goldberg aphorism on marriage, “I don’t want somebody in my house.” Especially if they have muddy feet. Elsewhere, Cyrus adds with venom in her voice, “You’ve watered the weeds and you killed all the roses/Worthy arrives when the other door closes.” Even if the “worthy” being turns out to be yourself (as “Flowers” reminds). Sia joins in for the “Woah, oh, oh, oh, mm” outro that fleshes the song out before leading into “Wildcard.” Another Sag anthem, to be sure.

    Questioning her “adroitness” in playing the role of “wifey” (a.k.a. being monogamous), the conflicted feelings Cyrus displays throughout Endless Summer Vacation are at total war here. On the one hand, she wants a love that lasts forever (that impossible word again), but on the other, she’s a free spirit who “can’t be tamed.” And so, as though providing her version of Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero,” Cyrus addresses the difficulties presented in pursuing a wildcard like her as she opens with the wry verse, “Do you wanna play house?/I could be your wife/Go and meet your mom in a dress too tight/Maybe I could stay and not break your heart/But don’t forget, baby, I’m a wildcard.”

    The push and pull of the life monogamous versus the life sologamous additionally shows up in the lines, “I love when you hold me/But loving you is never enough/And don’t wait for me/‘Cause forever may never come.” Cyrus also gives a nod to “Flowers” with the lyrics, “I walk in the door, with my lips stained red/Pillows on the floor and the flowers dead.” The implication being that she’ll have to buy her own again, now that she’s caused another relationship rupture with her wildcard tendencies. The emotions of this segue perfectly into “Island,” on which Miley ponders whether she truly loves being alone or not. Musically, there’s a slight hint of interpolating George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” as Cyrus goes over the pros and cons of being so steadfastly independent. Indeed, to be as independent as she announced she could be on “Flowers,” it’s no secret that one has to be rich. The kind of rich that can get you away from all the riffraff. Private island rich, if you will. Thus, Cyrus describes the scene, “I’m on an island, dirty dancing in the sun/So close to heaven, but so far from everyone/Yeah, I’ve got treasures buried underneath the sand/But I’m still wishing for the love that I don’t have.” In short, it has a very “money can’t buy happiness” motif. Further intensified by Cyrus asking throughout the chorus, “Am I stranded on an island? Or have I landed in paradise?” Many actual island dwellers are forced to ask themselves the same thing outside the summer months. Because no, despite climate change, it’s no endless summer vacation for the “ordinaries” in this life.

    It appears that, in the end, Cyrus decides in favor of independence on this track, noting, “And I won’t lie, it sure gets lonely here at night/But no one here needs nothin’ from me and it’s kind of nice.” This assertion, however, is once more belied by a track like “Wonder Woman,” the true denouement of the album (because the demo of “Flowers” doesn’t really count). Like the faint tinges of “Careless Whisper” on “Island,” this ballad has traces of Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” all over it. Accordingly, it’s designed to be type of song that will wreak tears as Cyrus speaks of the proverbial “strong female” who never dares to show emotion (lest it slow her down with accusations of being “weak”). Dissecting the fragility of women and how they’re made to feel as though it’s an Achilles’ heel rather than a source of strength, Miley once more channels Madonna via her 2015 song, “Joan of Arc.” On it, Madonna laments, “I never admit it, but it hurts/I don’t wanna talk about it right now…/I’m not Joan of Arc, not yet/But I’m in the dark, yeah/I can’t be a superhero right now/Even hearts made out of steel can break down/I’m not Joan of Arc, not yet/I’m only human.”

    Alas, the last thing patriarchal society wants women to be is human. Miley knows this only too well as she depicts the “wonder woman” who stifles it all, singing, “She’s a wonder woman/She knows what she likes/Never know she’s broken/‘Cause she’s always fine/She’s a million moments/Lived a thousand lives/Never know she’s hopeless/Only when she cries.” And when she does cry, it’s of course only in private…otherwise, she might be branded as “crazy” like Britney Spears (recently accused of being just that once more after crying in an Instagram video). Vulnerability is, after all, not “sexy,” right?

    As for the bouts of vulnerability Cyrus reveals on Endless Summer Vacation, they ultimately betray her “tough girl” act. This is also reflective in her breakaway from RCA Records for the release of this album in order to fulfill a different contract with Columbia (sorry Mariah). The perk? It’s in conjunction with her own Smiley Miley imprint. Therefore, Cyrus is simultaneously mirroring the independent spirit of most musicians during this epoch while also holding fast to the romanticism associated with having a Major Label Deal. In effect, it’s never been a more schizophrenic time to be alive. Especially for a woman. And that much is chaotically (but catchily) conveyed on Endless Summer Vacation.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Miley Cyrus Heavily Imitates Lana Del Rey Stylings in Teaser for Endless Summer Vacation

    Miley Cyrus Heavily Imitates Lana Del Rey Stylings in Teaser for Endless Summer Vacation

    [ad_1]

    Along with announcing that her next album will be released March 10th, the same day as Lana Del Rey’s Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, Miley Cyrus also seems to be giving a nod to Lana in other ways with the teaser for her forthcoming eighth record, Endless Summer Vacation. The title itself smacking of Del Rey’s rolodex of stock vocabulary for many of her CA-themed songs. Indeed, she even had a tour in 2015 called Endless Summer, with Courtney Love and Grimes as the openers on varying legs of the North American crusade to promote Ultraviolence. But, of course, like that latter title taking from something else in 60s and 70s-era pop culture (i.e., A Clockwork Orange), so, too, does Endless Summer have its roots in the name of a greatest hits album from The Beach Boys. And, yes, anyone who knows Del Rey’s work on even the most cursory level is aware that she’s just about as “goo-goo-eyed” over California as The Beach Boys. As such, she’s become something of the unofficial spokesperson for the state in a way that said band used to be—giving it an update with her darker motifs pertaining to decay and ruin (though she’s all for finding beauty in that as well).

    Seeming to inuit the weight of taking up the mantle for a band that wrote a Golden State anthem as untouchable as “California Girls,” Del Rey finally had to name-check a Beach Boy in Norman Fucking Rockwell’s “The Greatest,” singing of “Dennis’ last stop before Kokomo” as a reference to his 1983 death after the preceding line, “I miss the bar where the Beach Boys would go.” In this instance, “Kokomo”—the paradisiacal (and fictional) island off the Florida Keys—is meant to represent Heaven, where Del Rey would like to imagine that Dennis went after drinking all day on December 28th and then jumping into the water in Marina Del Rey (how appropriate for another Lana connection). His drunken stupor led to his drowning and, much later, immortalization in a Del Rey song. In fact, the entire crux of “The Greatest” expresses a deep yearning and nostalgia for the music of the past (in the spirit of The Beach Boys), and even the way the music industry used to be (replete with free-wheeling sexual predators and all).

    Miley isn’t exactly conveying that sentiment (not yet anyway) in her Endless Summer Vacation teaser, but she is performing the whole “California myth” shtick, going so far as to deem the album “a love letter to Los Angeles” (what Billie Eilish also called her filmed-for-Disney concert at the Hollywood Bowl—literally: Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles). One can imagine Del Rey internally commenting (in the style of Janis Ian in Mean Girls) of Miley saying such a thing, “Hey, that’s only okay when I say it.” And it’s true, Del Rey was the one who jump-started California’s shift back toward being the apple of the U.S.’ eye, even amid all of its many and increasing climate disasters ranging from fires to floods. She being the one to remain consistently committed to it while other musicians only dabble (even California native Katy Perry, who tried to one-up The Beach Boys with her own “California Gurls”).

    But it isn’t just that Miley is serving up “California as a concept” vibes for Endless Summer Vacation that reeks of Del Rey. She’s even taken to adopting the ethereal spoken word manner of Del Rey that first materialized on Honeymoon’s “Burnt Norton,” wherein she recites the T. S. Eliot poem of the same name. A manner that was ultimately a precursor for releasing a spoken word album of her poetry book, Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass. The album itself offers fourteen of the thirty poems from the book spoken by Del Rey, with musical accompaniments by her usual bitch, Jack Antonoff. Among the offerings was the, you guessed it, “L.A. love letter” called “LA Who Am I To Love You.” The answer to that being: a native of the state of New York who rightly turned her back on NYC and the East Coast in general by fleeing to the West. Miley, too, fled the East in favor of the West, but being from Tennessee makes it slightly less “traitorous” by East Coast standards. Especially New York ones that perpetually champion that eponymous city as the “greatest” in the world despite kind of being the shittiest.

    Maybe that’s why Miley feels that she can also try her hand at bringing “profundity” to L.A. with some spoken word verses in the Endless Summer Vacation teaser that include, “We met each other on the neon dinghy. Past the manta rays and palm trees. Glowing creatures beamed down from great heights. Electric eels in red venom. In the sky, we could see the riders on horseback.” It sounds like a lot of acid and/or weed-induced nonsense, which continues with, “On comets, coming toward us kicking up with laughter” (side note: the way she says “On comets” briefly makes one think she might just continue with, “On Cupid, on Donner, on Blitzen…”). Throughout this entire time, we’re shown “impressionistic” imagery that so often gets associated with California, namely a pool, paraded again toward the end of the teaser in spotlighted darkness next to empty outdoor furniture. As the Bret Easton Ellis-inspired (think: Less Than Zero) musical ambience continues, Cyrus gets even more faux poetic with the lines, “My friend Big Twitchy rode the boat to the light, surfed the north break. We danced until there was nothing left. Just me and Twitchy. ‘Cause that’s all we knew.”

    Having commenced the teaser with a close-up on a clear, blue pool that harkens back to the “Slide Away” single cover, we’re reminded of a visual like “Blue Jeans,” where Del Rey firmly established her California aesthetics in music video format. Another scene in Miley’s teaser includes a looming, blurred-out helicopter that correlates to Del Rey’s “High by the Beach” video motif. Shaky camera work trying to focus on a bleach blonde, cherry red lipstick’d Cyrus wearing black shades adds to the DIY/“found footage” look she’s going for. Of the very variety that Del Rey repopularized with “Video Games.” Elsewhere, an image of a 5G cell phone tower posing as a palm tree additionally evokes the dystopian feel Del Rey has also cultivated in her lyrical portrayals of Los Angeles and California. Not to mention highlighting the “ersatz” quality L.A. and CA are frequently mocked for. And yet, for as maligned and made fun of as this milieu still is, it seems to keep inspiring. Even if much of that inspiration appears to be yielding similar statements and visuals. All of which can now be linked back to Del Rey kickstarting the “California trend” with her sophomore record (heralded by “West Coast” being the first single from it).

    In any case, it is said that all great artists inspire imitations (e.g., Easton Ellis ripping off Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays for Less Than Zero). And Del Rey herself is but an imitative pastiche of so many California-centric bands and musicians past. So perhaps there’s no harm done, per se, by Miley emulating the chanteuse she once collaborated with on “Don’t Call Me Angel” (which seems to be crying out for a follow-up single from just the two of them entitled “Call Me City of Angels”). She might even have something slightly new to say about the state. But don’t get your hopes up on that front. Only time—and California—will tell.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link