Miley Cyrus: One thing Lovely overview – strong pop that’s about as ‘psychedelic’ as a baked potato

Miley Cyrus has made some very grand claims for her ninth album. One thing Lovely isn’t merely an idea album, however one the 32-year-old pop star has described as “an try and medicate considerably of a sick tradition by way of music”. One crammed with “therapeutic sound properties” designed to “affect frequencies in your physique that make you vibrate at a unique stage”. And it’s not simply all of that, however an accompanying movie as properly: a “one-of-a-kind pop opera” apparently impressed by Alan Parker’s 1982 movie adaptation of Pink Floyd’s The Wall “however with a greater wardrobe and extra glamorous”.

For all that the executives at Cyrus’s label are unlikely to say no to an enormous star whose final album featured the world’s biggest-selling single of 2023 – Flowers, 2.7bn streams – you possibly can nonetheless think about them swallowing very arduous when introduced with all this. In any case, Cyrus has kind in terms of going wildly off-piste: Bangerz, her biggest-selling album, was adopted with Miley Cyrus & Her Useless Petz, a sprawling assortment of stoned jokes, musical non-sequiturs and psychedelic collaborations with the Flaming Lips. Moreover, when her file label instructed that an hour and a half of this would possibly attempt her followers’ endurance, Cyrus’s response was to make Petz even longer, by together with a recording of her enjoying Tibetan singing bowls.

Cyrus additionally has kind for asserting releases that don’t fairly match their preliminary billing: 2017’s not-actually-very “nation” album Youthful Now; 2020’s Plastic Hearts, which introduced itself as new-wave rock, with visitor appearances from Joan Jett and Billy Idol and its emblem borrowed from shock-rockers the Plasmatics, however turned out to be all around the store stylistically. So it proves right here. The movie has no extra in frequent with Parker’s adaptation of The Wall than it does Mrs Brown’s Boys: D’Film. It has completely no plot, not as a result of it’s a wilfully complicated train in non-linear arthouse cinema, however as a result of it’s only a load of pop movies, albeit divided into three “acts” and interspersed with spoken-word interludes.

Plenty of them are easy in-studio performances; the remainder appear to be prolonged fragrance commercials: Miley Cyrus strolling by way of a movie studio’s backlot in a pair of fluorescent blue furry chaps, or down Hollywood Boulevard at evening so as to do a spot of writhing round on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Stroll of Fame star. Miley Cyrus pretending to trip a bike and palling round with Naomi Campbell in matching bustiers and heels. It’s maybe for the most effective that it isn’t a up to date remake of The Wall, an album and movie that’s primarily a couple of multimillionaire’s peevish solipsism and bitter score-settling – there’s already fairly sufficient of that in 2025, thanks. However, you do surprise if premiering it on the Tribeca movie competition doesn’t quantity to gilding the lily just a little.

An identical sense of “huh?” attends the album itself, given the discuss of therapeutic sound properties and certainly of Cyrus wishing to be “a human psychedelic”. It actually will get off to a comparatively left-field begin. The title observe opens like an old style soul ballad, full with tasteful horns, then erupts right into a refrain thick with distorted vocals and crashing, discordant rock guitar. However thereafter it turns way more easy: sparkly 80s pop sprinkled with Dancing Queen-ish piano thrives on Finish of the World; Simple Lover’s evenly disco-laced delicate rock; ballads which might be, respectively, synthy (Extra to Lose) and primed to soundtrack the tip credit of a film relatively extra substantial than the one Cyrus has made (Give Me Love).

The album’s second half focuses extra on the dancefloor: pumping four-to-the-floor beats, a preponderance of Patrick Cowley and Bobby O synthesisers. The choruses melodically evoke quite a lot of music from continental Europe: French chanson on Reborn, Abba (once more) on Each Woman You’ve Ever Beloved, balls-out Eurovision finalist on Stroll of Fame. What it actually recollects is hi-NRG, the digital soundtrack of alternative in mid-80s homosexual golf equipment. Reanimating this sound isn’t a nasty thought – it’s one of many few areas of 80s pop that the twenty first century has but to actually scavenge from – and it’s accomplished rather well right here. The synths sound edgy, the choruses stick, there’s a smattering of understanding interval particulars (Syndrums, sampled orchestral stabs), and it’s a delight to listen to Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes repurposing her voice as a stentorian Grace Jones-y roar on Stroll of Fame.

If the remainder of the album steadfastly fails to make the listener vibrate at a unique stage – it’s all about as psychedelic as a baked potato – and also you wrestle to determine any sort of idea, it’s nonetheless all very properly written and properly made, a diversified succession of excellent autos for Cyrus’s powerfully raspy voice. What it lacks is the sort of apparent smash-hit single by which her albums stand or fall commercially: the obvious candidates, Finish of the World and Each Woman You’ve Ever Beloved, are robust however not plain. Slightly than the disparity betweenCyrus’s intentions for One thing Lovely and the truth, it’s that which could doom it to a muted reception.

This week Alexis listened to

Saint Etienne – Glad
A marvellous single heralds Saint Etienne’s last album: a collaboration with Chemical Brother Tom Rowlands that places an ideal pop spin on his psych-y breakbeat backing.