MILEY CYRUS - Bass Persuades

After dismantling plenty of skepticism with the decent "Something Beautiful", Miley Cyrus has decided to ride the wave and come back almost immediately with a new record, her tenth studio album in a career full of highs, lows, tears, badly-timed provocations and a bit too much showing off.
Described by the American singer and model herself - daughter of famous country singer-songwriter Billy Ray Cyrus and Leticia Finley - as an album about self-love and about her relationship with fiancé Maxx Morando, who, not content with just that, also shows up as co-writer on nearly every track, "Bass Persuades" presents itself, right from the opening title track - a ditty in the vein of Pet Shop Boys (for a change), with lyrics oozing sass from every pore - as an outgoing pop operetta, full of decidedly unexpected choices.

A case in point? The following "Different Religion", sung with Model/Actriz to conjure up an electro-rock and noise veneer that ultimately goes nowhere, given that the alternation between the syrupy chorus and the distorted verses simply doesn't work.
Thankfully, things go decidedly better on "Let's Get Married", a soft-pop ballad put together without forcing things too much, its refrain dreamy enough to keep you lounging on the shoreline for a few more days, while Miley calls for an immediate wedding, free of fireworks, with the sole aim of turning her life into a holiday.
The up-and-down ride continues with "Orbit", a typical piano ballad stuffed with "forevers" tossed out as if there were no tomorrow - but also no listener left to intrigue. The same goes for when the Tennessee singer steps on the gas with a hyperpop backing that looks appealing on paper but clashes, unfortunately, with an extremely watered-down melody, seemingly built with no enthusiasm whatsoever just to give some kind of melodic trajectory to the novel rhythmic ideas ("Aftermath").

The rollercoaster of pleasure reveals itself further to the ear with "Redlights", a potential hit of the bunch, thanks to its cheeky approach as the queen of some kind of synth-pop rodeo. Too bad, though, that the track is essentially an unsolicited photocopy. "Thank you Miley for copying my song, 'The Sphinx'. I'm flattered", writes Amanda Lear, indeed, in a post accompanying the cover of the American singer's new record. And, sure enough, "Redlights" is remarkably similar in every respect to the single Lear released in 1978, included on her third album, "Never Trust A Pretty Face".
Copycat moments aside, there's also Andrew Wyatt, frontman of Swedish band Miike Snow, who pops up sounding like just another Tellier on "Neon Signs", another heartfelt electro ballad with a dream-pop backdrop that nonetheless does its "dirty" job well enough.
As mentioned, regarding mischievous and at times kitsch variations: "Innocent Ways" is the song that best captures this drift, and it pulls it off with a distorted, powerful backing track, in the vein of Grimes's "Miss Anthropocene" period, to be clear, which pushes forward without quite finding its footing, giving the impression of watching Madonna catapulted onto the Lazio coastline and forced to deal with a DJ from Ostia.

It's in this back-and-forth of moments that range from decent to baffling that "Bass Persuades" ultimately fails to convince, even when the acoustic guitar of "Snow" kicks in, a little tune with an immediate refrain destined to be heard two or three million times in one's life, with which Cyrus aims straight for the top of the charts, at least for a few days.
As for the techno-trash remix of the title track, tacked on at the end in hopes of dancefloor glory without too much fuss, it's really not worth dwelling on.
All in all, Miley Cyrus finally seems to have a clear idea of her own life, and that's obviously good news. But in the studio she just can't manage to follow a straight line, ending up swerving on several occasions and spoiling what could have been, at the very least, a rather enjoyable album.

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27/09/2026