BY JOSEPH DEBELL, STAFF WRITER
Joe gives “Endless Summer Vacation” a 2/5 stars
Photo courtesy of @mileycyrus on Instagram
Stars courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Miley Cyrus continues to present herself as a lone wolf who can’t be stopped or controlled. She is more genuine and less rehearsed than the majority of pop artists. Considering that those are her most admirable attributes, why does “Endless Summer Vacation” have moments that sound uninspired, derivative, predictable, or worse yet, safe?
Just in time for spring, Miley Cyrus released her new LP. At this point, her evolution as an artist is getting more interesting with every release. That is, until this record. It’s been great to watch her mature from a child star to a pop star, despite reboot mistakes. This is specifically apparent on her record “Bangerz” despite including “Wrecking Ball.” However, I would argue that the psychedelic disaster of “Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz” is worse by comparison, with her country reboot “Younger Now,” sandwiched in between as a hard second of the trio.
This LP does reveal how much of a musical chameleon she is. Almost every track adapts to a specific sound or trend she wants to emulate. The biggest example of that is the opener “Flowers.” Miley Cyrus sings about how she could love herself better than the person she mentioned on this track.
“I can buy myself flowers. Write my name in the sand.”
With “Flowers” being an anti-love song, her vocals expectedly highlight her tone’s trademark low, raspy sound. However, I can’t get past the skeletal instrumental pallet behind Miley Cyrus’s vocals. Despite being the most popular song, it does not have much charm to its instrumental.
The same can be said for her song, “Jaded.” Again, the instrumental on this song feels like a toothless version of the typical indie pop sound of Mac DeMarco. Despite this flaw, “Jaded” is one of her top three vocal performances on this record.
The next noticeable track is “Thousand Miles (feat. Brandi Carlile).” For this being her only attempt at a country appeal on the LP, it’s lukewarm. My complaints about this track is I wish the instrumental had more texture and I wish the Brandi Carlile feature played a more significant role.
The track “River” is one of the lowlights of this record. Miley Cyrus’s delivery is more breathy and comes across as forced. This pairs poorly with the instrumentation and creates a cringeworthy clash of styles. Some of the ideas on the production side of this song include synth-pop, techno or house anthem with its lead vocals. I’m lost about what this track means or is attempting to be in the first place.
I’ll compliment the story in the track “Wildcard” because it’s more personal. Miley Cyrus’ lyrics show that she considers herself undependable in the game of love, hence making her a wildcard. However, this is the most prominent example of her record echoing Lana Del Rey’s “Born To Die.” It just sounds derivative.
debelljb@bonaventure.edu
