After just 17 years of life, the young Miley Cyrus has managed to achieve ubiquity. This past year, it has been impossible to go anywhere without hearing the chorus of her hit single ""Party in the USA."" The local shopping mall, sporting events, your grandmother's wake; everybody was ""moving their hips like yeah,"" and the world was powerless to stop it, even though Cyrus' voice is what one would imagine a Gummi Bear sounds like.
But of course Miley wasn't going to stop there. She had already taken over children's television sets. Her past music success took over house party playlists. With her newest album, Can't Be Tamed, the only thing left for Cyrus is to take over the world. And if her new music is any indication, her reign will mark a terrible, dark time upon this earth.
As the controversial ""Can't Be Tamed"" music video indicates, this album is the product of a Lady GaGa wannabe. Now that she is entering womanhood, Cyrus wants to transition from precocious teen to artist. Or, in layman's terms, from TV tot to trollop. Apparently, that involves blatantly ripping off Ms. GaGa's dance beats and, for lack of a better term, performance art. Additionally, and somewhat more confusingly, it also means cribbing from Three Doors Down, whose ""Here Without You Baby"" sounds eerily similar to Cyrus' ""Scars."" And as if to prove that she'll openly rip off any terrible Top 40 act, Cyrus' ""Permanent December"" is basically a Ke$ha song, complete with Valley Girl sing-speaking.
The copycat singles are so bountiful it brings into question whether Cyrus even realizes her music's lack of originality at all. She certainly doesn't have any idea that many of her songs are absolutely ridiculous. It is hard to fathom just how anybody could sing lyrics like, ""The only thing our hearts are made of / are the acts of forgiveness and love"" without cracking up or expressing at least a hint of irony, unless they were a Sunday school teacher for five-year-olds.
As for the ""Can't Be Tamed"" Lil' Jon remix, it almost seems as if someone at Hollywood Records tried to think of the most ludicrous collaboration Cyrus could make, then slid it on the album as a joke. Of course, it could be possible that Little Miss Miley actually has a sense of humor. Could something this ridiculous possibly be put on this album with Hannah Montana herself in on the joke? Or does she have absolutely no self-awareness whatsoever? Probably the latter.
However, even the more original songs, which are still bland and lifeless, are annoying at best and downright sadistic at their worst. Miley's songs tend to wear out their welcome pretty quickly, so when songs like ""Stay"" and ""Liberty Walk"" stick around for four minutes when they shouldn't be much longer than two, it's enough to make you want to drown yourself in wine and liquor. Then, after that fails, it will make you want to pick up the corkscrew you used to open the wine and stab it in your eardrums to bring the pain to a merciful end.
But the vapidity of the Church of Miley is never exemplified better than in Cyrus' cover of the ‘80s power ballad ""Every Rose Has Its Thorn."" The original Poison song is hardly a masterpiece, but it's still a solid (albeit incredibly cheesy) track thanks to the metric shit-ton of earnestness that is packed into all the most enjoyable glam rock. Cyrus' version has absolutely none of that. It is an emotionally vacant manufactured husk, much like Cyrus' soul.
Ultimately, it is time for all of us to face the music, or whatever you would call the auditory noise on Cyrus' album. It is Miley's world, and we just live in it—wallowing in the filth that the All Powerful Lord Miley provides us.
