Just yesterday, November 27th, Miley Cyrus released her highly anticipated new album, Plastic Hearts. This marks her 7th new album, released by RCA records. The talented star has actively promoted the upcoming release on social media, especially in the last two weeks, after she had announced the unique tracklist for the release. Since it has been three years since Cyrus’ latest album, this new release understandably gained plenty of hype from the international audience.
The album stands in stark contrast to its 2017 prequel, Younger Now. The new tracklist of Plastic Hearts showcases an edgier pop-rock and synthy theme, compared to the softer, balladic, and more reflective vibe of the previous album. The main song of the new album, titled with the same name as the album, is the second song in the tracklist and is a lot more grungy than many of Cyrus’ other well known songs. Miley Cyrus still demonstrates her impeccable singing but she intentionally sounds more raspy than usual. Also, the instrumental accompaniment is much louder and more pronounced alongside the vocals than in previous songs like “Wrecking Ball”, in which the emotional vocal melody was clearly the focus of the song.
The much lower notes of the singing and the loud instrumental melodies filled with solos frequently accented by synths in the song “Plastic Hearts”, as well as other tracks in the album, such as “WTF Do I Know”, immediately give off a rougher alternative rock sound. This is further emphasized by the surprising new collabs featured in this album. This album did feature Dua Lipa, who is a mainstream pop star, but Cyrus also collaborated with 80s legacy stars including Billy Idol and female rock and roll star Joan Jett.
Billy Idol’s energetic voice complements Miley Cyrus well in the song “Night Crawling” and Joan Jett performs an edgy solo in “Bad Karma”. It seems as if Miley Cyrus is reinventing her voice and genres again, but it is evident that she is very well rounded in her songs, and the alternative rock genre suits her. Her album is available on all platforms!
