For a brief moment last week, directly after Miley Cyrus‘s new Bangerz (RCA) leaked, it looked like people might start discussing the actual music on the album rather than the barrage of partial nudity and questionable cultural appropriation that’s doubled as its prerelease promotional campaign. But then star photographer Terry Richardson, who’s made a career out of shooting salacious images of young women (and who directed the video for Cyrus’s single “Wrecking Ball“), posted photos on his blog that—after years of Miley handbras, Miley sideboobs, and other coy ways of almost baring her breasts—finally gave the world a more or less unobstructed view of her nipples. The world responded predictably, with a self-sustaining paroxysm of outrage, outrage at the outrage, and celebrity concern. (Somewhat surprisingly, Sinead O’Connor got in on the action; entirely predictably, Amanda Palmer did too.) This mix of scolding, shaming, and support had already come to typify the dialogue around Cyrus, so things were pretty much back to normal.
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To be fair, it’s hard to resist talking about Miley’s increasingly sexualized image and “hip-hop” affectations. The sexuality of young women and the white appropriation of black culture are perennial hot-button topics, and discussion of them has been massively amplified by the Internet. I can barely imagine a more perfect button pusher than a 20-year-old former Disney star literally simulating analingus on an ass-shaking black woman in front of several million people.
Going by the book isn’t necessarily a bad thing for Cyrus. “We Can’t Stop” and “Wrecking Ball” both come straight off of the same blueprint that pop records have been using for a million years, but they’re so instantly memorable and instantly addictive that it hardly matters. Those two songs more than compensate for the disposability of filler tracks such as “Someone Else” and “Maybe You’re Right.” (“My Darlin’,” however, somehow manages to fall flat on its face despite an appearance by Future, who’s currently one of the most fascinating vocalists working—that’s far less forgivable.)
