Every Single Album - 'Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz' | Every Single Album: Miley Cyrus

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

During the 2015 VMAs, Miley Cyrus surprise-dropped her strange and experimental new album, 'Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz' on SoundCloud. Nora and Nathan discuss songs like "Dooo It!" and "BB Talk" (1:00), Miley's work with Flaming Lips front man Wayne Coyne on this record (34:32), and the deeper emotional themes that are running just under the surface of a lot of these songs (51:14). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan HubbardProducer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi everyone, it's Amy Poehler, and I'm launching a new podcast called Good Hang. In preparation for that, I asked some of my friends to send in some videos and give me some advice. Just be yourself, and the guests will come. Just, if you're going to do this, really do it. Commit to it. Don't be the celebrity that this is their like sixth thing they're doing. Have a good podcast. Keep your approval rating. I hear you got a new gig, girl. That's so fabulous. So glad you're working. It's a part for me. I love true crime and cooking podcast. Is there any way you could combine the two?

So you're doing a podcast, that is awesome. Would you happen to know my blood type? I've got to put it down on this form. Hey, I got an email from my agent saying I need to record a video for you for charity, but then I clicked the link and it took me to a GoFundMe page. So I kind of have a bad feeling about this. Well, everyone has an opinion and a podcast. So, join me for good hang.

It's rough out there. We're just trying to lighten it up a little. Welcome to every single album, Miley Cyrus. I'm Nora Princeati, and as always, I am joined by Nathan Hubbard, who I have to assume is in just the best mood that he's ever been in to record a podcast with me. Because, and I really can't believe that this is real, as has been a joke that I never expected to come true for literally years as this podcast has been in existence, we are going to spend today talking about the album, Miley Cyrus and her dead pets. Nathan,

how does it feel? Let's do it! This entire podcast was made for a moment like this. The ridiculous idea that we would spend the better part of an hour talking about what is a historically weird and confusing and terrible and awesome album. Who else would do this, Nora? We get to talk about Pablo the Blofish. We get to talk about Pablo the Blowfish and Miley Cyrus. Floyd and a scorpion and all these things.

Why did this happen? there's almost, and I have a feeling we're going to come back to this as a theme a lot throughout this conversation. There's almost no one else I can think of. Gaga, maybe, in a slightly different way, like late career now, Keshe. If she turned them into zombies. Like if she found a way to reincarnate her pets as like dead walking zombies, maybe she could make this. I mean, there is just almost no one other than Miley Cyrus. And maybe there is no one other than Miley Cyrus.

That's why Miley Cyrus is great. Right. Who would have a place within the pop girlie universe, a special place that would cause us to spend 10 weeks going through her entire discography, talking about these iconic songs that everybody remembers that were parts of people's childhood, that are on every playlist that have had these,

like, really lasting imprints in mainstream musical pop culture. who would also give us the opportunity to talk about the fucking weird-ass psychedelic rock album about her dead pets and also doing mushrooms and also

having a lot of sex that she uploaded as a free download for her fans outside of the confines of a record contract randomly on SoundCloud after announcing that it was happening at a VMA's ceremony

that she hosted. There is one person who is in the center of that van diagram and that's Smiley Cyrus. It's just an insane... It's just an insane thing to do. At the time,

it's not the first time somebody's dropped a surprise album it's not, but this is, I mean, we went from, we went from bangers, which had two songs on the Mount Rushmore of 21st century pop songs in We Can't Stop and in Wrecking Ball. And the first song on this album, the last line is why they put the D in the P. It is the most ridiculous of all things. But I think with some hindsight, it looks like a lot of decisions and choices

that Miley Cyrus has made over the course of her career, which is that in the moment, you would apply things like the word crazy and ridiculous and unhinged and just all of the sort of pejorative language that has been applied. to people who are a little bit ahead of their time. And I don't want to overdo this because this album is ridiculous.

And there are parts of it that are terrible. I would go so far as to say borderline unlistenable. Yes. And there are, I mean, it is laugh out loud, ridiculous at times. But in hindsight, when you go to the moment and you've been doing a good job through the course of this mildy journey of contextualizing where we are. And so I want you to do that today. But when you really think about a woman at the peak of her pop powers,

now I have this, I go to a lake in New Hampshire, and you were born in New Hampshire, so you know. My home state. I go to a lake in New Hampshire in the summer. And what I love to do more than anything is I go out in the morning. I promise this is going to try to make sense. But I go out in the morning in like a kayaker canoe, and the lake is just glass, and there's nothing.

And it's silent. And I like to just, like, drift. And then at some point, like I'll take my finger, and I'll reach over the edge and I'll put it in the water. And it creates these ripples. And when you disturb the peace like that, all sorts of things happen.

Fish start to jump. And the waves, you know, the ripples sort of go up on shore and birds and stuff start to move. And it just like creates this chaos. And there's this feeling of like messianic complex that you get, but also like the disturbing of the piece

and being in control of that is so interesting. That's fucking Miley Cyrus. Okay. Miley Cyrus is the thing. that can create these just these ripples through culture. And in this moment, the fact that coming off an album that was massive and songs that were huge, that she chose to do this, which is to say put out a 90-minute album that has zero commercial viability that talks about things that she's been telling us about a little bit,

she does drugs, she has a lot of sex, she's interested in exploring all sorts of things about the world both through spiritual journeys, through chemical journeys and so forth. Like the fact that she would put this out, for almost anybody else on the planet, this, if you just sat back as her management team or her record label, and I'm sure that both her management team and her record label did it, you would say there is at least a 50% chance that this is going to kill her career. What the fuck is she doing? And it speaks to the power that she had in this moment that Warner decided they had no other choice but to support her putting it out. They didn't promote it. They didn't give her money for it, but they didn't block. They didn't

count it as an album as a part of her. You know, an artist signs a record deal. They'll sign up for somewhere between one and maybe four, five or six albums. That six is a lot, but sometimes it happens. So they're under contract for a certain number of albums. This album did not count as an album under her contract. That's how little Warner thought of it. But the fact that they got out of the way and let her go do this speaks to the power and stature of her in the moment, which is why this was such a risky, dangerous, reckless, and with 10 plus years of hindsight, brilliant thing to do. And at least, brilliant is an interesting word. I think I can almost get there. Where I can get it was a really fucking cool thing to do.

It's interesting. Yeah. It's even if you call it real only in the sense that some of the posturing doesn't necessarily reveal what she's trying to have it reveal, but it tells you something about where she was and the different directions that she was being pulled in. Like, it's just really unusual. And it certainly took balls and it certainly is just an unparalleled choice. in your life than BB talk?

I don't think you have. How seriously am I supposed to take this question? Like, yes, do I think that there are songs out there with deeper emotional value? For sure. Do I think that she's posturing that Patrick Schwarzenegger was kind of annoying and talk to her in a baby voice all the time? Sure, I think that's true.

I think that is a true, honest statement about something Miley Cyrus felt deeply. It looked like she totally ignored him at the Met Galilee. last night. Oh my gosh. I had completely forgotten they dated. I had completely forgotten about that. I'd memory hold that relationship so deeply. And the 2015 of it all was so overwhelming, specifically when that past relationship resurfaced through the course of going back through this album. It's the Maddie Healey Taylor Swift of the Miley situation. It's the thing that most of us would like to bury and go away, but it apparently had a meaningful impact on the creative art.

So shout out to all those people who take those dumbass relationships and make good out of them. I mean, if nothing else from this album, we learned that Patrick Schwarzenegger's armpits smell good and that Miley Cyrus at one point wanted to lick his teeth. So in that sense, yes, it's a very honest song. You know, bury my head in your armpit, which weirdly smells good and fucking teeth. Why the fuck what I want to lick your teeth, but I do. Is that what you wanted me to take out of that? Thank you.

That is exactly what I, that is exactly what I wanted you to say. But saying so where, where, I mean, this is a, this is like a really big artistic risk. And I candidly cannot believe that it didn't, it didn't blow up her career. Because look, if you, you know, John Mayer came out and was like, oh my God, what an amazing album. And there's part of me that's like, oh, John Mayer's just trying to get with Miley Cyrus probably. But John Mayer is actually a very interesting and insightful music critic at times. Like he can sometimes see, he's so much better playing on other people's music than on his own, in my experience, my opinion, that sometimes I listen to this. I'm not sure about it.

But there were a lot of people who tried to glorify this. And I think that's the tension that you're feeling in this moment, which is, yes, it was a risk. And yes, there's honesty here. And wow, we'll talk about the collaborators that she turned to on this and the way that she put this out and all that. I don't know that it's any good. Well, right. And I think there are ways that you can glorify the risk-taking element of it, which I do think is super fucking cool. Because we hear from artists all the time.

And I'm not saying that this is bad on those people's parts. But we hear all the time, you know, the stress of being in the public eye of having commercial pressures thrust upon you and the desire to burn it all down. And nobody ever does it. She didn't shoot herself into space and float a butterfly paper butterfly with a tour set list on it. Like this was not the traditional marketing setup. And she didn't go mainstream in any way, shape, or form.

And you're right. It is cool. And she never, I mean, there is so much if you put aside the, hey, what the fuck is going on on this song that happens every single track on this album in a different way? Like, if you listen and dive in and sort of parse apart what's happening, there's some really rich learning about Miley Cyrus on this. She is telling us. There's a lot of sadness, too. This is, in some ways, an album very much about loss. it gets bogged down in the

why there is trees of it all in some of the other lyrics what the fuck is God but there you can see how a lot of people where I'm going with this is that there are people who glorified this album and said you know the John Maher's shit whatever

some of it was probably just kissing Miley Cyrus's ass John Mare and others who were glorifying this album but you can see why a lot of people would have looked at this and gone oh oh Miley Cyrus is in trouble. Right. Because... That's why I think is because we always, we do hear that idea of like, oh, I wish I could just burn

it all down and not have to worry about all this pressure. And it's just so rare that you actually see someone go... I don't want to say go through with it because it didn't burn her career down, which is the crazy part that I think you're alluding to. But take a

legitimate risk where that could happen. It's just really unusual. So I think it's fascinating. and in a lot of ways admirable from that point. Now, I will say that there is some amount of this that is, you know, inseparable from the fact that Miley Cyrus, she had, as she said in the lead-up to this, she'd made her money. She had the stature to be able to get her record label, not to sign on as something

that they were going to promote, but to get out of the way and let her do it. And it is to some degree, I think, inseparable from the fact that she came at this from a real position of privilege and power. And I don't know that the mindset that she seems to be in on the majority of this record totally clocked that element of it that a lot of people don't have the ability to burn it down. But it's just not something you ever see happen. You see the, you know, you get the songs about what if I just moved to the woods and gave it all up? And then the next album cycle, it's you're doing all of the commercial things. You're doing all the same outreach.

you're doing things that feel sort of market-tested, and that's just typically the way that it goes within the realms of pop stardom. And she really fucking zagged in a way that no one really ever zags. And I got to say that regardless of how listenable some of the work that came out of that is,

I think that is ultimately to be cherished. I mean, this album, she actually did a lot of traditional promotion for it. She played SNL. Yeah. She did, like, she kind of went out there and did some stuff. She ostensibly had like a tour. It was only eight dates. And it, we really haven't seen Miley Cyrus do a full tour in a long time. You mean the Milky, Milky Milk Tour? I do. That's exactly what I mean. Shockingly, it, it did not go on for very long, but she did.

Pablo the Blofish did close the show. If anybody listening to this, saw the Milky Milky Milk Tour, please get in touch. Please share with us your experience. It's fantastic. So can I do the little, little scene setting timeline piece of this because I do think it's instructive. I beg of you.

Okay. So we're in late 2014, coming off of bangers, going into 20. She's on the tour. And she has collaborated with the Flaming Lips on this Beatles cover project. Right. Also during the tour, her dog Floyd is killed by coyotes. And she's really, really bad.

This happens a lot in L.A. Just for people who don't live in Los Angeles, there's a lot of fucking coyotes. Yeah. My two dogs, well, I have more than two dogs, but two of my dogs had an encounter with two coyotes like a month ago. And there was like, they came to blows. So this happens. You got to be very wary if you have small dogs in particular in Los Angeles.

She takes it really hard for obvious reasons. There are a few performances where she breaks down in tears on stage. From everything that I can tell this is unrelated, but it's just a tough stretch because two weeks after she loses Floyd, she's still on tour. She gets hospitalized because she's had a very bad. allergic reaction to antibiotics. God, I'm afraid of coyotes. I'm afraid of antibiotics. What else do I need to be afraid of? Well, probably not Wayne Coyne. Flaming Lips. Frontman visits her in the hospital, which is a very nice thing to do, which is why I'm telling you not to be afraid of Wade.

And this means a lot to Miley. They're becoming friends. They've already worked together. The tour ends and she goes home. And around this time, you know, she's still processing the loss of the dog. She's clearly going through some stuff in general. I think that's fair to say, whether you want to combine that with the hospitalization, do or don't.

She gets pretty into psychedelics. Maybe she already is to some degree, but she gets more into psychedelics. She's also into some natural healing stuff. When she puts this album out, she's already done, to your point about her doing a lot of traditional media

and promotion strategy stuff. She's had a long sit-down interview with the New York Times about the whole project. And in that piece, she says that she met with a Chinese healer who sent her, quote, to a state where her dog

was lifted out of her lungs and placed on her shoulder. She pet the dog for three hours. And then she told hallucinogenic Floyd that she needed to release his energy and let go. And she finds, you know, some amount of peace through this experience. Nathan, have you ever had a Chinese haler? Take one of your dogs out of your lungs? I have not. Okay, me neither. In this time, she starts working on more music with Wayne Coyne. They sort of decide, like, maybe we're going to work together. Maybe we'll come up with

some stuff. And she starts making this album. It becomes clear at some point that the record label is not going to be involved. Maybe you know something about this that I don't. I couldn't totally figure out whose side that ultimately came from. Like if they would have put this album out and promoted it. Would Miley have been happy about that? Or was she just trying to do this out of left field thing? And she didn't want to sell it. She wanted to just throw it up on SoundCloud.

I'm a little unclear on that part. Yeah. I don't know if we'll ever know. I know that if you're a record label in 2015 and your massive artist turns this in, you're like, ah, so I'm sure there were some lawyer-to-lawyer conversations that created a place. and a pathway for this to come out.

And it had to have happened relatively early on in the process because she seemed aware through the recording of it that the financing was going to be on her. She talks a lot about the fact that they spent $50,000 to make it, whereas bangers cost a couple million dollars. You know, she gets the statement from the label that she's groundbreaking and that she is a strong point of view and that they support the project and her quote unique musical vision. But you can interpret, you can interpret some white knuckling it of, oh my God, is she going to tank her own career here?

I'm going to put one quote out of the New York Times piece. Okay. She says, this music was not meant to be a rebellion. It was meant to be a gift. I don't believe you. Yeah, I don't either. I don't believe you. I have a couple of competing best lyrics,

but there's a line on slab of butter in parentheses Scorpion. Yes. Yes, that's actually a name of a song that is the only laws I obey are the ones I'm making for myself. So why do you make me play on the rules of someone else? And that, to me, is a nugget of insight into the mind of Miley Cyrus that has been crystallizing through almost every album that we have listened to after the very first Hannah Montana one. And it has played itself out through the slow breakaway from Disney, breakout, bangers, which was a huge change. And yes, this album.

And I think it's important to, listen, Miley gets in. interviewed a million times and there's times, it's almost impossible for her to, it seems almost impossible for her to not be honest and just say what's on her mind. But I don't believe that line at all. I think that this was and feels like throughout almost daring the world and that culture to let her put that finger in the water and create ripples and see what happens because she can. I think it's a very insightful quote in terms of how she looked at this, but I agree with you that I don't. I don't think she's lying intentionally. I don't think she's being disingenuous. I just think it's a really good example of the layers between sort of how our own self-conceptions can be their own kinds of

distortions. I think there's a lot of that going on here. Yeah, she tells us later on that she's been a liar in a different song, but we'll get to that. I think, Right, right. This is nothing, if not honest. And there is a part of her existence that is just wired to push back against constraint, to break conformity, to zig instead of zagging, or zag instead of zgging. And she does that against all the power structures and authority figures in her life, from her family to Disney to genre defining within the music business.

to the laws of the United States in the world. Like, this is what she does. So, and this, I think, is the perfect illustration of, like, where she was and how sharp of a zag this was given that. In August of 2015, she is hosting the VMAs. She is hosting the ceremony for all of the controversy. Right. They brought her back.

They brought her back. because she's Miley fucking Cyrus. Exactly. Of course they brought her back. And towards the end of the ceremony, she announces that her album, Miley Cyrus and her dead pets with a Z, is going to be independently released on SoundCloud.

It is free for listeners to download. And she's surprise dropping it right then and there. Which I will, I do want to contextualize a little bit. this was very much the moment of, you know, Beyonce had dropped a surprise album. You're getting Drake mixtapes. There is this sort of idea that you can do a project that might be seen. This is not the case.

And for Beyonce, you could argue with some of the Drake mixtapes, it was. If you wanted something to be seen as a little bit more minor than like a full, you know, with your chest album project, there were these ways. to just put it out into the world and have it be taken, I don't want to say less seriously, but a little bit differently than a full-scale album cycle

with promotion and a long lead-up and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So for as much as this released feels like it is just from the id of Miley Cyrus, to some extent, the way that she just dropped it was actually on-trend for stuff that was happening in the music industry around that time

in that one specific way. Tells the VMA's audience and everyone that it's coming out. She finishes the show performing Do It, which is the lead single. She shoots glitter out of her crotch. She's got a bunch of queens from Drag Race as her backup dancers. It's very fun. It's very weird. Eat your heart out, Chapel Rhone.

Totally. And then she drops the album. Obviously, it gets a lot of coverage as a novelty. I think if we are being honest, this music sank like a stone in terms of the public's actual consumption of it. I don't think that there is really very much here at all that has stood the test of time. that doesn't mean that there's nothing worthy or good or interesting here. I think there is a lot that doesn't fit those descriptions. But I think this album has lived on a lot more as this fucking crazy thing that Miley Cyrus decided to do

than as an actual collection of music, which does make the category of what the greatest hit here is a little bit confounding. First of all, Nathan, anything that you want to say about just the timeline, Or do you want to just jump in to... No. No, I think there are some things about this that have lived on. I think it has a intense cult following. Let's put it that way. The Twinkle song that she played...

It was the second song that she played on S-N-Hell. Yeah. Where she's screaming, what does it bane? What's... That is a meme that lives on today. Like, I see that in. my feed on the regular basis. Because it got, in like, like three or four years after this came out, it got huge on TikTok.

It was a huge TikTok sound. And then that clip, I think, has sort of existed and become memed and sort of entered culture. I'm sure there are people listening to this right now who just heard you say that and went, oh, I never knew what that was from. It's from Miley Cyrus and her dead pets. and with a Z in the end, everyone, just to be clear. I mean, look, Pablo the Blowfish lives on for me. But it's, I mean, this album came out in August,

and I just remember a few months later, I had girls at that point in time who were like 10 and 8. And it was on SoundCloud, and so it just wasn't a thing that I was paying that much attention to. But I just remember, I think we were driving to like mammoth from Los Angeles, which is like a four and a half hour drive. And at some point on the way from mammoth to Los Angeles,

there's this airplane bone yard, which is like where airplanes that are being retired, they just go to die. And so there's this huge desert area that just has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of all kinds of different planes that are just parked there to just die. And it's very, it's kind of weird and creepy.

And it's a thing. And I started going through the album as we were driving by the Boneyard. And I'd just never forget, I was like, you know, I started with Do It, and I was like, oh, God, something's wrong. So I just fast forward to fees. I couldn't find anything that seemed to be right. And so I'd saw this song, Pablo the Blowfish.

And I go to Pablo the Blowfish. And I got two kids in the back seat who are thinking, maybe we're getting best of both worlds part two or something. And when I tell you that their faces scrunched up, like I'd fed them 25 lemons covered in Tabasco's all at once, like she's like why does everything I love have to die you don't know what a cloud is

why did everything I love have to die then her friends are eating sushi and she's freaking out she says watching my friends eat my friends ruined my appetite then there's some sea horse name Sadie that they're going to make babies and just what the fuck is going on

Then she starts breaking down in like audible sobs and crying about Pablo finding love. Then she bangs the piano at the end and she laughs. It is the most confusing few minutes of music that could have ever been played for a grown human being, much less an eight and 10 year old girl who were fans of Miley Cyrus. I mean, it just, I can't. It is the strangest thing that's ever again. existed. That said, there is no hit on this album. There's no hit. If there's a hit, I think it's got to be the Twinkle song because it's continued. I don't think the fact that Do It was the original

single and so it probably has more streams is indicative of anything. It's either Pablo the Blowfish or Twinkle song, which happened to be the two last songs on the album song. She wrote songs where she's just playing piano, songs where she cries and bangs on the piano to finish it. Yeah, it has to be Twinkle song. You're right that Do It is the one that technically has the most dreams. But I have a feeling that in this case, that includes a lot of people who are like, oh, hey, what's this Miley Cyrus album about? Oh, my God.

Next? It was really one of the lowest parenting moments of my life. Did you, like, if I asked your girls about this now, do you think they would have, like, blocked it from their memories as a traumatic incident? One thousand percent they still talk about Pablo the boy. blowfish. Like, what did you do to us? Why were you trying to ruin our car ride, dad? My daughters are coming home from college in three weeks, and they will be walking around the house for fewer than three days in one of them while breezing through the kitchen will look at me

and go, Pablo the blowfish. It's like their entire town burned down three months ago, and this might have been a more traumatic experience. I mean, here's what I'll say. I think Pablo the Blowfish is the best song. Okay. Really? Yeah. If you're going to be weird, let's be really weird. And let's be weird with a personality.

Because here's my problem with a lot of this music. Is that for all of the risk-taking, which I really admire, and all of the sort of, like, charisma that I think comes through Miley generally and is really backed up by the fact that she just would go and do this. a lot of this music sounds like what on some level it is trying to communicate, which is what it feels like and the general vibe when you are high as fuck and can barely think. Yeah. And if you are not, that's actually not a very interesting state of being,

particularly because it really mucks up all the things that make Miley charming and incisive and funny and someone who you just sort of want to be around. But then all of the sudden, all of a sudden, after, mind you, we have gotten through Miley Tibetan bowlsz with three Zs in the title, which is a song. Recorded by Billy Ray Cyrus. Recorded by Billy Ray Cyrus of Miley hitting her Tibetan bowls and singing, included basically as a fuck you to members of her team who were like, hey man, this album is too long. And she was like, well, screw you.

I'm adding Miley Tibetan Bowls to the set list. Yeah. There is something charming about Pablo the Blowfish. You lived under the water, but I loved you so much. Like, the heart of this person, I believe that she felt that way about Pablo the Blowfish. I really do. And it's completely insane. But it's, but it's, all of this is completely insane.

But some of it is completely insane. a way that I think comes across is like, this is an interesting portrait of where Miley is. And then if you talk about, I think Pablo the Blowfish is the most real song on this album. No way. The Blowfish is from the heart. BB talk is more real. How could you possibly say that? BB talk is out of control bonkers.

I mean, it is, I mean, and we're not even at bang me box yet. We'll be there in a second. Okay. Here's what I, bang. Bank, not bad. I want you to back. It's a groove. This is where I'm going.

You need to spend more time with this out. Part of the problem is this thing's 90 minutes long. And it has some of those interludes that you're not into anymore. So the song count is less of a thing. In particular, when the interludes are fucking fucked up, where it's 50 seconds of Miley saying fucking fucked up in like the voice modulated bangers voice and that it's over. Or I'm so drunk.

Yeah, that's a thing. but bang me box is a fucking groove. It's kind of like a fleawood Mac bass line. Like everybody needs to have to listen to this song just once. I mean, I think it is technically a queer anthem. We'll come back on that. I think BB Talk is the most honest. I agree.

Pablo is just, obviously, I bear the scars. The best song in this album is lighter. Okay, I would also, yeah, lighter is also good. I think the songs that are real songs to me that are like listenable songs that have musical merit are bang me box lighter and slab of butter I can also get by yes yes I think it's it's got soul and groove for sure lighter she wrote that in the song in the shower for Ariana Grande and Ariana Grande could have sung that song and it would have come across completely differently but I'm glad that Miley kept it I want the chorus to soar a little bit more, and it doesn't, but it has a ton of potential. There's some tiny little shades of Fortnite in this song.

And I'm a sucker for the 80s synths here. I think there's, I got the conspiracy corner for you later on. But lighter, I think, is the best song in this album. There's some more insightful ones like, you know, across this album, I don't know what's going on with space boots and something about space dude. Like she was dating an astronaut.

Who, how does she meet an astronaut? We'll ask. I did put down in my notes. Is this, Miley's down bad? Show me that this world is bigger than us than sent me back where I came from. Yeah, there you go. you're getting you're getting what I'm footing down you're ficking up when I'm

footing down how about this album you're starting to figure it out but I mean baby talk she calls her last boyfriend a dickhead she talks about PDA in front of the guy's mom it's basically a song about ick right I mean yeah it's about getting the ick from Patrick Schwarzenegger because he used baby talk too much in front of her and but she had a 15 minute orgasm with him And then remember there was that one time that I had like a 15 minute. Oh, that was kind of the best thing in the entire roll. Yes. And his armpit smells good and she wants to lick his teeth.

Yeah. I mean, she says it right off the bat. All right. So this is really fucked up. But yeah, yes, it is. And that's how I feel about the whole album. Let me just say that that opening line comes right after the first little 50 second interlude, which is in fact fucking fucked up.

So you've just heard Miley say fucking fucked up for about a minute over and over again. And then it goes to the next song and she goes, okay, this is really fucked up. But. All right. So this is really fucked up. But all right. I was sleeping next to him. Yeah.

I mean, I think that I fall in your camp, which is that sometimes people who do too many drugs and find some meaning through it, find a little bit too much meaning in it. and aren't able to connect the insights back to reality in the real world and just sort of come off being, like, seeming like they're just drug addicts. You know what I mean? I say that not like in a majority, but it's just like you overread the depth of understanding in an experience like that.

Sometimes if you're not too careful, and if you don't synthesize it into sort of digestible, insights. This brings us into her process. Like a lot of this feels like a total drug haze, right? Do it feels like an actual drug trip. The fucking fucked up stuff feels like an actual, I mean, it's all short, but I'm so drunk seems like the least of her issues, right? She talks about doing pills here. She talks about there's just a lot that's happening from a drug perspective in Miley Cyrus's life. and it's hard to figure out how much of this is actual real deep meaningful insight

versus her being like, you know, what the fuck is God? It's like, okay. Yeah, that's a really good question, but I don't know if in the middle of, you know, a song, it's as sort of deep and rich as you might get elsewhere. Well, and I think sometimes she's trying to do

like Lucy in the sky with diamonds, but then it comes out as the sun is a giant spaceship Tangerine. The sun is a giant. Or it comes out as I had a dream David Bowie taught us how to skateboard but he was shaped like Gumbie.

I had a dream. David Bowie taught us how to skateboard but he was shaped like Gumbie. I do think that to your point there is this like And sometimes she sort of sticks the landing where, and I'm going to take BB talk way more seriously than I actually take it here for a second.

But when she, the line, you put me in these fucking situations where I look like a dumbass bitch and I'm not a fucking dumbass bitch. Yes. You put me in these fucking situations where I look like a dumb ass bitch and I'm not a fucking dumb ass bitch. It's all stream of consciousness. To your point, honest. Thank you. She's really telling us a lot here. It's just milky, milky mixed milk.

It's like a sex-fueled drug trip. And the middle of it, she's like, what the fuck is God? It's like, I don't know, Miley, but you're not- Milk. Your tongue making me so hard. And I'm sucking on your nipples. Okay. Licking milky-milky-milky stars.

Okay. Okay. Miley, what the fuck? Yeah, that's not really the moment to say, what the fuck is God? and to have a real, you know, Feuerbachian intellectual debate over, over what God is.

It feels just like you're a little bit lost. And it is a little cliche to ask those questions while on mind-altering drugs, right? Yes. You might have, and that's why I actually like Bebe Talk because there's something so direct and richer and more honest about that than just like,

the whoa, man, the walls are talking to me. Yeah, okay, thanks. Did we have to do 90 minutes of that? And also, it actually is something that Miley has a little bit more ability to speak to in a way that, you know, she's a young person. She's having these relationships and she's just really annoyed that he can't stop using this baby voice that's totally giving her the ick. Yeah. Like that is very much a real thing that happened to her that she's able to communicate in a way that. It feels, I'm certainly not going to say profound, but again, to use your word honest.

Everybody has had that relationship with somebody who they're physically attracted to, but who just has that thing where you're just like, oh, they have bad breath. They've got vocal fry. They're just like annoying in some way. Or yes, they like, I beg you don't embarrass me, motherfucker. Like, art is cyclical. Please, please, please. These are universal experiences.

I mean, look, by the end of this album, like, Tiger Dreams and Tangerine, I mean, first of all, Big Sean is back? Why is Big Sean back? Oh, my God. Big Sean doesn't know why Big Sean is back. Man, but I'm supposed to rise, though, when shit just hold me down.

I'm supposed to shine, man, through all the smoking clouds. Big Sean's got no idea why Big Sean is back. I do wonder if when Miley says that this album cost $50,000, $1,000 to make, was Big Sean 45? Like, what percentage of the budget went to convincing Big Sean to do this feature that he sounds so disinterested in? Yeah, he doesn't even know what he's supposed to do. I mean, how do you feel about Tangerine versus his previous appearance on Love Money Party? I walk in sort of late.

My girl and wives both coordinate. They both got that gorgeous face. They both shine. They both mine. I think on Love Money Party, he was a lot more up for the experience. This song sounds like the Peter Gabriel song, We Do What We're Told, which made an appearance in Miami Vice and comes from an awesome album.

But by the time we get into this part of the album, Tandrine, Tiger Dreams, Evil is But a Shadow. Like, it's enough already. Like Tiger Dreams, I just want to jump in, get her to end whatever fucking relationship she's in where she's got this uncertainty and is feeling unfulfilled. It's like, get her out. Like, do we need another Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon vibe song? Or can we just end this relationship? It is worth noting, though, that like, musically, across a lot of this, it does feel like the more psychedelic parts and in particular,

like, I don't know, in the beginning, Karen don't be sad, which actually we need to talk about for a little bit. but like it feels like the Flaming Lips album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Sure. Which a lot of people will remember that song, Do You Realize? And there are threads of that through a ton of this album. And I do think she was intrigued with the musicianship of that band and that that sort of is what attracted her to doing something that certainly was a turn away from the synth pop stuff of bangers. But by the time you get to the back.

of this record. There's just, it is enough. It is enough already. That said, like, I'm not shooting Miley Tabetian bowls into the sun because it's funny as fuck that she did it. And I mean, first of all, have you ever done a sound bath?

Yes. You have. Yeah. Did it put you right to sleep? I don't think it put me to sleep, but I've felt very relaxed. I did that shit in Palm Springs, I cannot sleep.

I do not sleep at all. That shit put me to sleep in the middle of the day. my mom to sleep right in the middle of the fucking day. My mom can't sleep either. So her dad's there recording these sound bowls and she's, like you said, she's only doing it to just kind of, as a fuck you. I love it. And then we're into Pablo the Blowfish and Twinkle song. It's just the stuff before that that feels like, oh, all right. Are we saying something that really matters? So I'm with you on later. I think later is actually great. You mentioned the sense. I love those big drums. Then we have tangerine. And the stretch of tangerine.

Tiger Dreams, evil is but a shadow, Cyrus Skies. One son I have some time for just because I think it's kind of a wake-up America part, part two. And I'm interested in that to a degree because she's talking about the environment. But there's stuff. There's stuff there. Like on one son, she says she's always been, I always felt like I was running a little behind. I'm like, what? Like, she's always been so precocious and like a head. What does that mean exactly?

Yeah. And even on Cyrus Skies, which to me, it's got some like you two love is blindness stuff in it. Like even there, she's like, yeah, I've been alive, but I've been a liar. Like, does she actually feel that way? Like, is that her talking about what she was doing? in the role of Hannah Montana pretending to be this wholesome Disney person when in fact she was this rebel. There are nuggets that come out of it.

And again, it's like any person on a trip who, drug trip, who is saying things, most of it is complete gobbledy-gook nonsense. But there are little bits of insight that come out of each of these songs. So I get lost along the way. Like evil is but a shadow. That's a really interesting title. and it's like that song to me is like that S&L sketch that they play at 1245 that either works

or super fucking doesn't. But this is exactly the position that the song belongs and it feels like a reach and she's going for it. I don't get a lot of repetition across all these songs which is why it made it hard for me to decide like what I would cut. Was it easy for you? So no in the sense that I agree with you. It all like if evils but a shadow was

eighth or ninth instead of where it is. It's entirely possible that I would have a different reaction to it. You know, look, I sort of unabashedly, I like my pop songs with hooks. That is obviously not what the Miley Cyrus and her dead pets project is about. And so that's not a standard that I think is fair to hold this music to. That said, there is something when you are in, you know, the 75th minute of this. where I'm just going like, yeah, okay, you know, Cyrus, guys, I agree with you. I've been a liar is an interesting concept.

It even has this almost sort of outlaw vibe to it that's sort of interesting to me. And it does hearken to that lingering connection to country, even when she's playing with very different. Just get to it. You'd cut the whole album. I would not cut the whole. No, I would definitely not cut the whole album. I am deeply grateful that this exists. And I would...

It's not for the comedy. And for the fact that, for the proof that you can do it, for the proof that she fucking pulled it off, for the proof that like Miley Cyrus was just, was, you know, at the Met Gala last night. And everybody's so excited to see her.

And she is as relevant in culture as ever and has had this super interesting career. The fact that she could make this detour, I'm absolutely. grateful for and I wouldn't change a thing. I do think that the that stretch, Tangerine and Tiger Dreams can we can kill. Yeah. That is where I just sort of started putting down a lot of notes about like you've just lost me on this as a musical project that's designed to be listened to in earnest and I'm tired. And it's been a long time. Miley,

you've had my attention for a long time and I just can't do it anymore. What do you think is the universe of people who have streamed this album front to back more than 10 times? Like, ironic hipsters. People, like, I think it's people who do it ironically. Like, there was a Troy Svon tweet from like five years ago where it was like Miley Cyrus and her dead pets ahead of its time. And that's a joke. Like, that's meant ingest to some degree, or it's meant as, let me demonstrate that I know this quasi-niche pop culture reference. Right.

And I think it's that. I think it's within that sort of universe that people are really... You don't think there's anybody out there who's like, I mean, look, I was in the gym this week multiple times listening to this album. And there is nothing on the planet I can think of that is worse to listen to when you're working out. than Miley Cyrus and her dead pets. Not because it's awful, but because it just is, there's nothing motivating about Floyd,

her dog being shredded by coyotes and the scorpion. Did she kill the scorpion? Why does she always kill these pets? Why does everything die on her watch? What the, like that line of thought does not help you push heavy things. So I just can't imagine that there's any other context. It's not a party album.

It doesn't go on for Sunday, brunch. Like, what is the context under which you'd put this on? Unless, unless there is a elite group of stoners that maybe, again, in the, in the 70s, 80s, people would put on dark side of the moon and go to sleep because they thought it gave them wild dreams and, like, people would just get baked and listen to it. Maybe there's some group of people who just wake and bake and roll Miley Cyrus and are dead pets. But other than that, I cannot believe there's anybody who in their right mind wakes up and is like, I'm going to go stream this shit for the next 90 minutes. Well, I would even extend that to my impression that some of the songs that are not only, like,

have elements of quality to them when you and I sit here and really analyze it and, like, okay, content aside. And also the content is interesting. bang me box that's a listenable song that is a song that you could put on a playlist and listen to within the context of other songs that weren't part of a project like this

and it would feel like it makes sense same thing with lighter but I don't think that has happened with those songs no because they're in this package it wasn't on streaming services for two years outside of SoundCloud

But I, so it just, you'd have to come back and discover it. At the same time, you do not know Miley Cyrus, period, anybody. But like, as an outsider, you cannot understand Miley Cyrus without listening to this album. And like really listening to this album because she's telling you some things. She's also like, I said this earlier, but just to come back to it, there is something very sad going on here. I mean, there are some lines that read to me as among the more genuine and insightful. Like, I get so high because you're not here smoking my weed on space boots. And yeah, okay, because it's about like getting stoned.

It's sort of in line with, okay, Miley, we get it, you do drugs. Piece of it, but there's loneliness there. You know, something in the way you fuck me, but you're never fucking there. Again, like, it all gets wrapped up in the sex and drugs and all of that. But there's just a lot that's about loneliness and feeling abandoned and death and loss. I think I'm dying, but I'm just stripping. Start spiraling down this hole. That's why I think just on a listen,

even if you thought this was like creatively genius, and if it was just refreshing to see someone in an unafraid way take their star power and culture moving ability out for a test drive in the weirdest possible way. Like if you didn't ask, is Miley okay on listening to this?

I think something wasn't human about you. Yeah. Yeah. There are things that forget that, you know, we've eliminated a lot of the social norms or broken down the faux of some forms of drug use, you know, legalized marijuana and some states, on and on. But like, there's a lot on here.

And it is so confessional. And I do think at the end of the day, looking back 10 years, that's the art of this album, is it's just as the performance on the VMAs in 2014, not 2015, when she dropped this, but 2014, with the foam finger and so forth. She was ridiculed and criticized. It was cringy, but she was, I think, pretty clearly playing a character.

Right. On this album, maybe she's playing a character, but this one is so brutally honest about where she is. And again, BB Talk and some other things are just so, it's such a window into the world of someone who just is having life experiences that are Taylor Swift-esque, like totally different than most human beings ever will have. It's cringy in its own way if you're not, if you're not careful. And so I think that might have been the point of this,

right? I'm not sure it was sold that way, but that might have been the point was to shock you with its honesty. Yeah, and there also might not have been a point to it in some ways, right? Like she, she talks a lot at this time about... In contrast, it might have all just been a bunch of bullshit. Well, but it doesn't, even if there wasn't a concerted point to it, I don't think that means it's bullshit. I think it's an impulse. I think she was exercising an impulse. And she talked a lot in interviews around this time about if her friends didn't see her for two weeks, they might see her the next time and have to relearn who she was as a person. And I think, like, I really relate

to having a period of growing up when you're in your late teens or early 20s where that feels true. I think I can say, as I bet Miley would as well now, that though we obviously all, you know, grow and shift and develop new interests and learn as people and change to some degree as a result of that, that's not actually like there are core rooting principles and foundational elements of anyone as a result of that. That's not actually like there are core rooting principles and foundational elements of anyone as a person. And if you feel that you are drastically changing your personality on a weekly basis, that's probably not great. But she just was really in that zone. And I think that's a very like normal space to be in as a person of roughly the age that she was when she was doing this. I don't necessarily think that it means that profound truths were being shared as, although some might have been, but that this was all, you know, a pointed expression of something that she was really clear on wanting to communicate. I think there's more id to it than that. Okay. Well, Wayne Coyan, it's not like he's the arbiter of artistic genius necessarily, but he said she's like the most fearless artist that he's ever worked with. So I don't think.

think he would have spent a ton of time in like some project that was just sort of fuck all throw away. I mean, there was something that attracted him to doing this. I don't know. I think it's emotionally, I think what I'm saying is that I think there is real emotional honesty here. I don't know that there is intellectual honesty here. I think Miley is making a lot of assertions that this is saying something that I'm not totally sure it says. But I think that there is something that comes through in the risk-taking of the overall project and then in snippets through the songs where she's responding to real impulses. And I can see how that would be really compelling to be around, particularly when it's coming from someone who has this

very commercial background and all of a sudden wants to do this other thing. All right. Well, if you don't want to take it too seriously, then you're really going to hate my conspiracy corner. I love it. Please. Lay it on me. Miley Cyrus and her dead pets inspired folklore.

Oh, God. Surprise drop. Dad band collaboration. Total genre shift. An album completely unexpected out of nowhere collaborating with a creator

who'd reach the peak of indie dad rock island. That's folklore, Nora. I think the flaming lips and the national occupy the exact same. Like those are different dads.

One group of those dads has a woodworking studio. The other group of those dads has an in air quotes woodworking studio where those dads go to not do any woodworking. They were both kind of random projects. I don't want to poo-poo your idea here

because I love where you're coming from. I love how twisted and tinfoil hat you're going with this one, since that is usually my mode. I would love to give Taylor Allison some truth serum and say, hey, Taylor, you know folklore, you know that Grammy-winning album that you're super proud of? Was that inspired by the Miley Cyrus psychedelic rock album about dead animals? Look, it's at least worth an ask.

There's lots of ghost imagery and witch-jews. dead stuff in the woods. I mean, it's possible. It's all I'm saying. Here's what I'll say. Here's what I'll say. Here's a connection that I'm very willing to draw. I think in addition to getting into the flaming lip stuff,

which clearly she was around this time, I think that Miley Cyrus, very much like Taylor Swift around 2014, 2015, was listening to a lot of Lana Del Rey. Yes. And that comes through to me, in some of the lyrics, also just in some of the general gauzyness of it all. And that is a quality that I think shows up on folklore within the Taylorverse.

I mean, I do wonder what Taylor thought of this. Because think about in that New York Times piece, she kind of goes out of her way. And I don't think this was out of any like unfriendliness, at least to what I know. I know that a few years before this, they were genuinely friends and spent time together. But Miley kind of goes out of her way to say that she's not trying to be in the squad and that only having famous friends is like not grounding to her. And I believe Taylor even, like Taylor's mentioned in the article because it's just such an obvious reference. Doing this is the mirror opposite of what Taylor Swift is doing in the lead up to 1989. or right after 1989.

Right. And look, I'm being tongue in cheek with my conspiracy theory, but I do think the more that we delve into this, the more there are striking parallels in their careers and opposites. And I wonder if you did the injecting of Taylor Swift with Truth Serum, whether she would tell you that from a, not competitor, but the, you know, from a contemporary peer standpoint, that certainly when she started, she thought about Miley Cyrus as being that, as being her biggest contemporary in this moment.

And that's not to say that like Taylor made decisions based on, but they do have a lot of intertwined history and they go in some different directions at different times that don't, you know, if you overlay the sort of lifeline of their careers, they happen in different ways for sure. But I agree with you on the Lana Del Rey stuff, by the way. Like, there's a song Fweeke that we didn't really talk about that I actually don't mind it. Like on the way out, the na-na-naz at the end,

but that sounds like Lana Del Rey, and she's talking about smoking bowls and taking pills. And so there's a lot that is borrowed on all of this for sure. Tiger Dreams, too, has a Lana thing. going. Just to be clear, I'm saying that I can see Taylor having taken note

of what Miley was doing because it's the mirror opposite. I'm not saying that as evidence that they would. Yeah, because look, when I say that there's tons of artists who we hear in songs write a lot about this impulse

of what would it be like if I just burned it all down and said what I really feel and stopped paying attention to the commercial impulses, that's Taylor Swift in a lot of ways, right? Like, we've heard that from her. And I don't mean this as a criticism. I think it's just a fact.

With every passing album cycle, you're getting, you get the activations with the brands. You get the tricks of the trade to do well on streaming. And again, I'm not knocking it. But I'm just saying that when you hear the, you hear the inner monologue, but then you see in the actions, well, she's not taking that path. Yeah. Miley for a second took the path. And so I'm sure Taylor paid attention.

I'm sure she watched it with a lot of interest. And I just, the only thing I say is maybe they're related, maybe they're not. But in both cases, like Dead Pets was Miley sort of outsourcing a lot of the musical creation and allowing her to do the thing that she in the moment did really best, which was like shock with honesty. And I think folklore is not ostensibly very much about Taylor Swift, although we think it's more than she publicly said. Indeed.

She spoke about it as being a lot of sketches. But she took, even Boni very recently said this. Like she took what were effectively Big Red Machine demos and did what she does incredibly well, which is write melody and lyric to them. And so both projects leaned on another collaborator to allow them to do what they did best. And so that's probably where the connection between the two of them stop.

But I just do wonder if Taylor Allison has looked over the transom at the other boat now and then that is being sailed by Miley Cyrus and at least take a note. For sure. In terms of collaborator, I put down Wayne. Yeah, it is. I did make a little note of and or mushrooms. Right. whose contributions can't be discounted here.

But I think that's a pretty clear-cut one. For my conspiracy corner, I brought it up earlier. I just, and this is maybe more of an Easter egg than a conspiracy corner, but I just completely forgot she dated Schwarzenegger. Yeah. I really, I mean, the idea of Miley Cyrus and Saxon Ratliff together, even though I knew it happened, had completely been memory hold for me. And it really was a wild ride going through some of the photos of the two of them.

Like, they went to Coachella. They were very much out and about together. She's wearing some outfits. He's still Patrick Schwarzenegger. He looks exactly the same. She looks pretty different, which is the other thing that's kind of trippy about it. But, man, I had forgotten about that relationship. Did you have a peak, Miley?

I mean... The whole thing is peak, Miley. The whole thing is peak Miley, right? It's like, to me, it's like in a sex-fueled drug trip in the middle of Milky, Milky Milk. She has what the fuck is God. And that, to me, is Miley in a nutshell, like completely out there, beholden to no one,

equal parts cartoonish, and exploring the depths of life on her own terms in her own way for all of us to watch. And maybe internally affected by what other people think, but outwardly anyway, seemingly carefree about, what the fuck you think about her. Yeah, I mean, the other thing that I would say for that is, is that line from Twinkle song where she says,

I had a dream that I didn't give a fuck, but I give a fuck. Mm-hmm. I had a dream. Give a fuck. But I give a fuck. And that's very mildy. That's very mildy to me.

That's another way in which those last two songs, I think there's a little bit more. clarity in some ways that like comes out at the end, which is kind of nice. I mean, next album appetizers is near impossible here. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, on the one hand, there's nothing. But on the other hand, like, it did sort of free her up to go do whatever the fuck she wants. She, like, put a steak in the ground that says, I'm anywhere, I'm everywhere.

And whether that is as the cover artist of the Beatles, whether that is, you know, the synth pop that had preceded this or some kind of completely insane song about dead fish and drugs and sex, she's going to do it. And so that, there's something about this from an artistic standpoint

that at least you know it's going to be interesting. If you got through the, do we need to be worried about Miley? Is this a cry for help? Or is this really an artistic exploration? if you get to this is an artistic exploration and she's okay, then you lean in and say, well, what the hell is she going to do next? Yeah.

I think it's funny because up to this point, we've talked so much about her fighting back against or reacting to what she felt like were these expectations or these conditions that were put upon her artistry and how every past album that we've talked about it's been marketed, at least in part by her, as this wiping the slate clean. And in some ways it seems like

that was never totally successful because she kept talking about wanting to wipe the slate clean. This one does it. That is, like, we have, we have started fresh with Miley Cyrus's overall place

in the musical landscape with this because it was so unexpected. We've talked about a lot of lyrics. Yeah, we do. We did. We did. I mean, there's three for me. It's, it's, we've talked about it. The only laws I obey are the ones I'm making for myself. So why you make me play on the rules of someone else from slab of butter, I thought was really interesting. Yeah, I've been alive, but I've been a liar from Cyrus Skies. Yeah. I think is a pretty interesting ayahuasca takeaway. But you're just never going to beat watching my friends eat my friends ruined my appetite from Pablo the Blowfish. I think that's right. The only other one that I would shout out is also from Slab of Butter.

Self-control is not something I'm working on. There you go. Yes, indeed, Miley. We've clocked that by now. It follows that line I gave you. You're exactly. Totally. Totally.

I do think she really stuck the landing on that one. I would go with, my choice would be a tie between that and watching my friends eat my friends. Ballad of a cannibal child. Honorary mention to, there's a few lyrics that fall into this category, but on I get so scared, they say love grows, but I've only seen it die.

I'm too young to feel like I'm running out of time. There's a couple, there's this little undercurrent of stuff about time and youth and feeling like she's behind or running, like that, it's buried in all of the, you know, drug-fueled haze and the sex and the more drugs and the we're going to get fucked up and I'm fucked up and the Miley Tibetan bowls and everything. But there is, there's still this, there's this thing about like growing up and if you want to do

the work of sifting through is kind of interesting. How on earth are we going to grade Miley Cyrus? her dead pets. I gave it four question marks. All in a row. It's ungradable. I mean, really, it's ungradable. It was not put out to be graded.

It's beneath the effort to give it a grade. It would also be just impossible. Yeah, I'll go with five marijuana leaves out of an undisclosed number. Yeah, five seems like not enough. If you're going to go with marijuana leaves. 600? 642? 13 on a scale of 10.

And four, unfortunately, deceased pet blowfish is. And Patrick Schwarzenegger's teeth. And Patrick Schwarzenegger's teeth. And that is the answer. That is the grade. Nathan, this has really been a joy. I really can't believe that circumstances brought us to a place where we could actually spend this time talking about Miley Cyrus and

her dead pets. But I can say unequivocally, I'm very glad that we did. Same. This has been every single album, Miley Cyrus. As always, I'm Nora Pinceati. He's Nathan Hubbard. Thank you to Kaya McMullen for producing this episode and we'll talk to you next week.