Every Single Album - 'Younger Now' | Every Single Album: Miley Cyrus

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

With 'Younger Now,' Miley Cyrus debuted a softer side of herself after 'Bangerz' and 'Dead Petz.' Nora and Nathan talk about why this album should work in theory but doesn't quite get there (1:00), the breakout hit of "Malibu" (29:28), and which song Nathan believes Taylor Swift might have been influenced by (38:33). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan HubbardProducer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Look, it's not that confusing. I'm Rob Harvilla, host of the podcast 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, except we did 120 songs. And now we're back with the 2000s. I refuse to say aughts. 2000 to 2009. The Strokes, Rihanna, J-Lo, Kanye, sure. And now the show is called 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, colon the 2000s. Wow.

That's too long a title for me to say anything else right now. Just trust me. That's 60 songs that explain the 90s, Colon, the 90s. in the 2000s, preferably on Spotify. Every single album, I'm Nora Prince-Diatti, and I am joined, as always, by Nathan Hubbard. Nathan, how does it feel to be podcasting in the post-every-single album, Miley Cyrus and her Dead Pets era for the first time? I feel like I have a hangover.

I'm grouchy. I knew this would happen. I'm tired. And I don't like this album younger now, Nora. Younger now is what we are here to talk about today. And I'm excited for the conversation, although I knew this was going to happen. I knew you were going to be so bummed that now,

like after all of this buildup, half of which felt like it was a fake joke that would never happen, we do Miley Cyrus and her dead pets. And like, you're never going to want a podcast with me again. Of course I want a podcast with you. We are moving towards something beautiful that Miley this week said,

is a sister album to dead pets. She said that. There's no possible way it is, but I couldn't be more excited to continue on this journey now because I may be hung over from last week, but it sounds like there are more drinks in my future. Yeah, Dead Pets is dead.

Dead Pets will never die. I believe her when she says that it could be a sister album to dead pets, even though that feels like it's not possible. I have, from the jump, and you know, we have gotten so big on Miley, and I think we were getting so much out of this. But I have said from the jump that this album could end up being weird.

And it could be weird in a fabulous way, and it could be weird in a totally weird way. And so in some ways, I thought that made sense that she clocked that reference. Yeah. I mean, I'm into more to lose for what it's worth. So there are some things around the edges here that are enticing. And I am particularly interested as we move into this.

discussion about her new album because it feels like there's consistency and purpose to all of it in the way that she's pulled it together with the visuals. And I'm excited because, Nora, I'm just going to say it. There is so much to love about Miley Cyrus. She has put, as we've talked about, songs on the Mount Rushmore of 21st century pop anthemic stuff. And if you were just dropped into culture from the sky, if you were an alien and you were Taylor's Down bad alien coming in to being down,

and somebody played you younger now, you would have this reaction, I think, that I had to this album, which is like, Miley Cyrus in some ways has made incredible songs and mediocre albums. That's not true, but it's, it is a take that at times, you know, I think bangers doesn't get enough credit, and I think that I've actually gone back to it more than I thought on this journey. You know how I feel about Meet Miley Cyrus. There are songs that are just eternal from my perspective.

but I just, there isn't an album that I hold in my hand and treasure because of it start to finish fully. And the thing that bums me out about younger now is that it is exactly the album that I would have wanted her to make as a fan in that moment coming out of the crazy, like, character stuff of bangers, then into what in the fuck is going on with Miley Cyrus and her dead pets. I actually, this is the record that I wanted her to make in theory, which is one producer. So you've got consistency all the way through. Less of the sort of histrionics and demonstrative stuff in the songs. Maybe tilting a little bit away from the sort of hip-hop infusion synth-pop stuff and maybe back to some of that country pop rock stuff that we got maybe through the climb and in that sort of, you know, Oh, nine, oh, 10, just to hear her get back. So all of those things, box checked, box checked, box checked, all the way down.

We'll talk about the purpose for some of that pivot for her today. But it's when I put it on and I go front to back, it should be more than it is for me. And you tell me, and then I'm going to get off my soapbox here. But I feel like, you know, there have been times on this podcast, Nora, where you have said, you're the champion of this phrase, but you're like, if she doesn't care, why should we? And with this album, when it came out, almost immediately she told her she wasn't going to tour, almost immediately she told us she was already two songs deep into something else. It's like she knew it too. It's like it was something she had to do, but that she knew it wasn't her greatest.

And so for that reason, I think, you know, this album debuted at number five and you'll set the scene for us, but it just didn't move me in the way that with almost everything else she's created, there have been moments where I've been moved. What about you? I think globally I really respond to what you said at the beginning of that, which is that I think I asked you a couple weeks ago, does Miley Cyrus have a classic album? Yeah.

And I don't, I think the answer might be no. Or if it's yes, it's either bangers because I do think that it is deeper than it gets credit for. And also just because the aesthetics of the album are so strong and so indelible that I do give it some credit for creating a whole world around the album. Yeah. But other than that, and I do think that you could, it's not. It can't be. It can't possibly be dead pets. I love dead pets so much, but it can't possibly be dead pets.

Oh, it should be dead pets. But there's no, like, I guess I'm just sort of trying to understand why I think we don't think of Miley Cyrus as kind of a singles artist. And I don't mean that pejoratively at all, but I mean in the way that we think about, like, Rihanna, right, as one of the iconic singles artists of the last couple of decades, you know, and longer than that. And just that that's kind of her medium. And I kind of think that's true of my league.

It is. Because we're going to talk about flowers and we're going to talk, you know, I mean, come on. And the song, Malibu. Which might be the, it might have been until I just said that word Malibu that some of the people listening to this are going, gosh, younger now. I kind of remember that was a Miley Cyrus album. Right. This is the one with Malibu.

Malibu. That's probably how you remember this album. Because Malibu, the song, has 861 million Spotify streams, which is 10 times that of Younger Now, which is another single from from this album before, as you point out, she said, you know what, we're not going to do any more singles and I'm not going to tour it. And I'm more focused on the voice now because she was a coach on the voice at that time. And I'm on to the next thing because this music doesn't really represent me anymore. obviously not the first time that we've shared a story with that arc coming from Miley. That's Peak Miley. We've already covered it. Yeah. Peak Miley is it's out and I'm on to the next thing, motherfuckers. But beyond younger now, which has the benefit of being the title track and first and everything,

and it's still a tenth of Malibu. Anything else on this album is like a 40th at best in terms of how much people out in the world have chosen to engage and consume this album. And you almost want to say that that's because she's gone in these directions and bangers was such a shocker and Dead Pets was such an ayahuasca trip. But I just, I think you could make that case

if the songs themselves were stronger. I think Malibu, I can't wait to hear your thoughts on Malibu, but it's the rest of the album sounds to me like it ought to have sounded, and it's within some constraints and boundaries that I'm happy that she retreated to. It just foundationally feels like she and the producer didn't make the hits.

And that they didn't have a sort of, there's very little, you hear very little creative tension on this album. And I think that probably ultimately comes as a disservice. You know, look, like, we are sort of talking about how this is true for us in some ways. Critically, in its time, this was not the most well-received Miley Cyrus project. A lot of the critical response was just sort of like, this is a bit bland. And from someone who has historically been anything but, that's a strange choice. There was a lot of criticism of this turn, you know, on the heels of.

of Miley Cyrus and her dead pets, and before that, bangers. So we're doing acid with the flaming lips and talking about Pobolo Blowfish. And then before that, we are foam finger twerking, playing with hip-hop signifiers, really upsetting the moms and doing all of that. And then all of a sudden, Miley is on the cover of Billboard in the middle of a field wearing a blush pink. peasant dress. Right. Her hair grown out. It's so much, you know, all of the hard edges have been sanded down.

She's talking about love and reconciliation and coming together. And I remember this a little bit. You know whose fault this is? Well, I want you to tell me, but hold on one second because I just want to see how you feel about this, is that I remember this a little bit, but more so when I was going back and looking at reviews and some of the rest of the rest of. to this, a lot of people seemed to find it disingenuous. And I have to say that that's the one place where I differ. I don't, I believe that actually in some ways this album is like dripping

in sincerity. Yeah, I agree with you. I just don't necessarily think that that translated to something interesting. Well, I blame Liam. I blame Liam Hensworth for this. We have been hearing about this relationship for years. And at some point, you have squeezed all of the blood out of the stone and it's not interesting anymore. And she tells us that as much on this album about the ways in which she's just sort of trapped from a love and heart perspective by this human being. She's not him.

It's a very interesting song on this album, sort of from a thematic and lyrical standpoint. But at some point, it's just enough already. And she's maybe back and one. Enough already in the sense that you think that this is too like happy goo-goo. I love Liam and you just don't care? There's that part. Like we've been through the ups and downs, but there is still some up and down on this album.

Well, yeah. I mean, they've gotten back to, like they've gotten re-engaged after breaking off an engagement, then getting back together. And it's not as though there's not drama that could be mined with it. in that. The relationship in this moment is not serving the art. And I think that's why you correctly pointed out a little while ago that there isn't just much that's new or fresh or feels interesting here. Dead Pets was not bland and it was not boring. And bangers was not,

I mean, it was fresh and different. And you can say whatever you want about those albums in the aggregate. But there was new, different, interesting stuff that was being fueled by the relationship, by drugs, by her own creative genius, and by a set of partners. And on this album, it just isn't there. And I don't know whether Orin Yoll, who she'd work with a little bit previously, is to blame for that. But I'm sort of tongue-in-cheek blaming Liam, because for multiple albums now, you and I have been saying,

God, she writes some of these things. And I just want to parachute in and help her get out because it's so clearly not a high-functioning relationship. Now, to your point, she's back in a place where she is, in a good place, in quotes, from a relationship standpoint. And it just, it feels pretty vanilla. It feels like the color of that dress on the cover of Billboard. Well, and on one level, can you blame her?

Like, in a sense, right? You've just, you've come off the Dead Pets thing. She, you know, the milky, milky milk tour, which by the way, I have to say. All eight dates. All eight dates of it. But the number of every single album listeners who have shared the, They were in the audience. I am so impressed by and it's very cool.

So congratulations to everyone who reached out to say that you went and had that experience. I'm genuinely very jealous that you got to see that live. But she's up there. She's dressed as a unicorn with a strap on, wearing a strap on, doing the whole dead pets thing, doing Pablo the Blowfish. Before then, she's doing the whole bangers thing. That is a cornucopia of... visuals in and of itself. There is so much, as you said, you know, histrionics and performance, and it's over the top. And we love that from Miley. We love her creative exuberance.

But I do get how on a certain level this woman who still has a miraculous instrument of a voice and is, has to be on some level, like she's just a person. Could have been. And, like, man, can I just wear a comfortable dress and sing some songs about my life and my fiance and how I'm happy and living in California? Like, is that okay? And I'm not saying that that produces great art, but I am saying that I understand the impulse. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, fair enough.

I mean, it's like she went through this phase where she was constantly dressed like a character in the John Mullaney Lobster Diner sketch. like some big massive foam thing, right? You might, those things get hot and sweaty and itchy at some point. So I don't blame her for wanting to get out of it. On an even like sort of more 3,000 foot level, I, we've been going through album by album and every single time there's like this ratcheting up, right, of the way that she portrays her transition away from whatever,

she was doing before, which doesn't necessarily represent her anymore. She feels like it doesn't represent her. And at first, it's, okay, breakout is the breakout and it's detached from Hannah Montana. But we listen and we go, okay, this is interesting, but it sort of could be Hannah Montana if it needed to be. You know, then you fast forward. You eventually get to bangers. Obviously, we're doing something that is a dramatic actual departure.

And then Dead Pets is maybe not more extreme than bangers in some ways in terms of how provocative it was to people. But it's more out of left field, certainly. This is another, like, I'm completely different than I was two years ago moment. But it's the first one where she's pulled it back in. Yeah. And I do wonder if there's some, like, you can, when you read the reviews, you get, there's this. like disappointment almost that comes through a lot of the writing. Because it's here's this, here's our pop star who's one of the only pop stars who would ever make a thing like Miley Cyrus

and her dead pets, who would do that. Or even who would provoke people in the way that she did around bangers. And this is what she's doing now. And I think in a lot of ways that mostly led to valid critiques about the music. But I do, I just have this one piece of the reception that I do want to interrogate in terms of whether or not this was an authentic representation of where she was, as opposed to a calculated attempt to appeal to more conservative strains in culture than she had in the past with her past work, which to me, that would be a huge bummer if Miley Cyrus had set out to do that. And I do think that it's the former. And I kind of get why someone who had been

provoking and provoking and provoking would want to just take a backseat from that to an extent. But what I want to hear from you is, was there like industry buzz about what she was doing at this point? Like what's going on in the career of Miley Cyrus? How much did dead pets hurt? How does she recover or move on from that? People in the music business on the business side are mostly, there's some incredibly talented human beings who act as conduits between the creative side of the business and the business side of the business. And those are the people who end up, who can translate between both sides. They end up being really successful. So I wish to not paint the entire music business with a broad

stroke of paintbrush. That said, I think a lot, like in a lot of big companies, people are just afraid and they're managing risk. And Miley Cyrus was introducing risk because it was unpredictable. And she was doing things differently. And she bowed to no one. And she was not really interested in listening to other people's opinions. And so I think a lot of people in the industry couldn't figure out whether this was a train wreck, a car wreck, or, you know, something even, you know, or a nuclear bomb. I mean, I think it was sort of like, is she, they didn't really understand or appreciate the art.

And I think part of the fun of going through these with you has been that I look at bangers differently today than I did when it came out. I look at that VMA's performance differently today than the way a lot of culture did and I did in the moment, right? Definitely. And I think, I think in hindsight, I have a lot more respect and appreciation and admiration for the risks that she was taking and the willingness to, just, you know, as the Flaming Lips guy said, just be an incredibly honest and authentic and fearless artist. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be commercially viable. So yes, there is this question in this moment of what does it mean? Miley's not touring. In this moment in time, people make their money from the road. They don't make their money from streaming albums

because, you know, the economics have changed and been turned on their head. So now, if they're, they probably make 80% of their money from the road, 20%. So people who are managing Miley are, at the time, are, you know, not getting the benefit of. So there is all that industry level chatter around whether she has self-immolated, for sure. I mean, do you think she got asked or pushed to make her first album after bangers, if you're talking about through the label or dead pets just temporally to make it something that at least, you know, it's funny because this was not a commercially super successful album by her standards, but it feels very palatable broadly.

Yeah. Do you think there was a lot of pressure on her to do that? I don't think Miley Cyrus really feels a lot of pressure. Somebody puts out Miley Cyrus and her dead pets doesn't respond to that pressure. it, you know, whether it is childlike or adult hard-headed, a function of her childhood stardom or just the DNA inside her, this is not a person who takes direction from others. This is not a person who allows herself to be told what to do. She is stubborn. She is more likely to do the opposite in my outside observation because I think she has a good sense

for herself. And I think she's a seeker. I think a lot of the journey that that we've been on has been this child star who was subjected to so much at such a young age, who had so much talent just natively, actually trying to catch up on those years in which she was a child star and figure out who she actually is as a human being. And she opens herself up through all of these albums and a lot, a ton of the lyrics, regardless of the genre or quote unquote quality of song, she tells us a lot about herself in that journey. So I don't think that if there was pressure on her, if she was responding to that through this album. I really think it was her own sense of a direction that she should go in.

And I think she just, she sort of picked this up and tried it on for size and she put it down really quickly. I'm glad to hear you say that because I obviously was not living it in a day-to-day way as a member of the industry like you are. But when I listen to this, there is a song that has queer perspective and she's not him, which if it's a member, It's not a particularly interesting musical song. It's a very interesting story. There is the fact that this album ends. Oh, no. With a song for Hillary Clinton where she talks about death.

Which is really funny and really wonderfully, Miley. And also probably not if you are a record company executive. who's like, okay, can we get the Miley Cyrus train back on the tracks? That's probably not your dream place for her to take this album. Even if it does come in this sort of billowy, again, very palatable, Laurel Canyon, an adjacent pop country packaging. Yes, I'm talking about inspired. I mean, it's like a house at Poo Corner, Loggins and Messina shit.

This is not the direction. Sorry, come again. the amount of syllables that you just said At some point she tried to make inspired Like she tried to tie it to the climb She called it like a new old climb Dude This is not the climb

This song has no business If you're Hillary Clinton And you have just lost the 2016 United States presidential election To Donald J. Trump having Miley Cyrus saying death is life, it's not a curse at you. No. Much better was Kate McKinnon on SNL that cold open singing at a piano by herself.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Seeing Jeff Buckley. Oh, my God. Yeah. Singing, hallelujah. I mean, there's, there's, yeah, the, that's, that's all that was needed. There was, there was no need for the following. Yeah, this, I could kind of appreciate inspired as being tied to a few of her, We Gotta Save the Earth songs. Yeah.

And she is in some ways the happy hippie. But, yeah, shoot this one right in the fucking sun. Sianara, baby. Oh, I don't want to get rid of the Hillary Clinton song. But just to close the loop, because there was really interesting writing about this album in terms of like, does this? this represent this retreat into a new strain of American conservatism that Miley Cyrus, of all people, is taking and that that would feel like such a dark thing.

No. I really don't think that's what happened. And I get why it, but I get why it feels that way. Like in the Malibu video, you know, she's running up and down the beach. Her engagement ring is like really palpably visible. She's all of a sudden always wearing white. like it's a very virginal almost. It's this incredibly like chaste.

She's covering up a lot of her tattoos. It's a very traditional looking aesthetic that she wore very consistently and presented herself in very consistently. And so I think that intent got a little jumbled up. You know, all of a sudden she's going very far away from the hip hop world and kind of denouncing it. So I get why that was the takeaway. I just don't actually think that that's where that was coming from. Yeah, I think you're right. Look, this woman's life has moved so fast, right? Like, she's lived in an absolute time warp. She is only 32 years old right now as we speak.

So her phases, you know, months are years to this woman. And this was a phase where she was back in love with the person who ends up being the wrong person for her. Maybe the right person in that moment, but the wrong person in the long run. And there was a major political earthquake in the United States that for someone who, you know, had pursued a lot of politically liberal positions openly and very publicly, it would have been a very confusing time and you'd be doing a lot of introspection and so I don't,

all of that coming off of two albums that, you know, one of which sent sort of shockwaves through culture and the other was largely passed over, but anyone who paid attention was like, what in the hell is going on with Miley Cyrus?

She does say something on this album about, you know, right out of the gate about how, about change, doesn't she? Like right in younger now. She kind of tells us where she is as a human being in that moment. And I'm not afraid of who I used to be, even though it's not who I am, change is a thing you can count on. So I sort of give her a pass on this one, in part because when it was done,

she didn't hang on to it. You know, with dead pets, she is never putting the sword down for dead pets. That woman will go to war with large Arabian countries, with the swords up to defend the honor of Miley Cyrus and her dead pets, which is fantastic. And I will be right there with her in battle. On this one, she put it down right away. She didn't try to pretend like it was a thing that she was going to continue to do. And that doesn't mean it was a mistake.

I mean, it got Malibu, to your point. Like, she put something out in the world that a lot of people enjoy. So how do you, I want to know how you actually feel about Malibu is a piece of music. We talked about the impact being bigger by many, many orders of magnitude than anything else here. But is Malibu the best song on the album to you? I don't like Malibu. I wondered if you were going to say this. Okay. Tell me why.

Because I live near there. And to me, it sounds like the thoughts in the head of someone who is deeply in thought walking down the beach, sort of maybe dragging a stick and drawing lines in the sand as you go or sort of little drawings with your toe in the wet sand. It feels,

I understand the dialogue there, but I don't feel like melodically, it's a particularly moving song. I'm wrong all the time. It's just one where I didn't hear that I came in like a wrecking ball moment

in the music. It just felt like a little bit of a stream of consciousness song, but there was something about it that landed with the general public. It is so pleasant, right? And I do like it. It's not, it's strange to me that it is the seventh biggest song

in terms of Spotify streams in her entire catalog. Like I don't, I like Malibu quite a bit. It was ubiquitous. And so do you think that that's a die With a Smile, do you think it's, it is of that scale because it was in CBS a lot? I do. I think it's easily accessible. I think it's harmless. I think it just is one of those songs that doesn't, I mean, Die with a Smile at least has like soaring melodies. This one just sort of

goes. I think it's an easy thing to put on and go drive in your convertible and listen to with the windows down or whatever. And fine. It just, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it's it is the color of that dress. Again, it's sort of vanilla and it's fine. And people love Miley and she sings everything well. Right. Well, because I think it's... It just doesn't feel like there's a lyrical moment, is there?

I think there's... I don't know if there's a lyrical moment. I do like some of the... There are some sort of funky cadences in the way that she delivers the lines where, you know, if you would have told me three years ago...

I never would... Uh, or that line ends when she's like writing this song. And it feels like it's sort of spilled over onto the next line. I think those are cool moments. I like this song. It sounds like better than you do. I sort of wondered if we were going to end up having this conversation

and you were maybe going to tell me that that's because I'm not from California. I don't live there. So I'm sort of more apt to buy into this maybe slightly cheesy version of what it feels like to drag your toes in the sand. and gallivant down the beach in a sweater. And I think that's why it's successful. I think you're right that that's what it is. I actually think it's an accurate representation. It just doesn't grab me emotionally or melodically

in a way that a hit generally does. But I think it is a fairly good carbon copy of if you're walking down that beach on a evening in the summer of what it feels like. It's the perfect soundtrack for that. She is a couple years after this comes out in 2017, but immediately in terms of starting the work on it, once she's sort of like, okay, we did younger now,

but we're over that. Miley starts working on music that eventually becomes part of the EP she is coming. And that has Slide Away. And slide away to, to me, conveys a similar feeling of, you know,

here I am. I have this type of peace. Maybe I'm walking down the beach and just reflecting. But it is a much more emotionally insightful and potent version of that. And so clearly I think we can say both there's an idea here and she's coming into kind of,

kind of like the California hippie Miley, and I do think that there is something there that really works for her. But I do think that she will go on to make new versions of Malibu that are stronger, which is to me why it is somewhat confusing how ubiquitous it is and how lasting it is in the catalog. Part of my problem with it is that it's a song called Malibu,

and there is a better song called Malibu that was written by Courtney Love and maybe Billy Corrigan that rocks and that like really was a generational defining song and I just

it's hard for me to get past it but I understand the song like it's nice it's you were right it is pleasant and it just may be that it's it's for most people it's vanilla

there isn't anything risque about it but it's nice and it is it's fun to have the breeze running through your hair sometimes. Is there anything else that just in terms of quality stands out to you?

I mean, I kind of like, I kind of like love someone. I don't hate the groove on love someone. I think Malibu is the best song. It is. I like that Rainbow Land exists because I learn stuff about Dolly Parton. Yeah. Like she has a flip phone. She could not be cuter.

Sing along with it. Then I'll run you off a CD later. Oh, I'm so hot tech. I got a flip phone too. I'm so glad that Miley kept this in, and it's just the brilliance and the humility of Dali is all here for us to hear. And I love the moment at the end where she makes fun of Miley and is like, you're probably writing about some boy.

If not, like I said, all right, that looks home for you. You probably wrote about some boy you loved it, didn't you? Yes. But she also, it sounds like she promises to write her a love song. And so I want to know if she ever wrote Miley a love song. That would be a great question. Dolly, let us know. There's not much else on here. There just isn't. There's some stuff that is, I think she's not him as sort of interesting. Maybe it's about Stella Maxwell, the French horns on there, cool, you know, bad mood that sort of cowboy horse feet as, the beat is kind of cool. Not for me. Not for me, man.

Oh, yeah, you're out on that. I don't really. I mean, I don't know. Week without you. I like Week without you. I'm not going to argue for anything. I do think that Malibu just sort of is a song in a way that. Yeah.

A lot of the rest of this feels just sort of tossed off. I do think that there's some. I think sort of like campfire singing along of Week Without You, that actually I think they were going for that on a lot of this, but it works for me pretty well on Week Without You. I also like that she says that she'd put on her old blue jeans, which is basically a Hannah Montana reference. Yes. I like that too. But it's, no, this is about Malibu. Well, but I think thinking sounds a lot like the Taylor song, I can see you. Yes.

And it really begs the question as I continue to plant these conspiracy seeds in my own mind of Taylor being more influenced by Miley than I really understood. And probably vice versa. But really, there's some folklore is Deadpets part two as far as I'm concerned. but I this is where it matters whether these Taylor songs from the vault Right because that would have been Really were from the vault

Yeah because speak now predated this But Miley never would have heard I can see you probably I think I believe that I can see you Was at least written in part Within the speak now era Because of how much it sounds like a Maroon 5 song okay, okay, but I would argue that the production of it and the decision to start with the guitar part and all that, I think that had to have happened during the re-recording process.

Like, I would even believe that she, you know, had those chords on the piano and that they then took it and turned it into the song that they did. I think we've seen all the studio work about how these things start on a notes app for Taylor and then, suddenly it sounds like cruel summer, you know, one of the big blown-out produced things from reputation. Anyway, all of that is just to say, if I was going to write the unpublished novel that I am working on called Miley Cyrus inspired Taylor Swift more than we know, one of my conspiracy theories would be that, that Taylor at least heard thinking and that somebody in that production room and heard thinking and it inspired, I can see you. I love the idea that the, you know, I was here about these big fights over was misery business owed for good for you. And we're

talking about these like huge songs. I love the idea that we have a question about the inspiration of what track one, two, three, four, five, six, seven on Miley Cyrus is younger now. potentially inspiring a from the vault track, though one that I very much like, uh, from Speak Now Taylor's version. This is the kind of stuff we only get from you, Nathan. And I'm grateful for it. I'm so glad we have a podcast to talk about this bullshit. It's really, it's a, it's a dangerous thing.

I'm probably wrong, but what if I'm not? But what if you're not? That's the thing. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. There you go. But that, that's it, isn't it? I mean, that's the point of this album is like we can talk about some of these things. thanks for the frogs in the running water

at the start of Younger now. But that's not really the point of the album. And I really think if we injected Miley with Truth Syrum, she would tell us, I knew when this was done that it was Malibu and not much else. There's a zero percent chance that there's another song on this album that would get played live.

I think that's right. I think that's right. Today. Which means I don't want us to, the labor the things that we think are. Because this is another Miley thing. Everything is fine. That's right.

Everything is even kind of like in a way good because she's singing it. I do think some of the production, you know, I think you have to give Orn Yole most important collaborator just because he is basically the only collaborator here other than Dolly and or I suppose Liam. No, it's Liam Hensworth. Okay, fine, Liam. What a boring guy. I do think that some of the.

reason there aren't more songs that feel potent, even when it is something like, uh, she's not him that has an interesting story to it, is that there's a general fuzziness to the way that her voice is treated, which is often a shame to me just because I, it's Miley Cyrus. She has a, a instantly identifiable voice. It's a beautiful one. It's one that has a lot of character. It has a lot of warmth. It has a lot of ability to communicate feeling. And I think sometimes she gets sort of buried in a lot of fuzz. And that I don't love. In general, I'm not here to belabor the stuff that comes up a little bit short because, as you said, she moved on super fast.

However, we got to fire some stuff off into the sun. And I don't know that it'll be particularly hard. Are you getting rid of inspired? Oh, yeah. Sionara. Inspired is super gone. I won't let you do it because it's for Hillary Clinton,

which is the hysterical artifact. Well, before we do, just like, did you not like the way, because he produced Adore You, which opened bangers, and that was the worst table setting for what was to follow ever.

But it is pretty clearly about Liam, that song. I wonder if this album being about a good, being in a good place, with Liam was one of the reasons that she connected with him to do the whole thing. But did he treat her vocal previously on any of the other things that he worked on in a way that you felt concerned about? Do you think it is particularly specific to this album?

I think it is specific to this album because it is kind of cumulative, right? Where, for instance, miss you so much. It goes away. just there's less around her voice. And I think on that song, it's a counter example where it comes through a little bit more strongly. I don't love that song,

but I do kind of exhale when it comes on within the whole set list because my brain just goes, oh, there's Miley. And I think that's nice. And I think when it goes away, particularly towards the end of this album, after a few songs of it feeling a little heavy,

I just start to go, oh boy, what are we doing here? Yep. And where's Miley Cyrus? You know, where's Miley? Whereas why don't I feel like I have Miley singing in my face? Well, that is the way that this whole album sort of makes you feel. Where is Miley exactly?

The song that I have to, do have to get rid of bad mood. What do you shoot? You just can't take bad mood. I do wonder if the... I like the clops. Clopping. Do the drums strike you as like tribal?

No, I heard it as like the clopping of like horse. Okay. Okay. Okay. That's probably better than how I heard it. You heard it as tribal. I heard it as like Miley went on.

an ayahuasca retreat and tried to recreate something. Okay. Well, that's probably happened multiple times. I just, this one felt to me like it was more sort of Nashville root, rooted rhythm more so than ayahuasca rooted Tonga drums. Did she feel like, do you remember either around this era or going through dead pets or, you even bangers. Did she still identify her as a country star in some ways?

You know, I've been thinking about this because I keep seeing Beyonce commercials for Levi's, and there was a bunch of rumors that maybe as Beyonce was playing her Cowboy Carter tour here in Los Angeles, that Miley was going to show up and sing Two Most Wanted. It'll so heavy like the Two Most Wanted and I don't know what you're doing tonight. And whether I really think about Miley as a country star. And I don't.

I think of her as being representative of how the Nashville sound has permeated and percolated through a ton of other music from rock to hip-hop and beyond. I do think that the, you know, the Lil Nas X, old town road stuff kind of rooted. the family back in Nashville and in a way that maybe benefited Miley as much as it did her father. But I think about her as being a carrier of the DNA, but not foundationally a country star. I think that's objectively correct, but I do think of her as a country singer.

I don't think of her as country singer, but I think of... The climb? The climb is a country song. Yeah, the climb is a country song. I mean, ho-down throw-down is certainly a country song. Like Hannah Montana had a very clear relationship to the country music world. But the point that I'm sort of circling here is that I think if I had to answer, you could make an argument for some of this music having a pretty strong relationship to Nashville.

But before this album, if you say to me, what's the last Miley Cyrus country song? Like, I have to go back a long, long way. Yes, that's what I'm saying. I think it's the climb. But it just doesn't feel like that. I think that's also such a through line is this idea that she's connected to this type of music that she probably is connected to, but that she actually hasn't spent that much of her career actively engaging with. I'll tell you what the last country song was before this.

It was four by four. by four, yeah. Lean at the window, that's when I go. Driving so fast, about to piss on myself. Driving so fast, about to piss on myself. In which she's saying, driving so fast, I'm about to piss on myself. Oh, God.

I can't believe you found a way to bring that up. But, no, that's right. That's right. But that's also, I mean, but it's also a hip hop track, right? Like, it's... Yeah. And I think that is...

Some bad words in that. Yes. Well, and Nelly is a great example of someone who has... fluency in and out of country. And I do think that Miley has this quality where sort of everything that she sings sounds like a country song. But again, most of it is not.

Maybe that's why I like weak without you because it does make me feel like I'm sort of out camping with her. Sure. There is a little bit of the twang that's back. Yeah. We haven't had to have our twang trackers out as much as we do with early Taylor with Miley.

But I do, but the twang tracker does get fired up. That's part of my conspiracy theory. That's part of my conspiracy theory. Okay, tell me more. I think she was imitating Miley in those early twang things. So you think that from, you think that Taylor Swift spent her first like two and a half album singles doing a Miley Cyrus impression? No, no, no, no. Don't go that far. Don't go that far. I do think that she's like Vanessa Bayer doing the SNL. I'm Males Cyrus. A little bit, a little bit.

I mean, I think that there was a little bit of character playing by Taylor using, not in the pejorative sense, but like, not in the exploitative sense, but like using Nashville as a home base to achieve her dreams of being a pop star. There is no twang starting, right? The twang just evaporates red forward. And on this album, Younger Now, you can hear the same bit of Nashville that you hear on dead pets that you hear on four by four and a bunch of other songs on bangers that you hear going all the way back into the Hannah Montana stuff for me. There's a consistency to her voice and her accent that over the body of work makes me believe what she's saying. through and through. I just am saying, as I'm going to write the conspiracy theory book,

that I may or may not believe. But if you were to be connecting those dots, that would be one subject that you would spend some time on, which is that it sure seems like Taylor was studying the Miley story and the narrative and almost trying to bring it to the TV show plot to life. And she was successful at doing that,

but it wouldn't surprise me that she'd carry over you know, I don't know. I used to sing like James Taylor when I was a kid because those are the records my parents played for me before I found my own voice. And it wouldn't surprise me if Taylor was singing like somebody that she was admiring before she found her own voice,

which she very much has now. I love this tinfoil hat. So I have like four peak my lease. Oh, wow. First of which is, I guess I'm trying to figure out how to explain why I think this is peak Miley. But I do believe that writing a song for Hillary Clinton,

where she tells her that death is not death, is somehow peak Miley. No one else would do this. I mean, Kate McKinnon, but yes, okay. We do have yet another album where she's like, I made it, but it doesn't represent me anymore. That was the old Miley. The old Miley is dead.

I mean, it's been like six of these in a row. Yeah. I mean, I just went, lock me into something. Again, she is a seeker. And it's just something you have to get comfortable with if you're going to enter the Miley Cyrus universe, which is we all line up, we get fired up, we're ready to go to war,

and then she suddenly changed. She's into a different battle. She's like, no, we're not fighting that demon anymore. We're going somewhere else. We're on to the next one. Oh, shit. All right. I also think that little line from Dolly

which teasing at the end of Rainbow Land which is this song that has a lot of themes about LGBTQ acceptance and all of the hurt and hate and living in a rainbow land and it is this like happy hippie sort of anthem and she's doing it with Dolly

which is a really cool co-sign By the way, that's, I mean, that song comes across as the most explicitly country song on this whole thing, obviously. Yeah, I don't understand why Dolly's voice is not louder on that song. The mix will never make sense to me. There's a lot of the mix, even in other songs, too, that I think is a little weird. But I do think the teasing at the end where she's like, Miley, you're just, you're in love with some boy, is really fun. because there is this theme that it seems like those clothes to her needle her about in a really sweet way where she'd spend some time, you know, coming out as pansexual.

She was dating Stella Maxwell. That was her first public relationship with a woman. And she had centered a lot of that in the previous two eras. And then we're vacillating between that and the relationship that she has with like like a pillar celebrity of straight masculinity. Like she is engaged to a Hemsworth. Yeah. And that dissidence is very human. And I do think it's really, really charming that people in her life kind of tease her about it and that it comes through in this album.

Like, it's one of my absolute favorite, favorite parts of this whole thing. Yeah. And I, you know, I give her some credit. We talked a little bit about she's not him, but on that theme, like, that is very much a song about her pansexuality. And, but it's a very honest and accessible way of just talking about not being able to get there with someone. Yeah. And it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it. it almost like anonymizes the sexuality part of it and just taps at that feeling of being

just unable to get past somebody else even though you're trying with someone new. And it just, it's never going to get there. And feeling badly about trying to continue, you know, she says, she talks about her bullshit. She's put up with it and all that. I think, I think it's not an easy thing to do in a song like that, that even in this moment in time, you know, it just is very accessible in a way that I think a lot of, you know, there's some songs that aren't that way that aren't accessible, at least from a heterosexual standpoint.

We're definitely keeping that one, not blasting that off into the sun. Do you have a next album appetizer? I was going to ask you, like, what is it? I do think that Malibu has a relationship to slide away. I think that when it comes back around it's improved significantly at least in terms of I love Slydeway

I think I like Malibu is how I would phrase it but I think I do like I buy California Miley you know this this flowy happy hippie thing it's that feels like a real thing

that she landed on in terms of a person that she can be that she is where she can do her work, but also exist in the world in a way that's maybe slightly more normal than she was during Dead Pets era, Bangers era. I get why she would want to find that sort of equilibrium. I think she maybe hadn't found it in a way that was creatively fulfilling here, but I think she eventually comes into her own in that way.

So I think it's the genesis of that. In some ways, like the Miley Cyrus that we have now, the era kind of starts with Malibu. Like, this is the first song that feels like it's contemporary Miley to me. Like, I don't know that I would say that if we eliminate the Taylor Swift version of the word where era equals distinct album every single, every album. Right, right, right. I think that there is a Miley era that basically starts with Malibu,

and I think you could argue that we kind of are still in that era. And so I think that song is... Yeah, there's a through line between Malibu and Flowers, for sure. So I think it's the... I don't know if I think it's the next album appetizer, but it's prescient. We haven't talked that much about lyrics. And I think that's for, you know, the reason that, again, I think there were sort of maybe some deeper, this is an album that strikes me as having a ton of depth, although there are examples like she's not him that I think run counter to that.

But is there a single lyric on this whole album that where you go, this is the best, this means something to me. It'd be a cold day in hell before I'd ever be your wife. On the album that is being essentially marketed as the pre-matrimonial bliss record. Interesting. That's the one for me. And it doesn't, you know, there's some part of her that always knew. Yeah, I think that's right. One that I really love is, you know, what is pitched as the central idea of the album and then I think doesn't.

doesn't get revisited that much, which is sort of a shame because I do think it's an interesting central idea for her, which is just I feel so much younger now. Like, I really believe that. I believe that for someone who had the childhood and the early career breakout that she did. And I wish that she'd explored that idea a little bit more throughout the whole record, because I do understand how someone who'd have, who'd had her. path to where she was in 2017 would feel that way in a strong way. Yeah, I mean, like a number of the Miley albums,

there are real nuggets of clarity and insight in a lot of the lyrics. There's also some stuff that feels fluffy to me and a little bit less. It's not that it's not serious, but just like we're feeling as opposed to we're really speaking. Well, she does do, like I miss you so much. she does do when you look up at the cosmos do you ever wonder if there's really even an end which is kind of like

we're back on the Dead Pet's acid trip What the fuck is God? Yeah what the fuck is God except it is wrapped in so much like sincerity as opposed to performance that it's a funny combination.

I can't quite tell which one I'm a little bit more apt to go okay Miley that's enough But when she does it consistently, I guess you have to feel that she comes by it honestly. I have no idea how we've talked about this album for an hour. Great job. We did a good job.

Like, it's not the richest text she's ever produced. But in some ways, because it's Miley Cyrus, given that this is what comes on the heels of Miley Cyrus and her dead pets, that in and of itself is inherently interesting. Like, just let it sink in that. This is the album that came after Miley Cyrus and her dead pets and bangers. Yeah, it's really a catch-your-breath. It's like you've just been sprinting for a long time.

You get to walk this little stretch before you start running again. Last night, Nathan, I watched a YouTube video of the Bon Appetit-Somalier grading celebrity wines. What? And it made me feel like, we don't grade harshly enough. Because this man would be really, really nice. Like, he would find something nice to say, and then he would go C minus. Yeah.

And I was like, damn, I don't do that. In that spirit, I gave this album a C plus. Okay. Because why? Why does it get a plus? Because it's Miley Cyrus. I do think that she is incapable of making something that is truly unpleasant to listen to. Yeah.

Except for fucking fucked up. Oh, I love that. It's a C-minus for me because it just... Yeah, I mean, we've talked about it. It's a C-minus for me because it just didn't get there. There's never a moment of transcendence for me. I think Malibu is it, and it's almost like the rest of the album was there as a shell and a holder. but it's kind of like the bag that you bring home from the grocery store and immediately recycle.

I do think that Malibu has a certain transcendence to it, but I agree. That's mostly right. I mean, for me, C plus is a pretty low grade. And that's in spite of the fact that I think that there's very little that's like offensive to the years to listen to here. But it just doesn't totally get to any particular place, and that's pretty unusual for our. dear Miley. However, there is a lot more for us to discuss isn't there. Because as you said, she was just sort of taking a breath. We're getting into it now. We're getting pretty close. This has been every single album, Miley Cyrus. As always, I'm Nora Pinciotti. He's Nathan Hubbard. Thank you to Kaia McMullen for producing this episode and we'll talk to you next week.