Bass Persuades Finds Miley Back on the Dance Floor, if Not Quite in Step: Review

Miley wants to know why the kids aren’t dancing anymore. On Bass Persuades, her tenth album and her first under just her first name, she makes a persuasive case for the dance floor, even when the lyrics don’t keep pace with the beat.

It’s a continuation of the mature sound she’s been building for years. Since leaving the Hannah Montana world behind, the now 33-year-old Miley has always been a fearless and loyal collaborator, trudging into uncharted waters on 2013’s cringey but fun hip-hop/pop effort Bangerz, which gave us the mega-hit “Wrecking Ball,” and trying on psychedelic flavors with 2015’s Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz alongside Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips. But it’s on 2023’s Endless Summer Vacation, which gave us the dreamy hit “Flowers,” and last year’s Something Beautiful that she hit a sweet spot, melding her diverse influences into a mature sound. Her voice isn’t stretched here aquite the way it was on Something Beautiful, but her vocal work is solid throughout.

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Bass Persuades begins its eponymous track with a series of dark synth chords. A spoken intro verse channels Lady Gaga (the whole song is very early Gaga-esque) setting dystopian nightclub vibes — the kids aren’t dancing, damnit! It paints an interesting picture, though the occasional odd lyric choice pull you out of it:

“Paving over pastures ’cause horses are gone
Forgetting there’s a world when this record is on
Ghosts went to Bermuda ’cause there’s no one to haunt
Candy’s cut with fentanyl that nobody wants”

After the first verse, “Bass Persuades” goes into a catchy chorus with a great refrain and a better second verse: “Glued your eyes to the telephone screen/ But you missed the hit without MTV.”  While “paving over pastures ’cause the horses are gone” brings Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” to mind (they paved paradise and put up a parking lot), it doesn’t fit with the idea that the kids don’t want to party anymore, and “candy’s cut with fentanyl that nobody wants” feels like an easy shortcut to add some edge by referencing…. what, exactly? Drug-pushing pharma companies? Urban legend Halloween surprises like you’d find in a Boomer chain email? What exactly is she trying to say?

Next, “Different Religion” (feat. Model/Actriz) starts off with a grinding drop. The soundscape is compelling, with a NIN-like industrial edge, but it suffers from a religious analogy that never lands. On the opening verse, she makes it clear the god of her new religion is a lover, but lyrics like “I’ve got my own god/He drives a fast car” and “I’ve got my own god/My god’s a hot boy” seem a mismatch for her newfound maturity, and worse than that, illuminate nothing.

With “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode and Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” the stakes are high, as the lyricists attempted to distill their own complicated feelings about religion into a song that’s really about something else. But this is just about a hot boy. The religious framing doesn’t add, it only distracts. Things get a bit better when Cole Haden, the lead vocalist from the New York based dance/punk group Model/Actriz comes in. He and Miley sound good together, and his lines tying a car to a lover add a sexy second layer to a song full of lyrics that sit right on the surface.

Then comes “Let’s Get Married.” Some might feel the drop into its dreamscape softness is a jarring turn from the two club-oriented songs, but it can also feel like climbing out of the grime of the club into the light: a welcome escape. It’s also a chance for Miley to open up about the love she’s found with fiancé Maxx Morando, whom she’s collaborated with on 2023’s Endless Summer Vacation and last year’s Something Beautiful.