Album review: Plastic Hearts

Cyrus’ first rock album will leave you feeling like a rockstar

Miley Cyrus’s newest album, Plastic Hearts, is a monumental album where she completely reinvents herself, making her most unique sound yet. Fellow Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famers Joan Jett, Billy Idol, and Stevie Nicks are featured within the album, adding to the nostalgia feel. The rock album launched at the end of November, quickly emerging as Billboard’s number one rock album.

The defining single “Midnight Sky” showcases Cyrus’s wild side regarding love and lifestyle. The disco-themed track enforces how Cyrus won’t let media depictions of herself get in the way of her flourishment. Her raspy vocals within the song make it one of the most intense songs within the album.

The album is post-divorce of her marriage to Liam Hemsworth and has strong themes of how she was ostracized in the media for moving on quickly. Headlining song in “WTF do I know?” depicts Cyrus’s unapologetic attitude by stating, “Now tell me, baby, am I wrong that I’ve moved on, and I don’t even miss you.”

Tracks like “Gimme What I Want” and “Bad Karma,” featuring rock legend Joan Jett, both include themes from Cyrus’s brief affairs with Kaitlynn Carter after the closure within her marriage with Liam Hemsworth. The songs are gritty, with the raspy vocals of Cyrus giving them an industrial rock feel.

Other songs focus on the wild party lifestyle that Cyrus has been known for obtaining. “Plastic Hearts” takes you on an adventure down the Sunset trip streets, all the way to the notorious Chateau Marmont Hotel, which is known for wild celebrity parties. “Night Crawling,” featuring Cyrus’s friend and rock legend Billy Idol continues the fun by incorporating the iconic rock organ that can be found in Idol’s previous songs like “Rebel Yell,” making it sound like it’s straight from the 80s.

Gentler tracks nicely knit together the album, such as “Angles Like You” and “High,” creating unique perspectives within the album. Both involve letting go of somebody, and although she does not miss them, she does find herself thinking of them. Both include a sharp but still gentle acoustic guitar, demonstrating how letting goes does not have to be a painful experience, and you can always reminisce upon the good times.

“Golden G-String,” a rather comical title for a song, demonstrates its deep meaning. The album has an emphasis on home and what it means to live there. Cyrus takes us around California, but also the toxic culture of the music industry. It focuses on how each perception of crazy differs from one to the next and how larger-scale issues should be taken more seriously than others tend to be. In my favorite line from the album, Cyrus so eloquently puts, “You dare to call me crazy, have you looked at this place?”

“The Edge of Midnight,” the “Midnight Sky,” remix featuring Stevie Nicks is sure to have fans are dying with one of the best mashups ever to exist. ‘Nuff said.

Plastic Hearts is where we see Miley evolving as an artist. The very real-life topics of love, sex, lifestyle, break-ups, partying, and ostracizing of women all relate and correspond to audiences’ spirituality, all knit together by Miley’s powerhouse vocals. The album is truly an adventure from start to finish and dazzles audiences with a toss-back 80s gritty rock.