Miley Cyrus’ Breakout
Miley’s first real solo album has now been released; her first two albums made it to number one on the charts but with the first Hannah Montana Soundtrack it was just as Hannah and with Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus it was a double disc. So now we have to see how she does on her own, will she be able to keep her number one streak going. Miley has stated the album is The Killers and Melissa Etheridge inspired, we’ll have to see if that’s an accurate assessment.
Breakout starts the album on a good note, it’s just a fun fast paced song. It might not be a highlight in the history of music but I can’t really fault it on anything. Though I have to wonder about the Miley singing about school part; seeing she doesn’t actually go to a normal school. Though that’s only the start of the song, I’m not faulting the song on it it just seemed a bit funny.
7 Things is next, I first had my doubts about the song but it has grown on me. In general people seem to be liking it looking at its track listing and positive reviews in general. The song was mostly addressed earlier though so I’m just going to stick with it’s a strong second track.
Next up is The Driveway, a song that was leaked before but without Miley doing the main vocals. All I can say is good thing they didn’t go with Noah Cyrus singing on it. Not that I don’t like the girl but she just wouldn’t have been ready for it. I’m not too fond of this track but that’s mainly because of the odd beat behind it that just starts to be annoying. Once it’s gone the song gets better but the in the beginning and in the middle when it returns it just bugs me. Without it I think it would have been a far stronger song because the lyrics are quite strong. You wouldn’t think a fifteen year old had written those.
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is the first of two songs that wasn’t written by Miley but is a cover. This one obviously being a cover of the Cindy Lauper song, a song I’ve never actually been that fond off. Combined with the fact that I just don’t like covers in general I didn’t expect too much of it. She does a decent job of it though, I personally like it better than the Cindy Lauper version but it won’t be a song I would be listening to a lot.
Full Circle sounds different than the previously leaked version of it, very different. Just like with The Driveway they added a weird beat at the start of the song which again seems unnecessary. It again is a decent song but they went a bit overboard with the background sound effects. Sometimes less is more and you don’t always need to add extra things. Though unlike other recent albums (Vanessa Hudgens’ in this case) there is are actual instrumental recordings involved in making the album. Sure computer sounds are involved but try finding an album that doesn’t have any at all, at least there are no voice morphs on the album.
Fly On The Wall I expected to hate from the few bad quality clips I’ve heard of it. The end result I actually liked, it’s just a bit different from all the other things Miley has done so far. There is one major thing I have to fault it on though; 2 minutes 31 seconds, it’s far too short.
Bottom Of The Ocean would be the song she probably classified as R&B in recent interviews, though I think the R&B factor is very limited in it. Though I guess you can qualify the end of the song as more or less R&B. On general music and beat it just seems a bit common, the lyrics are decent but the song just doesn’t stand out. I would qualify this is as a filler track.
Wake Up America is more a song along the lines of Breakout, Full Circle and Fly on the Wall; a fun pop/rock song. It’s a song about global warming which seems a bit hypocritical really. We see Miley hopping on private Disney jets and see her being chauffeured around by her parents in big European SUV’s with V8’s. Though those use less fuel than the American alternatives they’re still not very environmentally friendly. I would classify this song as a fillter track as well but every album has them.
These Four Walls is the second cover on the album, this time of a Cheyenne Kimball song. It’s considered a country balled and actually I like it better than the original version. It’s a strong song in general but the fact that it’s a cover will always be in the back of my head when listening to it. Miley can write her own songs, she doesn’t actually need to do covers.
Simple Song has a very short intro and then it just starts. I think the title Simple Song gestures towards the fact that it’s just about a day, though stressful day. Again I have to wonder about Miley writing lyrics like this, seeing she doesn’t drive (there’s a bumper to bumper reference in there) and doesn’t really have a nine to five job. The Lalala’s in there seem random at first but after listening to it a bit better they make sense. Not the best track on the album but it’s not a bad one.
Goodbye fits in the line of relationship songs on this album (7 Things, Driveway, Full Circle and Bottom of the Ocean would be the other ones). It’s a lot slower paced than those though but I think this is actually one of the strongest songs on the album. There are no fancy sound effects, just relatively simple music and Miley singing. In this song you can hear she really managed to develop her singing voice sing since she started out.
The last track on the album is a remix of See You Again; I don’t get that being there at all. Why on earth would they add a remix of that song on this album while they leave off decent songs like Don’t Walk Away (which was leaked at an earlier point). It’s not even a particularly good remix, I don’t like remixes in general though; there are very few exceptions.
The fact that they left off Don’t Walk Away really bugs me if I look at the total playing time of the album; not even forty minutes. I think it’s a very sad thing that forty minute albums have become the standard but apparently that’s what we get these days. So I can’t exactly discredit it on that seeing I would have to subtract points off every single album that’s released these days.
So the general conclusion; has Miley managed to create a sound of her own? I would say yes, the songs by themselves probably aren’t the best thing music has ever seen and won’t become classics but all around it’s just a strong album. There aren’t any real big highs are lows on it; it’s a very decent album all around. That is a very hard thing to do and also gives Miley a lot of credit as a song writer. Seeing eight of the songs contain her music and lyrics (helped by other people of course, no one works alone on final production). You can’t listen to one of these songs and say it’s a Hannah Montana song because they just aren’t. Though Disney is going to change the sound of Hannah Montana in season three a bit as well.
The Melissa Etheridge and The Killers comparison she made I don’t really see, there might have been some influence but that I’m glad she didn’t just copy their style. The strong point of The Killers for example is that you can always hear it’s a The Killers song, doesn’t matter what genre it is. You can just hear it’s them and there’s no of confusing them for someone else. The same thing goes for Miley, though she’s helped by her voice in that. Sure she doesn’t have the biggest vocal range of all the singers out there but her voice stands out and she knows how to use it.
So now for the album rating, I actually expected to hate the album because my expectations of Miley are quite high. Having heard the final result that luckily hasn’t become true though I wish it wouldn’t have finished with a bloody remix; I will give it the highest rating given on this site so far: four out of five points. Not all the songs are at a four point level though; in reality it isn’t actually quite four points but it’s closer to four than it is to three and seeing I picked a five point rating system, four points it is.
Now we’ll have to see how the album sells and if she can do what she wants to do in the future; keep reinventing herself. I have no doubt this will make it to number one on the charts though, there hasn’t been a major release in weeks and she’s the only major artist releasing next week. Or Sugarland must make a major comeback for some reason.
Starletviews rating: 
