“Twerk Miley, Miley, Miley Twerk”
-Jay Z
A few days ago I stumbled upon my Hannah Montana Pandora station.
Because who doesn’t have that station.
But what started as an accident turned into something beautiful. The first song to play was “One in a Million,” which is by far my favorite Hannah ballad.
The songs to follow were other great hits from Disney stars of the era, “Start of Something New” the song that launched the phenomenon that is High School Musical and the Jonas Brothers’ classic “Year 3000.”
But after each Miley song played it became increasingly obvious that the girl was a shining star amongst her Disney peers. While I could do without some of the early Hannah vocals, Miley’s music seems to be the soundtrack to early teen years.
In recent news, Miley has been dissected for her outlandish outfits and interesting music. But the sudden criticism of a child star taking on a more mature, or intense look is not new. In Miley’s case, her story mirrors closely to that of Queen Britney Spears.
And seeing as though Brit made herself a legend name by time she was 30, it’s not a bad trajectory to follow.
Like Britney before her, Miley dominated Disney for most of the mid ‘00s. She had her own TV show and her own music to play right along side it.
Miley’s music was also eerily accurate to the issues of a 13-year-old girl.
But before we knew it, she was played out. And besides the song that will go down in history as one of the best songs about the U.S.A ever, post Hannah-Miley was not the musical choice to her fan base, which was getting older. We had the Last Song but we were still missing the music.
Britney had to deal with this during her the third album. While she had amazing songs like “Slave 4 U,” her self-titled album was her first step to a mature sound and many of her younger fans felt disconnected from the star.
After sometime away, Miley reemerged with a new look and sound. And I can honestly say that for the first time, the she looked happy.
And then she dropped the actual banger “We Can’t Stop” and the world exploded.
It was a total Britney kissing Madonna 2.0. Like Britney, Miley had just gotten out of a high profile relationship and was owning her freedom. It was a sensory overload, an overt display that she was no longer Hannah. The girl we watched as little middle schoolers was suddenly cool again. Her songs were speaking to our issues again. Her album Bangerz was in heavy rotation with its grown up lyrics.
It even featured a collab with the Queen herself!
While Miley’s last VMA performance had many shaking their heads- she’d come so far, I saw it as the equivalent of Britney’s on VMA performance of “Gimme More”. It wasn’t good, but once we stepped away from the crazy, there was actually music of substance. Britney’s Blackout album is one of her most acclaimed albums as of late. And while Miley’s Miley Cyrus and Her Ded Petz hasn’t garnered the same reviews, the album has quite a few standouts (see BB Talk).
So while Miley Cyrus will no doubt be faced with her own haters, that doesn’t negate the work she’s been putting in for about a decade. I feel like we’d do her a disservice if we don’t give her props for being the closest thing to being our Britney. With rumors of her reunion and a possible rengagement with ex-fiance Liam Hemsworth, we can only hope for new vocals. Who knows maybe in the year 2026 Miley will sell out her own Vegas residency.