Miley dropped her last name and the dance album that came with it — brave or desperate?

• A

  Alex22h ago

  She dropped "Cyrus" like it's dead weight but that name is the only reason anyone gave her a second look after the Hannah Montana years. You don't get to erase the ladder you climbed.

  214Reply
• H

  Hana14h ago

  Here's the thing nobody's saying: Flowers was a breakup song that hit because it was emotionally raw and specific. You cannot manufacture that lightning twice. So either you take a risk or you make Flowers 2 and look pathetic. She took the risk. That's the correct call even if the album is mediocre.

  156Reply
• T_

  Taylor _x20h ago

  The person saying she "doesn't owe us" anything — sure, technically true, but artists also don't get to torch their audience and then act surprised when the numbers drop. There's a difference between reinventing and just abandoning.

  91Reply
• Y

  Yuki8h ago

  If you think dropping your last name is a marketing stunt, fine. But Madonna. Cher. Adele. Pink. Beyoncé. The one-name thing is not a cry for help, it's a declaration of arrival. The question is whether the music backs it up, not whether she had the nerve to do it.

  84Reply
• TB

  Taylor B.6h ago

  Nobody has mentioned that the production on this album is actually pretty stunning in places. Whatever you think of the direction, the sonics are not the problem. If you disagree, explain how you square that with the fact that critics who hated the concept still called the mixing "immaculate."

  71Reply
• C

  Casey17h ago

  To the A&R person — if you work in the industry you know full well artists don't just "follow boardroom orders" at her level. She has more leverage than most. Own that this might just be a creative choice you don't like.

  62Reply
• J

  Jordan5h ago

  I bought tickets to her tour before this album dropped. I was expecting something closer to what I fell in love with. I'm still going because I already spent the money but I'll be honest — I'm going with a pit in my stomach now. Has anyone else booked something they're suddenly less excited about?

  53Reply
• S

  Sam11h ago

  The person who said "give it six months" — I keep hearing this every single time a pop star releases something incoherent and half the time six months later we're all pretending it was secretly genius. Sometimes the first impression is just correct.

  47Reply
• N

  Noah21h ago

  brave. full stop. she doesn't owe us the same album twice.

  43Reply
• J

  Jamie15h ago

  I listened to all ten tracks yesterday. Track 4 is genuinely excellent. The rest is filler that sounds like it was generated by someone who heard Dua Lipa described to them secondhand. That's not a compliment.

  38Reply
• HK

  Hana K.3h ago

  she's 31 years old and has been famous since she was a child and people are calling this desperate like she needs to be validated by the same listeners who've been predicting her irrelevance since 2013. the desperation is in the criticism, not the album.

  37Reply
• Y

  Yuki8h ago

  okay but Madonna and Cher were ALREADY one-name icons before they leaned into it, they didn't announce it with a press release mid-career. the sequence matters.

  33Reply
• F

  Feli11h ago

  I'm a 58-year-old retired teacher and I stumbled into this thread because my daughter played me the new album in the car. I genuinely liked it? I don't know the genre rules so maybe I'm missing why it's bad but track 7 had me nodding my head like an idiot at a red light.

  31Reply
• D

  Drew19h ago

  I work in A&R and I'll tell you exactly what this is: her label saw Sabrina Carpenter eating her lunch on the pop charts and panicked. This reeks of a boardroom conversation, not an artistic vision. The name drop is a distraction.

  29Reply
• S

  Sam6h ago

  The person saying Flowers was "emotionally raw" — I'd push back slightly. It was a very polished song about being fine without your ex. The rawness was performed. Doesn't make it bad but let's not mythologize a pop single.

  26Reply
• J

  Jordan13h ago

  my whole take changed when I read she co-wrote every single track on this one. that's not desperation, that's someone with something to prove to herself

  22Reply
• K2

  Kofi 2110h ago

  the retired teacher has better ears than half the critics apparently lol

  19Reply
• IS

  Iris S.4h ago

  yes to the ticket person, saw Coldplay last year expecting old Coldplay and got a laser show with spiritual themes, still had fun, you'll be fine

  18Reply
• M

  Maya19h ago

  Honestly I've been a fan since she was literally a teenager and I think people forget how many times she's pulled off a pivot that looked stupid on paper. Give it six months.

  17Reply
• O

  Omar2h ago

  calling it now: in two years this album gets reassessed as ahead of its time and everyone in this thread acts like they always believed in it

  14Reply
• J9

  Jamie 928h ago

  I changed my mind on this three times today which probably says something about how genuinely uncertain this release is. Started at "brave," landed at "wait and see," currently hovering at "intrigued but unconvinced" which I know is exactly what the reviews said and I hate that.

  12Reply
• H_

  Hana _x16h ago

  The reviews saying "intrigued but unconvinced" are doing a lot of heavy lifting for "this isn't very good."

  11Reply
• E

  Elena14h ago

  what even IS classic rock adjacent Miley in 2024 though, that sound had like one monster hit and everyone acts like it was a whole era

  9Reply
• K

  Kofi3h ago

  The gap here is that nobody's actually discussing whether the SONGS on this album are good or not. Everyone's debating the concept and the name thing and "what it means." Track names? Lyrics? Hooks? Can we talk about the music itself for five seconds?

  9Reply
• M

  Morgan12h ago

  she dropped her last name, I dropped the album from my playlist, we both moved on

  8Reply
• R

  Riley21h ago

  my aunt literally cried at a Miley concert in 2023 because Flowers meant something real to her and now she's doing what, dance remixes? feels like a betrayal of everyone who just found her again

  7Reply
• RR

  Ravi R.9h ago

  Brave and desperate are not mutually exclusive. Has anyone considered both?

  6Reply
• J

  Jordan18h ago

  nope

  5Reply

More debates people can't stop arguing about