For an album called Bass Persuades, the bass isn’t very persuasive.
TOP 3:
- Different Religion (feat. Model/Actriz)
- Snow
- Let’s Get Married
REVIEW:
No, Miley; the kids do not want to dance.
Bass Persuades is a great title track and a fairly satisfying way to begin this record. As enjoyable a single the track is, it gives a poor impression of the album. A song calling out the young generation for being glued to technology and not wanting to go socialize on the dance floor would be a strong introduction to a dark pop record, which the cover and sound of the lead single suggest. The second track, Different Religion, which has a feature from Model/Actriz, continues this deception of a dark pop record with its intense industrial sound and a beat drop that sends chills down your spine. To put it bluntly, it’s a sex jam without being blatantly or overly sexual. This is the sound that Miley should be going for, just like she did on Plastic Hearts and Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Pets (experimentally, at least).
At track three, the bass begins to stop persuading me into believing we will hear more industrial-sounding Miley.
Don’t get me wrong, Let’s Get Married is a beautiful song. As someone who is an Endless Summer Vacation stan, which I’m beginning to learn is a diverse opinion, I am here for the Let’s Get Married sound because it sounds like ESV’s Rose Colored Lenses, but if it were the more mature, done with hookups, and ready to be engaged version. Let’s Get Married takes the tempo of the album down significantly from its preceding track, but Orbit takes it another level with its emotional pop-ballad tone. I adore the chord progression of the pre-chorus, but not necessarily of the chorus itself. Overall, Orbit is partially a weak song compared to the rest of the tracks on this album, but it’s still a vibe, nonetheless. Side note: she told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe that Orbit and the single Bass Persuades were written the same day; is that duality or what?
The bass attempts to return in Aftermath, but it also loops in an almost yearning energy into this dance-pop track. The contrasting lyrics between “you were mine” and “you were never mine” hit way too close to home. I’m unsure how relatable this feeling is, but Aftermath feels like leaving the club or a party — or just ending the night — alone. I could see a remix doing this song some justice because it’s a song where there is a product here, but I see more from it.
Immediately following Aftermath, we switch to a pop track with a strange string-influenced beat called REDLIGHTS. It’s another song on the record that I find fairly weak. It may grow on me, but for the song that Miley said was her “favorite right now,” I expected much more. It’s a love song that I can appreciate, but the writing is only admirable in the verses and it overall is a drag in the progression of the album and is the epitome of the not-so-persuasive bass of Bass Persuades.
Track 7 — Neon Signs — is a slowed-down, garage band-esque beat featuring Andrew Wyatt of Miike Snow, an indie pop trio from Sweden. Surprisingly, or not so surprisingly given this album, this song strays from the traditional sound of Miike Snow and continues the trend of not including industrial dark pop songs that we all expected moving into this era. The idea of a song about an unusual pairing in a late-night relationship with nocturnal songwriting is very unique to me, but, as Pitchfork wrote, “Cyrus crafts a sex jam so profoundly sexless it becomes pure absurdism.” I enjoyed the inclusion of the intro phone call sounds, the spoken exchanges in the bridge and outro (except for the “Some people say I’m creepy” line), and the vocal harmonies throughout, but otherwise, this is another song from the record that is fairly weak and one that might grow on me, but for now is a skip. If I really wanted a Miley Cyrus hookup song, I’d play Handstand from Endless Summer Vacation.
Innocent Ways should have come along in the album much sooner. Songs like this were what I was expecting from this album: an exploration of Miley’s relationship with her younger sister, Noah Cyrus, as she watches her struggle with fame, identity, and innocence. The post-chorus and bridge of this song is what really sold me. The repetitive industrial backing beat to the fast-paced lyrics is what a song from an album called Bass Persuades should sound like.
After experiencing the previous eight songs, we find ourselves at the conclusion of Bass Persuades (unless you are counting the Bass Persuades remix), in a song called Snow. Snow is certainly not a song with heavy bass production, but it definitely is a great choice to close the standard/non-remix tracks of the album. While it still lacks the sound I would have preferred from this album, the sound she does run with for this song, as well as the writing, sells it for me. The concept of two people living in a surreal moment in slow-motion intimacy is so unique and unlike anything Miley has produced before. I adore the repetition of “Together, we both fall, fall” at the end, with reflective lines sprinkled in between that end with “It doesn’t get better.”
As mentioned plenty of times throughout this review, I had high expectations for the specific sound that Bass Persuades would have, and the failure to meet those expectations, which was replaced by a bland, forgettable sound, is why I struggle to latch onto this record. As a Something Beautiful lover and Endless Summer Vacation defender, this was not the record that I thought would push Plastic Hearts out of my Miley Cyrus holy trinity. Additionally, Miley told a reporter that her song Reborn from Something Beautiful made her double down on the experimental nature and dark sound that she attributed to Bass Persuades, which I question each time I finish this album. The majority of this record is not experimental at all, in comparison to Something Beautiful or even back to Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Pets.
It pains me to diminish the work of Miley Cyrus as a longstanding fan of hers, but this project was not it for me.
RATING: 5.7/10
