The title track and first single from Miley Cyrus‘ “Bass Persuades” was a classic act of misdirection, we now learn. Released two and a half weeks prior to the album, the song promised a tenth album full of bangers (with an S or Z, take your pick), mildly scolding the young people for not being interested enough in the dance floor — whatsa matter with kids today? — and aiming to redirect them there with a combination of throbbing rhythms and spoken-word instructions loosely borrowed from the catalogs of Madonna and Lady Gaga. For better or worse, it seemed as if Cyrus was going to drop some of her stylistic eccentricities, along with her last name, and deliver a pure club record.
But that was our supposition, not hers, even if borrowing the single’s title for the whole project did seem to make a promise the full record isn’t prepared to deliver on. The new album, which came out Friday sans press previews, opens with “Bass Persuades” being followed by a second number in a faintly similar vein, “Different Religion,” but then it rarely returns to that territory until the 38-minute collection wraps up with its 10th track, a revved-up and unnecessary remix of the title track. What comes in between includes a surprising number of love ballads and a few odd outliers.
It’s eclectic, but not “Endless Summer Vacation”-level eclectic. One thing no one will ever remember about it is the album having a surfeit of bass. It’s a little light on that, too — pleasant, passable and occasionally compelling, but slight, with hooks that never quite reach the peaks you hope for out of a great pop song, and a bit of an “is that all there is?” feeling at the end of its relatively short length.
It will be no one’s favorite Miley album, nor anyone’s least favorite. The overall feel is of something enjoyable on its own terms but a little undercooked in almost every regard, as if the star had been in a rush to deliver product to her new label, even as its primarily lovestruck lyrics — some of which are quite good — surely do reflect where the singer is at in her off-screen life. But for those who admired her previous album, the barely year-old “Something Beautiful,” for finding a cool and interesting retro aesthetic and pretty much sticking with it, “Bass Persuades” seems kind of centerless, more like an in-between project meant to mark time between bolder musical statements than any kind of arrival.
The core message of the album seems to be that things are going pretty well — make that extremely well — with fiancée Maxx Morando, who is a writer-producer collaborator on all but two of the tracks. Hearing Miley in a besotted state turns up mixed results. The third track, “Let’s Get Married,” is an abrupt left turn from the two bang-ier numbers that precede it into synthy easy listening/AC flavors, and what it delivers is not worth the whiplash; while it will probably be heard at some weddings to come, there may be a lot of attendees who would be itchy to please skip ahead to the vows.
Fortunately, that syrupy aside is a low point from which the album fairly quickly recovers. Her significant other is the center of her solar system: “Place a marble on the floor / When you walk in the room, it’ll roll to you” is an image that makes for a lovely mash note. The romantic reveries sometimes give way to things sillier and saucier.
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