Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Most of Miley Cyrus’ albums have been pretty high-concept, in the musical styles they tried on for size.
She didn’t come in like a wrecking ball so much as a pendulum. Successive records found her swinging back and forth — or sideways — from the pop-diva dominance she established with “Bangerz” to the one-woman back-to-roots movement of “Young Again,” on up to the rockin’ new-wave revivalism of 2021’s “Plastic Hearts.” (Somewhere in there came her Flaming Lips collab… or probably we all just collectively dreamed that one, right?) Through it all was the sense that Cyrus was always working hard — too hard, sometimes — to establish that a new shift in direction was the real her, the one that’d really find her “just being Miley,” as a seminal hit of hers once promised.
Her new album, “Endless Summer Vacation,” doesn’t really sound much like any of those previous records. But to its credit, it doesn’t sound like another conscious reinvention, either.
Which is maybe one reason why it’s one of her most enjoyable albums: by virtue of being just a little too slippery to paste a tag on.
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