Reviewed August 20, 2008
Miley Cyrus Breakout
by Ron Hollywood

produced by John Fields, Antonina Armato, Tim James, Anne Preven, Scott Cutler, Matthew Wilder

Tween pop phenomenon Miley Cyrus has released her first full length ‘real’ solo album without any affiliation to her alter-ego Hannah Montana. Miley has gone on record as stating “I wanted to embrace my older audience a little more, kind of taking shackles off and doing the music I wanted to do.” And with her co-writing most of the material the question is : how did she do?

Miley tween rocks with Breakout and typical lyrics for her audience like “Every week’s the same / Stuck in school so lame / My parents say that I’m lazy
Getting up at 8 is crazy /… We’re gonna Breakout / Let the party start / We’re gonna stay out / Gonna break some hearts / We’re gonna dance till the dance floor falls apart / Uh oh, all over again / We’re gonna wakeup everyone we know /
We’re gonna have some fun, gonna loose control.”

With her first single 7 Things she adopts an Avril Lavigne attitude and musical style. While a song like The Driveway shows an ounce of musical diversity but then you’ve got a pop rocker song like Wakeup America which is just typical, and not just typical pop rock, but typical tween pop rock. There’s even a typical “la la la la la” chorus on Simple Song which describes the song itself if not most of the album.

Her most maturity in music and lyrics comes in the adult contemporary sounding These Four Walls. However one really good song doesn’t make up for an absolutely awful awful cover of Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, or worse the forgettable Bottom Of the Ocean which is where that song belongs. Not even a Miley fan would see the need for a useless remix of See You Again.

Overall I believe Miley is just inching her way up to “taking the shackles off”. Even that is saying too much. At fifteen I think we should wait until she’s really mature in five or so years to see what she really wants to do. By that time there will be a new teen phenomenon for us to review. And hopefully better than this one.

1 Breakout 3:26
2 7 Things 3:33
3 The Driveway 3:43
4 Girls Just Wanna Have Fun 3:06
5 Full Circle 3:14
6 Fly On The Wall 2:31
7 Bottom Of The Ocean 3:15
8 Wake Up America
9 These Four Walls 3:28
10 Simple Song 3:32
11 Goodbye 3:53
12 See You Again (Rock Mafia Remix) 3:16

total length 37:43

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Previously: John Mellancamp Life Death Love and Freedom

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