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Cyrus: Pop star potential?

Joel Devyldere
The Commuter

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

miley
There is a certain stigmatization which I feel the need to address when talking about Disney superstar Miley Cyrus. A lot of people I know have picked her as their definition for ‘terrible music.’ While Miley’s name may come with a negative connotation second only to Britney Spears, she also has a number two single. It was hard, but I tried to review her album “The Time of Our Lives” a little more objectively than comes naturally.

First impression: annoying. The song “Talk is Cheap” on Cyrus’ seven-track EP sounds like it might work as a montage number for a musical, but the sound is too flat for an album track. It’s straight-up irritating. That said, there are songs on this album which are worth the listen. “Kicking and Screaming,” “Time of Our Lives,” and the single “Party in the USA” all had elements that made them good radiopop material.

Cyrus’ charisma can certainly get her by with tweenage girls who just want something mass-marketed to idolize, but that will eventually fade as she gets older. There’s an awkward transition period where the public has gleefully watched a multitude of child stars catapult themselves into oblivion with drugs, scandal and awful “debut” albums. That could still happen to Miley Cyrus, but if it doesn’t she has a good chance to make it big apart from Disney.

A couple of the songs still bugged me (most notably “Before the Storm” feat. The Jonas Brothers), but others showed this artist’s potential for even more radio fame. I’m sure a lot of people will hate that. To summarize, Cyrus may come off as a canned and inelegant super cliché, but this album shows that she can sing, even if she doesn’t have the best song selection. I’m still not much of a fan, but “Time of Our Lives” isn’t as bad as everyone assumes it is.

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