Miley Cyrus – “Younger Now” album

When I first decided to write a review on the new Miley Cyrus CD, “Younger Now,” I was very excited because I’d heard that her new music was supposed to be similar to her earlier songs.

I grew up watching Cyrus in Disney Channel’s “Hannah Montana” and listening to her early music after leaving Disney. I was one of those girls who listened to “Seven Things” and “Party in the USA” on repeat. However, when Cyrus transitioned into a more adult version of the star I used to love, I wasn’t as impressed with her music.

Like most of us, I’ve heard “Wrecking Ball” several times, and while it wasn’t a bad song, the music video ruined it for me. Similarly, when Cyrus performed with Robin Thicke at the Video Music Awards in 2013, I almost stopped liking her music altogether. I won’t say that I disliked her, but I definitely wasn’t listening to anything on her albums “Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz” or “Bangerz” on repeat like I had with her earlier albums.

That’s why I’m honestly disappointed with Cyrus’s newest album. I expected more of the upbeat, jam-out-in-my-car kind of music that I had enjoyed before Cyrus drastically changed her sound a few years ago.

While many of the songs on Cyrus’s new album aren’t necessarily bad songs, the entire album itself mostly has a mellow, laid-back feel that I wasn’t really expecting when I heard about “Younger Now.”

The individual songs are good, but I don’t like them together as a whole album. I can only handle so many slow, repetitive songs before I start to dislike the album. Many of the songs are very monotonous and don’t offer much substance except some soulful lyrics and the same sound for the entire song.

Honestly, I felt like many of the songs were very similar in sound to “Malibu,” which Cyrus released this spring. “Malibu” is a great song that highlights the shift back from the darker period Cyrus went through following her split from actor Liam Hemsworth. The difference in sound is immediately evident from the first beat of the song. “Malibu” is a great song, but when the majority of the album sounds almost the same, it gets really hard to actually enjoy any of the other songs.

In addition to the melancholy, monotonous sound of many of the songs, quite a few of them also end abruptly. There isn’t really a clear beginning, climax and conclusion like most songs have. The songs go through the verses and choruses without much change and then tend to just stop.

Normally, this kind of thing wouldn’t bother me, but, again, when that happens several times on one album, it gets really annoying. Honestly, by the time I got about halfway through the album, I didn’t even want to listen to the rest of the songs.

While Cyrus does a great job using her lyrics to tell her story and to give her listeners deep, meaningful songs, she doesn’t do as well with giving her listeners variety.

Overall, I believe that I would have enjoyed many of the songs a whole lot more if I had heard them separately instead of pieces of the album. I was really disappointed that I wasn’t able to hear much of the “old Miley” in “Younger Now.” It made it very hard to make the connection back to the artist I used to love.