Artiste: Miley Cyrus
Album: Something Beautiful
Rating: ***
There’s an infection going around Washington DC called “big, beautiful”. For Donald Trump, his “big, beautiful” tax bill is causing a problem, and Miley Cyrus, too, appears to have caught the bug while recording her latest album. Her habit of going too far down a slippery slope is visible here as much as it was on the frightful 2015 album Miley Cyrus and her Dead Petz, the follow-up to the brilliant Bangerz from 2013. If Endless Summer Vacation from 2023 turned in the ever-blooming track Flowers that has had over 2.7 billion streams, Something Beautiful is as insightful as your neighbour explaining a flat tire.
Here, she is inspired by Alan Parker’s 1982 surrealist drama film The Wall, influenced in turn by the Pink Floyd album of the same name. Cyrus saw it as a teenager and after all these years, she has this idea of making something like The Wall “but with a better wardrobe”.
What we get is an album about healing and living up to a proverb: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The album gets off to a promising start with the title track, a ballad, complete with horns, before distorted vocals take over, punctuated by a discordant rock guitar.
The follow-up — End of the World — is a far better song, thanks to the piano parts that remind one of Abba’s Dancing Queen. She tries to make her voice channel more pain than the lyrics — Let’s pretend it’s not the end of the world/ Let’s spend the dollars you’ve been saving on a Mercedes-Benz/ And throw a party like McCartney with some help from our friends.
On Easy Lover she pays tribute to 1970s producer Giorgio Moroder while Golden Burning Sun is a trippy trip into indie rock. One can’t help but feel that Cyrus wanted to make a visual album with some Instagram Reels-worthy hooks, but what we get is an inconsistent effort. The high point is the explosive Every Girl You’ve Ever Loved with a cameo from Naomi Campbell: Match my bag to my new dress/ I’m still looking like a ten/ While my hair is a mess/ And, and I’m gonna work it all night/ ‘Til I get what I want. Too bad, Cyrus couldn’t deliver more of that.
Artiste: PinkPantheress
Mixtape: Fancy That
Rating: ****
The British singer-songwriter’s appeal lies in the fact that she likes to keep music to the point. She first gained public attention in 2021 by posting snippets of her music, created on a laptop, to TikTok. It was about brevity. And it remains her strength on the new mixtape, which features nine songs spanning 21 minutes.
There’s something brilliant about the way she brings together her musical influences within the short running time. The 24-year-old and her collaborators (especially Norwegian co-producer/co-writer Aksel Arvid) have injected the tracks with clever samples and interpolations — three from Basement Jaxx and one each from Underworld and William Orbit, besides Gamble and Huff and Panic! at the Disco’s Do You Know What I’m Seeing? on Tonight.
It’s fun to hear the mixtape on which the hooks come across fast and are tight. As the mixtape draws to a close, she slows it down slightly on Stateside and Romeo.
Artiste: Gloria Estefan
Album: Raices
Rating: *****
Gloria Estefan is in the habit of getting inside the head. The Latin-pop legend does that with her new album, Raices, which finds her returning to her roots. Her first Spanish-language album in many years is about love and has been executed with her husband of 46 years, Emilio.
La Vecina (meaning “the neighbour”) talks about the first neighbourhood she called home after fleeing Cuba. You can spot the Estefan of the 1990s on a song like Yo Quiero Ser (I Want To Be) with a steady beat, and then there is the brilliant Cómo Pasó, which will take you back to her Spanish music from the same era.
She is in the mood for a party on Chirriqui Chirri while Te Juro (I Swear) celebrates her powerful voice. The rhythms appear from all over — Cuba, Colombia and Panama — and she turns them into an effort that bridges the cultural divide. She sings of love, fun and optimism… how can you go wrong with that? The heart melts when you hear her Cuando el Tiempo Nos Castiga and Mi Nino Bello, both of which also have English versions. Estefan continues to be caught in music’s powerful grooves… the album proves it.
Group: Grateful Dead
Special set: Enjoying the Ride
Rating: *****
Rhino record label is going big to mark six decades since the band — then called the Warlocks — played at Magoo’s Pizza in Menlo Park, California, in May 1965. Enjoying the Ride is a new box that includes largely complete shows from 20 venues that were long associated with the Dead. There are three discs per show and a total of 60 discs.
The set includes visits to the Winterland, Frost Amphitheatre, Madison Square Garden and Hampton Coliseum. Of the 20 shows in the collection, 17 are presented in full, with some featuring additional material from the same venue. With the exception of a few songs, like one from the Fillmore East in 1971, these tapes have never been released before. The limited edition set is available alongside a more compact version, The Music Never Stopped.
