When Miley Cyrus dropped Miley Cyrus And Her Dead Petz for free at the 2015 VMAs, critic Meaghan Garvey at Pitchfork was quick to sink her teeth into it, calling it “a major pop album that lands with a splash, then sinks like a brick, as ephemeral as the Tumblr culture Cyrus draws from.”
This sums up most of the critical reaction to the hour-and-a-half, violently experimental, Flaming Lips-backed album, which currently has an unenviable score of 60 on Metacritic. And fans weren’t much more welcoming: “Dooo It!” the album’s lead single, currently has 285,445 dislikes to 183,594 likes on YouTube.
Oh, but what a life Dead Petz has taken on. It’s been praised by both John Mayer and Father John Misty — two hyper-macho horndogs whom one might never expect to listen to a Miley Cyrus album. The latter even cited it as one of his favorite albums of 2015. Even Elton John praised it, calling it “spur of the moment, out of leftfield stuff that would have happened during the ‘60s.” And when musicians like something and the populace doesn’t, we end up with something increasingly rare in the Internet age of hyper-saturation: a cult classic.
It’s already proven prescient of a growing trend among pop artists to release anti-pop, non-commercial vanity projects on major labels. Remember Willow “Whip My Hair” Smith? Well, she released her debut last December, Ardipithecus, and it’s mostly abstract new age R&B about death and healing crystals. Or how about “Boom Clap” star Charli XCX’s ear-splitting new EP with electronic producer Sophie? Or that really weird new Rihanna album? Or all those “retail mixtapes” Drake and Young Thug have been releasing?
Back in the day, these kinds of projects were career suicide. Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, which was literally an hour of noise, killed any chance he had post-“Walk On The Wild Side” of being a rock star. Today he could have just dropped it for free on his website and still had hits. Miley Cyrus And Her Dead Petz helped prove to the pop industry that pop stars could pretty much do whatever they want and still be successful. In that, it’s helping usher in a new era where pop stars aren’t so constrained by the expectations of making, well, pop music. Stay tuned for Katy Perry’s upcoming triple-disc album of fart noises.
And hey — Dead Petz is really good. There’s a lot of indulgent nonsense, as with pretty much any ninety-minute album. But it’s got a few of the best and most sincere love songs I’ve heard from a pop star this decade; “Lighter” and “Something About Space Dude” both rank among the best songs Cyrus has ever recorded. I don’t expect anyone reading this to commit to its entire runtime. But if y’all forgot it existed, it might be time to pick it up and expand your pop horizons.
Listen to “Dooo It!” from Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz below.