Plastic Hearts

“Plastic Hearts” is not a trendy rebranding of Cyrus so much as a convincing argument that she’s always been something of an old soul.

Unlike her previous album Younger Now, where Cyrus dabbled in a rootsier sound without much substance, she actually has a lot to say on Plastic Hearts.

Miley's seventh era seems to be the one that suits her best, her huge vocals and penchant for penning irresistible melodies lending themselves with ease to big growling rock-leaning anthems.

The new tracks feel particularly crisp and cohesive, easily her most captivating and keenly focused record yet.

Cyrus conveys a jaunting and heartening honesty throughout her lyrics as she reflects on love, guilt, addiction and the business of breaking hearts. In a year shrouded by isolation and starved of social interaction, where individuals have been forced to discover the unexpected joy of solitude, “Plastic hearts” might just be the soundtrack to through this journey as you embark on your very own Rocky-esque beast mode montage of shameless self-empowerment.

With Plastic Hearts, comes a wonderful album about life as a fiercely independent woman. Cyrus has found the perfect balance of pushing her own musical boundaries whilst proving she’s one of the strongest and bravest names in the constant celebrity whirlwind.

Plastic Hearts is a change in direction that works really well. With names like Billy Idol and Joan Jett guesting, there’s even a sample of a Stevie Nicks song in case you were any doubt that this is a Miley Cyrus album that your dad would feel comfortable listening to.

Rather than pivoting to rockstar to play the part, Cyrus is shedding some previous layers of industry artifice to speak to a genre that has always unleashed her voice from any electropop or hip-hop audience-baiting cage. Not only that, the arena of rock enables Cyrus to indulge controversy in provocative stage performances that needn't alert the cultural appropriation police.

From start to finish, Plastic Hearts dresses catchy, Eighties-indebted pop melodies in rock’s studded leather, lets them spin a few wheelies and max out the speedo. It’s basically a truckload of fun with added blood and guts, driven by Cyrus’s reckless, open-throated, soul-bearing charisma.

Plastic Hearts finds the pop-star-turned-rock-star going hell for leather – and when Miley Cyrus is at full throttle, it’s an absolute blast. Life has imitated art, and she’s become her very own Ashley O.

“Plastic Hearts” just makes sense of the hard and the soft, the pop and the country, the gruff and the sweet in a way that no other Cyrus album has before in its entirety.

Despite Cyrus' disavowal of Younger Now's Nashville sound, the best moments on Plastic Hearts come when she delves into power ballads, which blend the over-the-topness of glam with the teary storytelling of country music.

Cyrus has always been more interesting — eclectic, provocative, upending expectations — as a public figure than as a musician. But on songs like “Midnight Sky”, Cyrus has found a sonic mode where listeners can more fully hear her distinctive voice and unruly perspective. Like her hero Elvis Presley perhaps, Plastic Hearts proves that Cyrus can be derivative and still be an original.

The album peaks when Cyrus finally delivers retro rock-inspired collaborations with both Billy Idol and Joan Jett. These two champions of 1980s rock bring some grit to the album, taking Cyrus into the heavier direction she's been teasing for years.

Stepping confidently into her “rock era,” Miley offers a genuinely pleasing, though sometimes hamfisted record that staves off the awkwardness and missteps that plagued her previous albums.

Despite the unnecessary concessions to conventionality, Plastic Hearts still manages to reveal even more layers to Cyrus’ ever-expanding musical palette, proving she can take on whatever genre she desires and give it her own unique sense of flair.

If only Plastic Hearts followed Midnight Sky’s lead, we’d have an album of disco-rock that felt true to Cyrus’ strengths.

Cyrus’s habit of enlisting high-profile artists from the upper echelon of a given genre continues here with appearances by Jett, Billy Idol, and Stevie Nicks, who all adequately do their thing. As usual, though, Cyrus is most indelible when her own voice takes center stage and the music mingles with and amplifies her messages of self-empowerment and emotional culpability. If nothing else, Plastic Hearts gives her license to unapologetically rock out.

Listening to Plastic Heart, it’s hard not to suspect a sense of compromise: attempting to corral Cyrus’s diverse interests into something with obvious commercial appeal to avoid the muted sales of 2017’s Younger Now, which failed to convince pop fans or lure in the traditional country crowd. It isn’t a bad album but it’s far less interesting and more straightforward than the artist who made it.

Half the time, Cyrus is touting some ersatz idea of “rawk” proselytised by MTV circa 1984. ... Things perk up considerably on the songs that feel more authentic to Cyrus.