The only thing Miley Cyrus’s critics found more problematic than her appropriation of black culture on her 2013 album Bangerz was the singer’s utter abandonment of hip-hop on 2017’s Younger Now. That album was marked by a more mellow pop-rock sound, complemented by a newly squeaky-clean image that found her literally frolicking in a country meadow. The move was seen as confirmation that Cyrus’s interest in hip-hop is merely performative, and her recent renunciation of Younger Now and subsequent pivot back toward urban-influenced pop is unlikely to quash that impression.
She Is Coming, the first of three EPs that Cyrus plans to release throughout the year, is rife with references to her newfound toughness. Lead single “Mother’s Daughter” boasts an admirable feminist-adjacent message—“Don’t fuck with my freedom”—but Cyrus’s standoffish pose feels like so much empty posturing, making the bravado of Taylor Swift’s Reputation seem downright menacing. On the mercifully brief “Unholy,” Cyrus tosses off glib vaunts like “I’m a little bit unholy/So what? So is everyone else,” while an unintentionally comical quip about having sex next to takeout food may arouse little in listeners besides a sudden compulsion to sanitize their kitchen counter.
The EP’s dubious employment of hip-hop tropes and graphic sexual metaphors reaches its nadir on ballroom-inspired “Cattitude,” part boast track and part ode to Miley’s female prowess: “I love my pussy, that means I got cattitude/If you don’t feel what I’m saying, I don’t fuck with you.” RuPaul’s presence lends a certain tongue-in-cheek quality to the song, but given the straight-faced appropriation on display throughout the rest of She Is Coming, it’s impossible not to consider this one with as much seriousness—that is, not much at all. When, at the end of the track, Cyrus awkwardly raps, “You’re just mad ‘cause your hair is flat,” it’s hard to tell if she’s taking the piss or deliberately provoking her critics.
Which is a shame, as Cyrus finds her groove when she doesn’t try so hard, as on “D.R.E.A.M.,” a hazy confessional that, true to its title, is dreamy enough to forgive its puerile conflation of chemical and romantic euphoria. Even an initially jarring coda from Ghostface Killah feels of a piece with the impeccably produced track’s distorted guitars and slyly discomfiting beat. The ragga-inspired “Party Up the Street” likewise cushions its drug-induced reverie with pillowy keyboards and swoony orchestral flourishes. Unless the subsequent EPs in this series follow this less strident tack, Bangerz might start to seem like an act of cultural reverence.
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