Miley Cyrus

Younger Now

Without the mad spark of a collaborator like Coyne or Bangerz mastermind Mike WiLL Made-It, she’s just a girl gone mild: younger, wiser, and never quite as fun as the bad old days.

Her specialty is good times, either raving until the early dawn or chilling out on the beach...or maybe whiling away the hours online. Without ever succumbing to the garish neon extremes of Bangerz or the hangover ache of Dead Petz, Younger Now touches upon each of these obsessions and then wraps them in a tidy package.

Her new Younger Now is the debut of yet another Miley, playing down her whimsical and outrageous quirks for a sincerity-intensive move into the country-pop maturity of "Malibu."

In truth, the move towards country music made on Younger Now is fraught with potholes that she and producer Oren Yoel rarely manage to avoid.

On Younger Now, she has taken control of the songwriting and production and emerges as a conservative, big-lunged, country-tinged pop star with songs about breaking free.

Despite what its cringeworthy advance press would have us believe, Younger Now doesn't quite fit the narrative of Cyrus fleeing urban music for the safe, white confines of country-pop. If anything, it's the sound of a promising young singer who tried and failed to produce compelling music on the margins, turning back and self-consciously striking a more conservative pose. It's not as interesting a story, maybe, but it's also not as problematic.

Younger Now isn’t a failure exactly – just the sound of Cyrus, or her record company, panicking and hitting “reset”.

Removed from the digital showboating that’s colored so much of her pop work, Younger Now is characterized by a refreshing, down-home sincerity.

Luckily, most of Younger Now is completely palatable. It's all together banal in too many places for it to leave a lasting impression, however. It's a shame, really, seeing Miley finally become the singer she was always meant to be, only for it to occur on such a mixed bag of an album.

Younger Now blends pop-rock and pablum country fare that is so restrained, so thinly produced, it seems like her lovably goofy personality was hobbled throughout the recording process.