With the release of Miley Cyrus' Bangerz, I had a flurry of old man reactions. Some were minor, including incredulity at the album art being inspired by bad teen idol records from the 1980s and anger at the misspelled title. Others were paternal, with concerns about how the young pop star thinks she needs to get naked all the time in order to either sell music or prove a point.
But enough people have written about their concerns about Cyrus shedding her clothes, and going increasingly naked has been a method to sell albums from as far back as I remember. I have an entirely different concern, which is only tangentially related to this particular young person, which is that for all the old man reactions I'm getting in the wake of the album's release, the music is actually inspiring none of them.
It's easy to forget that all of this is leading up to the release of an actual record, since most of the press surrounding Cyrus has focused on her display of skin rather than the actual music it's being used to promote. For all the controversy surrounding her videos and live television performances, nobody has been overly concerned that she has recorded a bunch of songs, some of which will eventually get played on the radio.
The opening single, Wrecking Ball, had a controversial video but it was just another pop song, the type that has been popular for years. It didn't inspire any disapproval of the kids these days, and head shaking about the garbage they listen to, which was incredibly disappointing. Cyrus has gone and made an image for herself that is upsetting everyone's parents, but she didn't actually record an album that upsets anyone's parents.
That's disappointing, because it is the job of every generation to upset their parents with their choices in music. Cyrus, for all her image manipulation, doesn't make music that upsets mom and dad. As near as I can tell, nobody does, and as a result I can't help but think that the kids these days are not doing their job. Every decade a new kind of music comes to make parents disapprove and make the kids feel as though they're rebelling against authority. It used to be punk, it used to be gangster rap, it used to be shock acts like Marilyn Manson. Now that all of that stuff is old, it's not really rebellious anymore, especially given the chance that mom and dad might have listened to it themselves.
So now is the time to see a new brand of music to upset parents and give kids something to call their own. It's a natural and accepted part of being a teenager, and something that everyone should aspire to. But instead, we've got a young star who gets naked sometimes, but is just making regular pop music. That's the person inspiring parental concern and getting a ton of think pieces written about them. She isn't making music that is upsetting anyone, it's just her stage antics.
But that's not new, and pop stars with an allergy to clothes are hardly exciting and rebellious. Frankly, I'm still waiting for the music that's going to get today's kids parents up in arms. Whether we approve or not, the rebellious kids are the ones who make a big change to existing formulas. The music industry needs another shake up.
