The obvious move for Miley Cyrus would be to make a full-on country album. The genre has enjoyed a huge upswing in the past few years—see the current No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100, Ella Langley’s record-breaking “Choosin’ Texas”—and Ms. Cyrus is both the daughter of pop-country hitmaker Billy Ray Cyrus and goddaughter of the recently deceased icon Dolly Parton. Yes, her 2017 collection “Younger Now” had some country touches and included a guest spot from Ms. Parton, but she hasn’t yet fully embraced the style, despite the vast commercial potential. Instead, she has followed her ever-shifting instincts over her past few LPs, zigzagging among ’80s rock, folk-pop, dream-pop and R&B with highly mixed results.
Ms. Cyrus chose yet another rebrand around the time she announced her new LP earlier this month: The 33-year-old singer would now be performing under her first name only, and the title of her 10th album, “Bass Persuades”—also the name of the percolating lead single—suggested an excursion to clubland. It was an intriguing prospect, partly because she’d never made a full-length LP in this vein, and contributions from critically respected post-punk New York revivalists Model/Actriz added another potentially exciting wrinkle. While the new release, out now on Atlantic, hews closely to the dancefloor concept, it’s a missed opportunity.
In terms of its sound and structure, “Bass Persuades” is an unusually focused set for Ms. Cyrus—there are 10 tracks in 37 minutes, all of which can be described as electronic pop. But concentrating her creative energy on a narrower slice of music didn’t lead to higher quality. The set starts reasonably well with the title track, a bouncy synthetic confection with chanted verses that recalls hits from Kesha. It’s not terribly distinctive but it is catchy, and Ms. Cyrus’s raspy voice sounds good in this setting. The following song, “Different Religion,” filled with clanging effects, an appealing subsonic rumble, and vocals from Cole Haden of Model/Actriz, might be the record’s finest moment.
Ms. Cyrus has described “Bass Persuades” as a “love story” inspired in part by her relationship with her fiancé, musician Maxx Morando, but the lyrics lack specificity, cleverness and insight, and tend to slip into the background. Many songwriters and producers are credited on the album, with the greatest single contribution coming from Englishman Thomas Edward Percy Hull, aka Kid Harpoon (Harry Styles, Jessie Ware), who has worked with Ms. Cyrus before. His pop acumen is prevalent on “Let’s Get Married,” an effervescent midtempo number with a sticky chorus. But after starting with three decent-to-good songs in a row, “Bass Persuades” falls off rapidly, and almost everything that follows is forgettable. “Orbit” is a syrupy electronic ballad with a clunky refrain—no one will be writing “I want to orbit you forever” in their next anniversary card—while the speedy double-time house beat of “Aftermath” doesn’t offset its lack of melody or hooks.
Too often, the tracks fall into an in-between space, where they’re not rhythmically interesting enough to make you want to move and don’t have the tunes to stand up as pop. “Redlights” packs in sequenced synths and a string section, but it’s still oddly dull and even sleepy. “Neon Signs,” with vocals by Andrew Wyatt of electro-pop trio Miike Snow, has an appealing groove and worthy harmonies, but you can’t help but wish the chorus were considerably better. “Innocent Ways” wants to be a bass-quaking party anthem in the manner of something from Lady Gaga’s “Chromatica,” but it has no personality and comes off as stiff and formulaic. The final two songs both feature contributions from members of Model/Actriz. “Snow” is a middling pop number dressed up with a trebly pulsating synth, while “Bass Persuades Remixx” is a decent rework of the opening track, adding some sawtooth synths and switching up the percussion.
The record as a whole confirms that Ms. Cyrus’s chaotic throw-everything-at-the-wall approach is far more interesting than when she tries for a succinct exploration of a single genre. No matter what you thought of her attempts to channel Blondie and Joan Jett on 2020’s “Plastic Hearts” or incorporate goth and industrial textures on 2025’s “Something Beautiful,” the results were rarely boring. “Bass Persuades,” on which she hopes to capture the heightened tension and glorious release of the dancefloor, is rarely anything else.
