Pitchfork: ATTENTION: MILEY LIVE

[COOOK 76,406]

"The pop star’s first live album is a collage of Miley’s various eras and personas, not all of which have aged well or translate coherently to a live setting."

Spoiler

"Miley Cyrus built a brand as a Disney Channel pop star and then spent the rest of her career setting fire to it, contorting through one highly-stylized phase after another in order to announce herself as anyone other than Hannah Montana. Sometimes, it seemed like she was actively trying to confuse her audience. Every album cycle brought something wholly different: She zigzagged through the foam-fingered, twerk-to-tweet pipeline of 2013’s Bangerz, the Flaming Lips acid trip that churns through 2015’s Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz, the country twang of 2017’s Younger Now, and the leather jackets and platinum mullet that ushered in her most recent studio album, 2020’s Plastic Hearts."

"Attention captures parts of Cyrus’ November 2021 set from the Super Bowl Music Fest, where she opened for Green Day at what is now called the Crypto.com arena. Fans allegedly curated the live album setlist, and only two of the 20 tracks here are new, including the abrasive title track where she repeats the word “attention” over blares of faux-metal guitar before the layers of distorted shouting—“You’ve got questions? I NEED ANSWERS!”—kick in."

"“You,” the other new offering here, fares better. It’s a throaty ballad, as Cyrus pleads for a specific vision of love: someone to get thrown out of bars with, someone to flip off her exes with. She interrupts the song’s charm when she chirps about a “horsey and carriage” in the chorus, but the baby voice becomes more tolerable when she soars out of it and starts to belt. That’s the allure of a Miley Cyrus live album: stripped from all the spectacle and scandal, the butter costumes and the prosthetic penises, you just get to hear her sing.

The strength of that voice—a guttural alto that’s raw and robust and gleaming—has made Cyrus uniquely gifted as a cover artist, imbuing motion and meaning into any track she touches."

"“When people hear my music, they hear a fragment of a time,” she told Vanity Fair in 2019. Attention gives a lot of fragments, but Cyrus can’t pull them together convincingly. All we have are snapshots of an artist who still can’t tell us what any of them mean."

Full review here.

Previous scores:

         

[alsemanche 92,815]

The album deserves a lot more  It's a very good live album and has excellent versions of her songs + the mash-ups are really good.

But then again, it seems like they just don't like her. Imagine giving Plastic Hearts anything less than an 8.

[Night Vision 3,068]

Those low scores for Plastic Hearts, She Is Coming, and Dead Petz are ridiculous. Younger Now deserves.

It's hard to take Pitchfork seriously when they clearly have their artists they like and don't like, and often seem to have decided a score before they have even heard the album.

[Suspiria 10,683]

"That’s the allure of a Miley Cyrus live album: stripped from all the spectacle and scandal, the butter costumes and the prosthetic penises, you just get to hear her sing."

 

Gosh I will never not HATE this sort of comment. It's exactly what they always said about Gaga.

The voice is always there, no matter what they're wearing or how they publicise themself. It's not the artist's fault if you, a literal music critic, are too easily distracted by costumes and drama to open your ears and listen to their voice

And  regardless, you'd think they'd be aware that different types of artists and performances exist, damn. Do they go to musical theatre performances and say "I wish they'd strip away all the plot, costumes and sets and just sing!!"

[StarstruckIllusion 52,278]

Wow at Plastic Hearts having a 6. Idk who paid who but p4k becoming the standard is such a bad timeline ☠️

[TheSlash 14,539]

Why even caring for this trash site?   We all know the quality Miley is delivering, so just ignore this dumpster fire of a review  

[COOOK 76,406]

12 minutes ago, Suspiria said:

"That’s the allure of a Miley Cyrus live album: stripped from all the spectacle and scandal, the butter costumes and the prosthetic penises, you just get to hear her sing."

 

Gosh I will never not HATE this sort of critique. It's exactly what they always said about Gaga.

The voice is always there, no matter what they're wearing or how they publicise themself. Regardless of whether or not you view the visuals/fashion etc. as art or not, it's not the artist's fault if you're not able to look past it, just open your ears and listen

Exactly. Your job is to review the album, not the spectacle of it all

[Meat 18,962]

Idc what anyone says, Younger Now is better than Plastic Hearts. Country Miley feels so warm and loving, as opposed to this new punk persona she has.

[weed 72,964]

Should’ve covered a Lana song, would bump it 3 points alone

[Joaco95 1,631]

Dead Petz tho>>>

[Luv u Sum 2,330]

they don’t get the vibe 

[Ronnie 5,906]

I honestly prefer the live versions over the studio ones! Love this album! She’s never sounded better.