Miley’s new album-Ambitious yet unfocused

Miley Cyrus released Younger Now Sept 29. Her sixth studio album is her first project since Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, which came out in 2015. Younger Now is an ambitious album, but does it deliver?
The first talking point of this album is the vocals. Cyrus has an outstanding voice. Her vocal range seems to know no bounds, and her voice sounds good in every octave. She sometimes makes her voice sound more raspy than it has to be, for stylistic effect, and it adds to the music. That isn’t all Cyrus does with her voice, though. She can add a country twang to her voice, along with having a pure pop sound. It all depends on what the song calls for. Her voice is flexible and sounds good, which make the vocals on this album shine.
Up next is the production value of the album. This album mixes modern pop beats with electric guitar and bass nicely. The guitar parts in these songs aren’t overly complicated or difficult, but they sound almost relaxing. Even in an upbeat song the guitar parts don’t seem to be going that quickly, they just flow with the song. The guitar is the main instrument on this album, besides Cyrus’ voice. Other instruments used include the electric bass and a bit of piano/keyboard, violin, trombone, cello, drums, trumpet, French horn and fiddle. One of the best parts of the album is that the arrangement of the songs allows for real instruments to be the focus behind the vocals, as opposed to focusing on typical computer-generated beats. Having real instrumentation instead of synthesized background music (that any toddler with hands and access to garage band could make) is an achievement in today’s musical society. This album however, is far from perfect.
The focus of this album is blurry — it’s scattered from song to song. Themes of breaking free but also heartbreak surface in this album. These two themes can be put together in an album successfully, but the artist would have to put forth some effort into doing so. It seems like Cyrus threw these songs together without thinking about the big picture. Likewise, the songwriting in this album lacks sincerity.
In all, this album is ambitious when it comes to the musical perspective. However, the shallowness of the songwriting and the incoherence of theme taints the achievement of the musical production. Overall, this album receives a 5.9/10.