Real Influential Women Role Models (Real and Fictitious) - Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa, and a Brief Review of Plastic Hearts (2020) and Future Nostalgia (2020)

Happy Women's History Month!

I've noticed that a lot of the music artists that I prefer to listen to are men. 5 Seconds of Summer, Ashton Irwin, One Direction, Harry Styles, Niall Horan... So I decided to dedicate this blog post to two woman artists that I have been listening to lately, Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa. 

Both Cyrus and Lipa released brand new albums recently, so I will place a special focus on them as well: Plastic Hearts (November 2020) and Future Nostalgia (March 2020; actually the same release date as 5SOS's CALM). However, I'm not going to talk about any bonus tracks. I'll just stick with the standard albums.

Let's start with Miley Cyrus.

THE PINK

Let me be honest...I never could STAND her, ever since her "Hannah Montana" days. To me she was just another irritating child star getting by because her father was in the business. When she outgrew the Disney Channel, she chopped off her hair (and then occassionally wore dredlocks too) and came in like a wrecking ball as one of those child stars who eventually became kinda troublesome in their later years, complete with drug use.

Or maybe this was just how she was perceived and portrayed.

That whole VMAs twerking thing with who's his face, Robin Thicke, has gone down in infamy. I can't with that.

She also does this tongue thing that I always used to hate, but now at least I understand why she does it and consider it her trademark now. I read somewhere that she doesn't like her smile or she feels self-conscious when she smiles, so she sticks her tongue out because she doesn't know what else to do with her mouth.

When she was married to Liam Hemsworth, I found her a bit more bearable and tame. Her hair got longer (a style that I liked on her better), I hardly heard about her, and her relationship with Liam was surprisingly heartwarming (I never thought they were a match, but him pranking her showed a cute side). But then a friend told me that she was still the same Miley.

As she has told us, she can't be tamed.

Fast forward to August 2020 when Cyrus dropped the "Midnight Sky" video. I never paid attention to when she released new music, but for some reason I was drawn to this, and I ended up really enjoying it. I felt that if "Midnight Sky" was any indication of what was to come, I was probably really going to like Plastic Hearts, and I do. It was my first time looking forward to music from her. Even though I am not really aware of her previous songs that aren't singles, I can tell that with Plastic Hearts she has finally found her sound. 

She got so cool now to me! I love her 80s rock sound, I love her aesethetic of her new hairstyles and leather outfits, and I especially love her confidence. But the thing with Miley Cyrus is, she always did have this confidence, but people, myself included, never fully embraced it, and some maybe still don't. She is unapologetically herself, speaks up, and was always very transparent in her adult years. As you know, I appreciate this in my artists. I don't think there was ever a time when she displayed a fake version of herself (unless she did so during her Disney Channel stint). And nowadays, she is totally owning everyone who has done her wrong and acknowledging her past.

Let's look at Plastic Hearts. Like other albums I know, it is the result of a breakup with the singer coming out from under the rubble stronger than ever. Cyrus has been through hell and back. Not only has she been ridiculed and villified for years, her house burned down in the Woolsey Fire and she is an divorcee, all by the young age of 28. She has also undergone vocal cord surgery, which has lead to not only a deeper, raspier voice, but sobriety from alcohol and cannibis. I actually admire this about her.

Despite everything that she has been through, she seems to be much happier and healthier, as suggested by "Golden G String," the final song on Plastic Hearts. In Fine Line (2019), Harry Styles says "We'll be alright." Cyrus, after considering what her next steps should be, says "I think I'll stay."

I appreciate the upbeat and cooldown combination of Plastic Hearts, her cooldown songs very impressive. She is very self-aware and honest in these, sharing that she knows darn well that cannot be the person others expect of her, and now she's finally making it known. 

Plastic Hearts tells a story in chronological order separated by section. "WTF Do I Know," "Plastic Hearts," "Angels Like You," and "Prisoner (featuring Due Lipa)" kick off the story by detailing her separation from then husband Hemsworth. The story concludes with self-reflection songs "High," "Hate Me," "Bad Karma (featuring Joan Jett)," "Never Be," and "Golden G String," which have blunt, hard-hitting lyrics that really show her coming to terms with who she really is. However, the unholy trilogy of "Gimme What I Want," "Night Crawling (featuring Billy Idol)," and of course "Midnight Sky" smack dab in the middle of the album is my favorite. These songs show her at her most wild and fun. She has escaped the nonsense from her toxic relationship and lives it up, leading to her making peace with herself later on in the album.

I love that Miley Cyrus is basically the Stevie Nicks, Joan Jett, and Billy Idol of our generation, and she's friends with all of them and they all contributed to this album.

What Plastic Hearts does, much like fellow albums released in 2020, is resurrect the nostalgia of music eras past. A popular choice is the 80s, which was a fantastic time for music. It seems that millennials are taking the music from their childhoods and producing it now themselves. I love this. 

Speaking of which...let's move on to Dua Lipa.

Seriously, can we talk about the color schemes of these album covers???

I started paying more attention to Lipa through her collaboration with Cyrus on "Prisoner." The two have developed this nice little friendship and the interesting thing is...they are both pretty opposite. 

Though Miley Cyrus is the more eccentric of the two, Dua Lipa is as well, but a bit more subdued.

Dua Lipa is one of the celebrities that I like because...I never really hear about her. (I hate this word but) she is probably one of the least "problematic" celebrities, nor is she as famous. Though I think Billie Eilish, another female music artist who probably deserves a spotlight on this blog, is more famous than Lipa, I kind of see them in the same light. I like them more as people than I listen to their music. Though I like their stuff enough, I'm not really a huge fan of Eilish's moaning, whisper voice and I'm on the fence about Lipa's monotone voice (we'll get to this). But the both of them seem like decent people, so I have to give them both a thumbs up for that. 

Lipa is just this British Albanian woman who is living her life (though I'm sure that there are people out there who find something to complain about her for some reason or another).

In fact, she was the one celebrity that I actually shipped with Harry Styles (but then I found out that THAT ship had already sailed, apparently :P).

When I was shopping for CALM, I often saw Future Nostalgia available as well, but I never thought much of it because it wasn't my focus. I just knew her songs in passing really. But then I decided to give this album more of a chance, thanks to my interest in Plastic Hearts pushing me to listen to more women's 2020 releases. I prefer Future Nostalgia to Taylor Swift's folklore and evermore, Ariana Grande's Positions, Selena Gomez's Rare, and Halsey's Manic.

So now le's talk about Future Nostalgia. As of March 14, 2021, GRAMMY Award-winning!!!!! Best Pop Vocal Album Future Nostalgia is a collection of songs Lipa created inspired by music she listened to growing up. While Plastic Hearts is 80s rock, Future Nostalgia is 90s dance pop, another great time period and genre for music. I should know. I lived through that one. ;)

During her GRAMMYs acceptance speech, Lipa talked about how she felt that making sad music was the only thing that mattered and then she realized that happiness is still very important for all of us. The more I listen to Future Nostalgia, the more I notice that the happiness of that album really shows. It's all about the joys of love and being in love.

I like Lipa's music, but an issue that I have with it is that every song of hers somewhat sounds alike to me, and when there isn't a lot of variety, then it can get a little dull. (Though I will say that some songs on Plastic Hearts and other albums could sound alike as well...)

But then, when you listen to these albums again, you begin to realize the unique qualities of each song.

While "Levitating" is one of my initial favorites on Future Nostalgia, I think my favorite of the album now is "Cool." Most of her songs are about sex and other relationship stuff, but "Cool" is one of the more innocently written. It's a sweet song of her simply being smitten. And I like the way she sings it. 

But then you have songs like "Future Nostalgia" and "Good In Bed." Oh boy. 

I love raspy singing voices in men, and a woman singer who absolutely nails this is of course Miley Cyrus. On the other hand, I appreciate the sootheness and smoothness of Dua Lipa's voice. However, what Lipa also tends to do is not really sing, but talk her way through songs, and the aformentioned songs above are examples. I still like these songs, but...

Title track "Future Nostalgia" is a happy song with a great message about self-confidence, but the way she delivers it for some reason is cringy to me. She talks with this weird inflection, and I know the song calls for her to have like this confident attitude, but she goes like "You CAN'T be bittER if I'm out HERE showing my FACE..." You have to listen to the song to understand what I mean because me emphasizing it with capital letters may not help lol. I think it's because it doesn't match her voice tone or something. Or maybe it's her accent? 

With "Good In Bed," I understand the message here too about a couple having more connection through sex instead of words and how this is not really a good thing, but we're faced with lyrics like this in order for her to get her point across:

I know it's really bad, bad, bad, bad, bad

Messing with my head, head, head, head, head

We drive each other mad, mad, mad, mad, mad

But baby that's what makes us good in bed

Ple-e-e-e-ease come take it out on me, me, me, me, me

I know it's really bad, bad, bad, bad

But baby that's what makes us good in bed

No. I can't stand this.

So basically she does this generic pop repetitive thing that is just so overdone and it's rare that I like this. Why are songs written like this? I'm no pro songwriter, but I'm sure that this could have been written differently and better, right?

Though it is written a bit repetitively as well, the best song on the album isn't a love song at all. Because of this, it doesn't seem to fit on the album and seems like a random inclusion, but it is one that is very relevant to today's society.

It's second nature to walk home

Before the sun goes down

And put your keys between your knuckles

When there's boys around

Men/boys, did you know that women and girls are taught at a young age to place keys between our knuckles to use as a stand-in weapon just in case we get attacked? Did you know that we have to plan our every move around these potential attacks? Let that sink in. This isn't just Lipa's story that she decided to tell in her own song. This is literally something we are all told to do. 

I've never heard the keys between knuckles thing mentioned in a song before, so I really like that Lipa did this.

With the background vocals of the Stagecoach Epsom Performing Arts Choir giving the song that extra orchestration, "Boys Will Be Boys" concludes Future Nostalgia, placed perfectly as the final song of the album. It is a response to the common phrase women know all too well. "Boys will be boys" and therefore can't be corrected, so women have to be on guard at all times because literally every member of the opposite sex is a threat to us. The refrain goes: "Boys will be, boys will be, boys will be, boys will be boys...but girls will be women" because the blame always falls on women and women are always expected to be the mature ones, thus absolving men from accountability. 

I'm sick of all of this, and Lipa is too.

Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa are both strong women and feminist icons. I like their latest albums, enjoy their appearances, look forward to what they have in store for their futures, and have a newfound respect for them, especially Miley.