The Freakish Powers of Miley Cyrus and Lana Del Rey

Cyrus, daughter of the country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, was a Disney kid, the star of Hannah Montana, a highly processed pop prodigy who moved from Tennessee to L.A. (see: “Party in the U.S.A.”), broke out, and became a bong-brandishing hip-hop appropriator, twerk transgressor, sometime Flaming Lips collaborator, and pop/country/glam-rock anarchic aberration obsessed with freedom and nudity and Molly and “getting some,” chafing and rattling in her corporate cage, her magnificent voice growing steadily/unsteadily deeper and rougher and omnivorous, from a gurgling mezzo-soprano to an anthemic libertine roar to something like Metallica’s James Hetfield belching flames of pure estrogen, all the while achieving higher and higher levels of pop visibility until finally, in January, she smashed Spotify’s all-time weekly-song-streaming record (and took the top spot on the Billboard charts) with her post-breakup empowerment frolic “Flowers.” “I can buy myself flow-uuuuuuhs …” Is it her best song? Not even close. But her personality has achieved some kind of critical mass in the culture. Cyrus has lived several lifetimes, burned through several careers, made some beautiful music (“Adore You,” “High,” “Malibu”) and some not-so-beautiful music, and still—at age 30—gives the impression of not being able to manage, not quite, her freakish powers, like the pupils at Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters in X-Men, knocking down walls with their elbows and accidentally putting people in comas.