I can’t believe I’m doing this.
So I’ve been in my headphones again, this time plugged into my daughters iPod. I have a 1st generation iPhone and the adapter for my AKG’s doesn’t fit the top. I have to carve out the plastic on most plugs, but this is gold plated metal, so, no dice. So I found her new iPod in the office and figured, “what the hell, why not?”
Let’s cut to the chase: it was a birthday present, and I had to put some tunes on it, all we had that was child-friendly on our machine was some Jack Johnson and Colbie Caillat. Nothing else seemed okay. I’d planned on getting her an iTunes gift card but didn’t, so I went online and bought some Hannah Montana.
There, I did it. I said it, $325 worth of counseling later. Acceptance is the first step to recovery, or something like that.
I bought M-I-L-E-Y C-Y-R-U-S. I bought Mitchell Musso. I bought Taylor Swift. I bought Selena Gomez. I even bought the damn Jonas Brothers. I EXCEEDED my weekly beer budget with bubblegum pop. So I figured I should listen to it.
Not that I haven’t heard it. Radio Disney is a staple in carpool, which is how I knew what I needed to buy her. I’ve watched her sing along to these songs in the rear view mirror. It’s not what I would have picked, but its what I’ve got. Parenting seems to have its share of compromise, just like growing up, and I would rather her enjoy music, good or bad, than not.
So I plugged into the bottom of her purple iPod and spun it to Jack Johnson. Jack is all about making sure you feel at home. He wants you in the room, wants you to sing along or smile when you don’t know the words. You never even have to lift your hands when you dance to it, just keep your hands low, maybe holding the top of your solo cup while the groove works its way from your shoulders to your feet. You’ve got to love Jack, unless you just generally hate people.
I felt good about that one, that’s okay stuff for her to listen to. Nothing sketchy in the lyrics, nothing too suggestive. And I can listen to it, too.
But I don’t know if she will, and really, it’s the Disney feed into which she is dialed. So I rolled it over to the Artists and scrolled down to Miley. It seems almost perverse to put it on the headphones. You can hear it all in here: back up vocals, clear separation of rhythm and lead guitars, over dubs, foot squeaks, volume pushes, spittle–everything. Hannah, the Fraud, will be exposed in seconds.
Man, I wish. She is for real. Guitar tight, bass reliable but with a bounce, she’s singing about LA. “Party In The USA” is ‘Miley Goes To LA’, all about feeling awkward around stars, hearing a good tune (Jay-Z), and letting your body move to the DJ.
I got my hands/ they’re playin’ my song /and I know I’m gonna be okay/ nodding my head like “yea”/ moving my hips like “yea”/it a party in the USA!
She nervously contemplates, “Welcome to the world of fame excess/whoa am I gonna fit in?”
That’s the question, really, in the world of ‘fame excess’, are our kids going to fit in? It struck me why she’s such a big deal, and I can’t believe I just took this for granted: She’s got our kids, and Disney knows it. Hannah Montana was all about being a kid, a kid star, maybe, but a kid. Being triumphant in a complicated world. But not complicated by anything specific, just complicated. (There’s always gonna be another mountain/I’m always gonna want to make it move) or (do me a favor and tell me what you think about me/tell me what you want to this toe/go out on a limb and just be)(nothings out of reach, so dream, dream, dream). Big, emotional, but, at least, personal. That’s all about to change for Miley and with her, for our kids.
There was the tour, when Hannah handed the torch to Miley, the photographs, and now the new album cut, a patriotic, self-deprecating anthem to her new, nearly ubiquitous star power. And with her goes a crowd, documented through ratings, album sales, concert tickets–a quantifiable group of fans that will follow her into commercial success. That’s, at least, my take on it, and it’s from that perspective that I came to the conclusion that Party In The USA is not a good song.
Because, really, she can sing, and she can shake some Star Salt on a song make it taste okay. This song is about transitions. It’s about moving from home, community (if you can call Nashville that) into something scary and exciting. Something unfamiliar, a party with different older (“so famous”) people, and knowing you’re going to be okay. But Miley is the shepherd, she has the access (her TV show works that angle too, not that I’ve watched it or anything.) So what’s to keep our kids from wanting it, what’s to keep them from thinking it will be theirs?
There are other kids’ songs on this iPod, but they are garbage compared to Miley Cyrus. Cheap one-hit blurbs about being “stuck on you/running on empty” (Mitchell Musso) or ranting eunuchs going on about being “Paranoid”, its benign in comparison to the empire that Miley will become. Our daughters can learn to dance from her, learn to date and cope with loss from her; if she is smart (and she seems to be), then she will be the next generation’s Madonna; if she’s not, then she is at least a Britney or a Lindsey Lohan. They are following her from Nashville to LA, from Billy Ray to some as-yet-to-be-vetted lifestyle. We don’t get to pick it.
I figure that there is a chance that somebody reading this might be thinking, “Yea, Miley Cyrus is a child superstar, kids like her, that’s pretty obvious, so what?” Its relevant because I believe we will get to watch her grow up Hollywood-style over the next few years. I would love to think that her handlers, knowing the grip she has on the market, would use it for the better. Let her join Americorps, work in inner city or in a rural community or New Orleans or something like that. But, as the photo above suggests and the content of her new songs indicate, she poised to become another Jessica Simpson/Britney Spears glitter sensation although on a completely different scale. She is probably bigger than anything we have seen in the past.
It is relevant because we are aware enough to know that if our daughters listen to Miley music, look at Miley internet, watch Miley TV or buy Miley merchandise, then Miley is part of the conversation. She holds some sway, just because she is always there, ubiquitous in the world of little girls. It is foolish to think you can ignore her. Even if your kid isn’t into her, everybody else at school is, and they learn from her. In my case, my daughter is on the tail-end of her audience: she is 8, and Miley’s crowd is teen-aged. So my 8-year-old, if she continues to listen and watch, will have to grapple with Hannah’s ascension into a staged adulthood before she is prepared to understand the difference between Hannah Montana the child an Miley Cyrus the young woman. And the very nature of the act requires them to preserve her youth in order to draw along the younger audience–my daughter and kids her age, in fact. But, at the same time, Miley will have to grow up in ways that attempt to reach an older, untapped audience, as well. And they are interested in different, more mature things. I don’t know how I feel about that.
It is relevant because Miley Cyrus is for real, as real as teen idols can be in the world of marketing. She’s bigger than Madonna. And the kids will be watching.
BL
bruce–FYI–this beautiful red head of yours–enjoys Grateful Dead, Widespread Panic, The Allman Brothers, Sound Tribe Sector Nine, and just about any bluegrass that you can turn the volume up on! please, please, please…help get her out of the miley funk! a little is okay, considering her age and what she enjoys on tv, but for goodness sake…enough is enough…by the way…i was cursing the fool that created that speaker in the nano the other evening! those things should not be heard without headphones!
[…] Music: If you read my rant on Hannah Montana, you know I’ve got some issues with kids music. I offer up Steve Winwood, Stevie Wonder, […]
miley cyrus is one of the best singers in the world but she does bad things too …
alas, catharsis for the millennial.
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/05/why_miley_cyruss_party_in_the.html