Miley Cyrus Literary Devices

Miley Cyrus is a major public icon and is known for continuously rebranding her image through her music. Miley’s 2013 album “Bangerz” was a pop/rap fiasco that gained her awards and media attention for her erratic behavior, but her last 2015 album “Miley Cyrus and her Dead Petz” seemed to be a major setback in her music career as the media around her faded. In her new album “Younger Now” she reverts to her more innocent image and country indie-pop rock vibe. In her first released song, titled “Malibu”, she sings in a mellow, raspy, and diplophonic voice while having a violin, drums, bass, piano and various guitars supplement her in the background. In an interview, Miley explains that this song is specifically about her reignited relationship

For example, “If We Ever Meet Again” by Timberland, “City Lights” by Blanche, and many more. The only difference about “Malibu” is how the tone slightly differs with a slower pace and the use of Miley’s raspy vocals and high pitch notes. Adorno would describe this as imitation which is how pop songs stay the same but, get slightly changed to make it seem new. This plays a key role in standardization.
Miley sings “Malibu” in an A major key and Spotify found that 6.1% of 30 million popular streamed songs were made up of this same key (Buskirk, 2015). This songs’ formulaic setup has landed Cyrus back into popular music charts and helped her reinvent her image as an indie-pop artist. This grabbed the attention of the media and has helped her regain many of her previous pop fans who stopped listening to her during her “dead petz”

Looking at lines 8-11 and 22-27 the words next to you and Malibu are used 13 times. When listening to the song it becomes apparent that not only the lyrics are repeating itself, but the melody itself is repetitive. Throughout the song you have the medium-slow paced beat with violins, drums, bass, a piano and various guitar supplementing verse 1, verse 2, and the outro. Then the same melody and instruments follow into both choruses, but the pace picks up with the drums and piano to medium-fast tempo and a higher tone. This repetitive use of words and melody makes the song very catchy and easy to