Miley Cyrus: Breakout (Boston Phoenix, 8/4/08)

Some records are bold and unconfusing statements of purpose — but in the world of teen pop, hindsight has often shown that what at first seemed like frothy shallow little ditties are desperately coded missives from a sad soul wailing behind a wall of synthetic beats and chilled hearts. When Ms. Cyrus, on her oh-so-inappropriate cover of Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want To Have Fun,” sings, “My father yells/‘Whatcha gonna do with your life?’,” you can hear a world-weary terror at odds with the cut-loose pillow fight of the original. In Miley’s rendition of the title line, there’s a difference between wanting to have fun and actually having it. Glossed to a shine by the same crew behind No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom, Breakout is a puzzling mishmash that makes sense only if you read between the lines and see the 15-year-old trapped in a machine that is partly of her own design. If you can get over the flagrant missteps (the less said about “Wake Up America,” the better), there’s some pretty rad stuff here. “Fly on the Wall” is a metallic Stefani-sassing electro-slamming plea for privacy — a bratty, defiant, and bizarre middle finger to the world that created her. Someday, one hopes, Ms. Cyrus and her therapists will go back and analyze this platter and everything will make much more sense.