Miley reigns as MTV's Artist of the Year ... and here's how she took the throne.
Like all revolutions, this one started with a single shot.
On March 20, 2013, when Miley Cyrus posted a video of her twerking to J Dash's "WOP,"
we had no way of knowing it was the preamble to her Declaration of
Independence, that with each posterior pop she was further distancing
herself from her Disney-fied past and beginning her bid to become the
most audacious star in pop. Mostly we were just wondering why she was
wearing a unicorn onesie.
After all, at the time, Miley was in a weird place. She was in the middle of an on-again/off-again engagement to Liam Hemsworth, had been hanging out with topless dancers and Tyler, the Creator and was — in theory — working on an "explicit" new album, the follow-up to 2010's
Can't Be Tamed, which had the ignominy of being her first
not to debut at #1.
In short, the writing was on the wall.
And
yet, nine months after that twerk video was released, by hook or crook
and through sheer willpower alone, Miley Cyrus has completed one of the
most remarkable (and successful) reinventions in recent memory. She
returned to the top of the charts with
Bangerz, scored two of the year's biggest singles (and videos), crossed over to hip-hop, created no shortage of controversy, and gave us one of the most memorable VMA performances of all time. Those are, of course, just the shorthand highlights.
We Can't Stop/Blurred Lines/Give It 2 U (Medley)
Now she reigns as MTV's Artist of 2013, an accolade that certainly
could serve as one final kiss-off to her critics. But unlike, say, Kanye West, Miley's not interested in settling scores (
"I don't pay attention to the negative,"
she told MTV News), rather, she seems hell-bent on continuing to carve
out her niche in the world of pop. And, just like the aforementioned
twerk video, she's determined to keep doing it as if the outside world
didn't exist at all.
Miley Cyrus' First Post-VMA Interview
In
a way, that's the most amazing thing about Miley's return: by all
accounts, she's calling the shots, and she continues to get them
right. There were probably some in her camp who thought it didn't make sense to work with Mike WiLL on
Bangerz, go for broke on "Wrecking Ball," or bring
controlled chaos to the VMA stage. Yet, Miley pressed on, either because
she's too young to understand why those concerns were warranted, or,
after a decade in the business, too smart to consider them. Probably
both. Like her fans, she's of an age where genres don't matter, and
arbiters of acceptability matter even less. Unlike her fans, she's been
working since she was 12, long enough to realize that the only person
who knows what she wants is
her.
"Wrecking Ball" (Live)
Consider, for example, her EMA performance
of "Wrecking Ball" in November. It was the first time she'd graced an
MTV stage since the VMAs, and, well, let's just say expectations were
high. But rather than go for shock, Miley instead opted for awe,
delivering a powerhouse vocal performance in which zero foam fingers were harmed. Of course, less than an hour later, she'd smoke a joint on stage, mostly because she thought her fans would love it.
It was unpredictable, it was over the top, it was, in a sense, the
perfect example of her ethos: Don't do what's expected of you, do what
you want to do.
It's
sort of brilliant, really. And yet, few in her position have the smarts
(or the stones) to put that anti-plan into action. Miley does. And
because of that, she operates within a unique space within the pop
sphere: unlike many of her contemporaries, she seems
real.
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