The song begins with Miley’s vocals and the keyboard as background. This part highlights her voice, the emotions she is trying to convey and the story she is trying to tell. It talks about the beginning of a love story where a girl and a boy fall in love and the girl happens to fall very deeply.
In the third stanza is where resentment begins. The girl seems to have done her best to get through to the guy but unfortunately, she was rejected. The light notes of the keyboard are replaced by heavy hitting drums, much like their relationship that’s being ruined, slowly, rhythmically, but certainly doomed.
In the fourth part tells about that the girl adored him, puts him on a pedestal and the guy got used to it, which was not really good for the girl’s part. A sad ending to her love story. A love so strong that they were both consumed and destroyed. At one point, the girl blames herself for going too far too fast, and at another, she puts the guy at fault for shutting her out. The sadness can be felt, even if you only listen to the song, a testament of how good Miley is with the art. Overall, the music and lyrics are a success artistically speaking, though lacking in appeal.
The video however is a different story. For more than half of its length, you’ll be watching the artist’s face filling up the screen. It’s a visual overload and somewhat sickening. Miley cries, shows tears, but it’s not convincing. The next scenes get worse, regrettably a literal interpretation of the song. Walls being taken down with a wrecking ball, with Cyrus riding the ball with nothing on but for a pair of construction boots. The sexual references are not hard to see, licking a hammer being one of the examples.
It is disappointing to learn how good the song is and then watch the video “wreck” the musical art form to dust. The music video seems to confirm the direction that Miley Cyrus is heading for. The more controversial you are, the more famous you get. Another daring move from the artist after We Can’t Stop and the MTV Music Awards scandal, she seems intent on maintaining a bad girl image for the sake of commercial success.
Recognizing Miley would be difficult especially when the last time you remember her would be from four years ago, in the video of ‘The Climb. The song and music are uplifting and positive despite the obstacles that one faces, compared to this song that’s the subject of review. The artist may have matured, but at this point, she went over the top, and the direction she takes have shocked most of her fans.
What she has become is a far cry from where she started her career: a cute and cuddly pop star on Disney’s Hannah Montana. It is not easy to accept the transformation; what is easy to see is how desperate she has become to keep the fame intact. Taking after the tricks that the likes of Madonna, Britney Spears, and Lady Gaga have used, Miley Cyrus is willing to pay the price of fame and fortune, whatever it may be. It is really saddening how greed can change people but that’s the way it is. Let us hope that Wrecking Ball is not a sign that her career is about to be demolished, by herself no less.
