Miley Cyrus' "Bass Persuades" + Ranking All Miley Lead Singles (Patreon Preview)

Hey y'all, DJ Louie here just dropping a preview of this week's pot pantheon All Access episode. If you enjoy this snippet and you wanna hear the rest of this episode, plus weekly bonus episodes of this podcast, you can subscribe at patreon.com/potpantheon or click the link in the show notes of this episode. If you're considering subscribing to potpantheon All Access and you use Apple's App Store on your mobile device, we recommend not subscribing to potpantheon All Access using the Patreon app on your phone, where Apple is now charging unnecessary fees for new subscribers. Instead, go to patreon.com/potpantheon on your desktop to subscribe. You will still have access to all of the features of Patreon, including listening to our bonus episodes on your Apple Podcast app. We wish we had more control over this, but sadly we don't, so that's a recommendation to save you a couple bucks. You can also of course subscribe for the audio only, directly here in the Apple Podcast app. Enjoy this preview. - So we, Miley, let's do it. - Should Miley do the sphere? - No. (laughing) - Actually, I'll return to this, but I think her doing any sort of live, anything is what she needs to do. I would take anything. - Yeah, but she could do a parking lot, she could do whatever it is, like just what is the resistance to getting on stage, but we'll get there. - Yeah, what is great about Miley, though, is the groundedness of the talent. - Yes, right, she knows it. - She knows it. - But I'm just saying, I do want to return to the live aspect of this conundrum. - Absolutely. Yes, please. So, base for Swade. - Let's go. ♪ The kids don't want to dance ♪ ♪ The kids don't want to dance ♪ - Released earlier this month, the lead single. As I mentioned from Miley's 10th studio album, the title track, the album itself, is dropping this Friday. Her last album, Something Beautiful, only 15 months ago. That album, commercially speaking, pretty drastically underperformed. It opened with 44,000 units. Very soft for a star of Miley's scale. I have often since used it as a comparison point to say, can you believe that this person sold more than Miley Cyrus? Received also fairly middling review 71-a-medicritic, 5.6 on pitchfork, and it's two of singles. Similarly, we're soft commercial performers. - Did you see the tweet that was like Dolly? You had to clock a bitch one last time, and it was her when Miley played her something beautiful, and she said, great, got any hits? (laughs) - Like to see Dolly during Christmas, and I played her something beautiful. You know I was excited, 'cause she just came off her rock album, so I thought she was really gonna get it. So I played something beautiful, she goes, all right. I see what you're doing here. You got any hits? I was pretty sure I didn't at that time. The two singles there, sold out before reaching anywhere close to top 40, end of the world, we did 52 easy lover at 82. Base persuades the final prediction as of this morning, 99% sure it is going to debut at 35 on the Hot 100. So that is a slight improvement, but it's still, I can't imagine what the label is hoping for that perhaps Miley herself is hoping for on the credits, basically the whole team from something beautiful is just back, it's Gregory Heine, Kithar Poon, Max Morondo, and Michael Pollock, Base persuades. - Well, why don't you talk, since I just monologue for 15 minutes, why don't you talk about your journey with Base persuades? Because what happened to me was I heard this song, I texted you, this is embarrassing, you were like, I have not listened to this song yet, and then you texted me that you were fine with it, but then you went on a whole journey. So tell us about your Base persuades journey. - Yeah, let's, I guess start with the positive things that I have to say, which is the music video for the song rules, and she made a really smart decision to release the music video at the same time as the song. Body banging, legs for nothing. Body OST, let's be honest, she keeps that body Z. Heels, heels, heels, clop, clop, clops, bangs out, excellent shade of blonde. Cool honey, she's flipping her hair like a stripper, parentheses, obviously complimentary. Although, although, I will say, and this is an ongoing problem, missed the old teeth. - Teeth, yeah. - The teeth, the, yes. And that's a problem, not just my ears. - That's a big, that's not again. - That's a problem with not pegging the epidemic on Miley herself, but-- - That she's definitely on a Los Angeles perpetrator. - What do I have to say? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, the flipper. The message of the song, I also really like the idea that young people are not having fun is a real hobby horse of mine. It's something that I think about all the time. There's a myriad of reasons, many of which are like, not the fault of young people today, why they wouldn't be partying the way that millennials and, frankly, most generations prior, you know, dating back to the swing in '30s, or whatever, have, like-- - The swinging '30s, huh? (laughing) - I'm sorry, but Gen Z is the least fun generation since the 1930s. - Okay, and you heard it here first. - You heard it here first. - Listen, drinks are $25. - A pub, nobody has any money. All of these-- - existential dread, all of it. - Yeah, we're bundling towards our own demise. - Yeah, I'm like 20 different ways. - The people who are currently 21 to 25, the years that they were supposed to learn what it was like to be a social creature, they spent, like, in a Zoom room. Yada, yada, yada, kids need to dance. And I do, like, that, as a message, this is not, like, I get off my lawn, it's, like, get off my lawn, crack a beer, come have a good time. - Right, so I do get into my lawn 'cause we're having a barbecue. - Yes, thematically, I am with her, and I think that it's a very good idea for a song, and I think that the chorus has a charging fun quality to it. Like, it's built on synths, it has a dance pop sheet that she hasn't had really in a hot second. It feels right for Miley, and it has an energy of rock and roll and a sheen of pop, if that makes sense. It's more exciting, certainly, than endless summer vacation, but not, like, as unwieldy as something beautiful. So there's a lot going on that I can approve of, but I don't think that it all comes together fully, and I think it especially falls apart in the verses. The verses are really cheesy, and they're not landing as, like, camp fun, and you, it takes a minute to get to the chorus. So we are really struggling through a tough verse for me out the gate. (upbeat music) And I just think that, like, they could have done a few more passes at the verses here, and totally cleaned this up. Like, there's some clunkiness that I don't understand why a group of this type of professional is running into this problem. Like, ghosts run to Bermuda, 'cause there's no one to haunt. Like, it doesn't feel like the final draft to me. And as I was looking through the credits, I was, thank you, Louie, you just can't stop laughing at me. (laughing) - You know what I mean? It doesn't sound like shit. What are you talking about? - I'm wondering, Kid Harpoon has had this issue before with Harry Styles, in which there are-- - And there's a song like that hits these themes on Harry's album, right? Isn't there a song that's like, DJs don't dance, no more, they sweat, or whatever. Isn't that one of the songs I recall from having to listen to that for a week? - DJs don't dance, don't dance, don't dance. - Yeah, absolutely. Like Harry Styles, it feels like there's an attempt at depth, but really it's nonsense. And I would be good with nonsense if we were having fun, but we're not fully getting to the fun. The other thing I was thinking of was the dochi and lady Gaga's song for the 10th place product. - Oh no, that's not good. - Yeah, yeah. - In that there are centrist qualities here, but upon arrival, it feels sort of dead behind the eyes. - I'm a little bit like dead by the eyes, as I think the most resonant thing that you've said in this so far to me, it does, that's really good. - The title, I have a problem with. Title, convoluted, and it's the Harry Styles problem of it thinks that it's clever, but it feels like it's smarter than it actually is. You know? Which would be fine if there was something more here, but pop music demands some level of immediacy. And I do think that the best pop music you understand upon arrival, what the song is, and I can buy myself flowers. - You say it persuaded me. You kind of have to almost sound it out where you're like, wait, okay. And that extra second. that you have to think about it is a killer in pop. It just, it can really ruin it really quickly. - Yeah, okay, here's the things, here's many things. One, first of all, song support. - That was just a preview. If you wanna hear the rest of that episode plus weekly bonus episodes of this show, you can subscribe at patreon.com/poppantian. Click the link in the show notes of this episode or subscribe for the audio only directly in the Apple Podcast app.