Miley Cyrus Spits The Dummy & Drops A Lot Of F-Bombs In New Collab With The Flaming Lips

Even as the sphincter that usually gushes out what is called pop music reduces to a holiday period dribble, there’s still the occasional thing designed to ‘break the internets’, or at least provoke outrage to readers of the Telegraph and the Herald Sun. Thing is, even A Current Affair isn’t really surprised when Miley Cyrus is “just bein’ Miley…” anymore. However, if you want to have some hint of what one of Taylor Swift’s relationship post-mortem songs would sound like if Tay-Tay was really pissed off, and had been given lots of drugs by a kindly uncle – a role ably played in this case by The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne - you might get something akin to BB Talk (Smiley Miley Inc).

So, Here’s Miley quite literally spitting the dummy over a boy who really does sound like a bit of a sook, actually. There is much acrobatic rolling about in nappies or romper suits, which may appeal to a whole different audience than intended, and sumo babies. Yes, sumo babies. Oh, you want to know about the music? Silly me…umm, Uncle Wayne provides backing which sounds like some leftover backing tracks from Yoshimi while the girl shakes her fist and other bits at the former object of desire. Caution: she says ‘fuck’, a lot. Caution: A giant baby-bottle is as disturbing as any wrecking ball, and Caution: Using a more regular sized milk formula receptacle as a bong is probably not right on a number of levels. But bizarrely you can feel some affection for her - if only for the not-giving-a-rat’s-arse freedom she’s allowing herself.

There should probably also be a bit of a cautionary advisory to Purity Ring’s visuals that go with heartsigh (4AD) as well. But that’s probably more due to old-school practical special effects like strobe lights, and ensemble interpretive dance. There is a possibly deliberate style to this, like some sort of late-‘80s vision of the future. Or it could be that they’re just from Canada. There is a kind of shiny melancholy beauty to the music they make, but it’s probably up to you to decide how affected or honest that is, and how you want to react to having your emotions manipulated if you think that’s what’s happening.

Of course, you can fall back to some of the great English traditions of music video imagery: football, slightly miserablist sentimentality, slow motion running through grey drizzle on a grey beach. Well played, Bill Ryder-Jones. The former singer of The Coral – terminally second division band, mid-range alternative hits in the UK, never made The Hottest 100 here – conjures a typically pleasant sadness in Wild Roses (Domino), without becoming overbearingly maudlin about it, even when being beaten in 5-a-side by a bunch of former Everton players. You know Everton – that’s the second team in Liverpool.

There’s no official guideline as to the border between music and becoming a trailer for your TV series, but if there was Idris Elba would be tightroping right along it. Yeah, that Idris Elba – The Wire, often suggested first dusky James Bond. You mightn’t know the musical side of his work, but it’s apparently sturdy enough to have him as opening act for the Dowager Baroness Madonna on some of her recent European dates. Either way, he’s obviously doing it tough. Murdah Loves John (Liberation Music) pretty much visualises as a precis version of a Luther episode – cobbled neon streets, troubled cop, violence, guilt, redemption, fade to credits – as featured guests Wretch 32 and Tanika appear to do much of the musical work. It’s all so terribly ‘street’, and maybe trying a bit hard to be so. 

Also in ‘promo for the upcoming feature’ mode, there’s probably few more inevitable collision of movie maker and movie composer than Quentin Tarantino getting Ennio Morricone to provide the sounds for his newest sprawling western masterwork, The Hateful Eight. There still being more money in movies than music these days, the man who makes you whistle every time you see Clint Eastwood in a cowboy hat is let loose at Abbey Road with the Czech National Symphony to soundtrack the pictures, a fair idea of the mood being provided by L’Ultimo Diligenza di Red Rock (Decca) – which if you’ve got discretionary income left after the horrors of Christmas – and you feel the need - you might like to invest on the direct-to-vinyl cutting of the performance on Third Man Records. Which may explain why The White Stripes are also on the full soundtrack. Then again, so is Roy Orbison – but he probably didn’t get much say in it.    

While that’s exactly as you’d expect it to sound, Palms put away their default buzzsaw poppy racket for the somewhat more reflective strumming of No More (Ivy League). It could be the sound of a band growing up, or maybe looking for other opportunities than being the go-to guys for skate videos. Song really does have a nice sway to it, which may serve well on their upcoming live recitals, where chaps down the front will be able to drape their arms around one another, and yell the refrain, while trying not to spill too much before the speed and volume is cranked back up again. 

Also a step away from where they once were, Wavves offer something from their new attitude ‘Not as drunk’ work ethic. From a band where the lead singer once punched on with the drummer during a gig due to a mixing of various chemicals and alcohol, this may not be a bad thing. My Head Hurts (POD/Inertia) still has much of the surfish/punkish/rockish noise as you’d expect from a band from San Diego, and does the business pretty much as you’d reckon it would. 

Then bubbling moody electronica of The Brinks seems almost designed for certain mainstream-of-the-alternative radio stations, dinner parties, and product placement. The collaboration of New York producer Matt Friedman and transplanted Australian voice Scott Mellis maybe aren’t going to be a 21^st century Savage Garden, but there is a polish and melancholy looks into the middle distance in Temporary Love (Sony) that suggests their some commercial success is likely. Take that as you will.