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Music

Miley Cyrus Doesn't Want to "Label" Music

She talks punk rock and hip-hop in a new interview with NPR.
Lauren O'Neill
London, GB
Image via YouTube

In her last big interview, with Billboard, Miley Cyrus essentially denounced hip-hop, her genre of choice for her 2013 album Bangerz, saying ""Come sit on my dick, suck on my cock." I can't listen to that anymore. That's what pushed me out of the hip-hop scene a little. It was too much "Lamborghini, got my Rolex, got a girl on my cock" – I am so not that". For her next album Younger Now, out Friday (September 29), Miley has decided to return back to her 'roots,' and she has met with criticism for what seems like attempting to divorce herself from the black culture she'd previously flirted with.

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And now, in a new piece with NPR she comes off similarly confusingly, and actually says the sentence "I may be the only person that has Wiz Khalifa and Leonard Cohen on the same iPod." That quote in full:

Are you still interested in that kind of music [hip-hop]? You've sort of moved away from that in this album.

Yeah, but I think that that's labelling. It's like: that kind of music—like, what does that mean? I love music; I love all styles of music. I love Mike WiLL's music; I love Wayne Coyne's music. I love country music; I love Dolly [Parton]'s music. I love Leonard Cohen's music. I may be the only person that has Wiz Khalifa and Leonard Cohen on the same iPod. I don't ever label music.

Elsewhere, she's asked about her infamous VMAs appearance alongside Robin Thicke. The results are… interesting:

You are very vocal as a self-declared feminist. But you have also gotten a lot of flack for your performance with Robin Thicke at the Video Music Awards in 2013 of a song that some view as promoting rape culture. You know, it's been a couple of years—

That's so ridiculous, I'm sorry. Again, I empathize with people's feelings, because opinions are a natural response in human beings. …But besides that, that's so hurtful actually to take something that is good-intentioned—and what's the difference of anyone else doing what they do in pop music? What's the difference with Britney Spears coming oiled up with a snake, I mean, it's like the same thing? It's any pop singer. Look at Kathleen Hanna—that's punk!

I don't know man. But I do know that there are definitely other people who like Leonard Cohen and Wiz Khalifa (wild!), and that joining in with a song that many flagged as misogynistic isn't really the same as Bikini Kill. Just some food for thought!

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