Just one year after ‘Something Beautiful’, Miley returns using only her first name, delivering a pop sound drawn from the late 2000s. ‘Bass Persuades’ seemed to hint at a guitar-driven vibe, but it actually offers a return to the imperial pop of Lady Gaga and Miley herself during the ‘Can’t Be Tamed’ era, a track she evokes in the opening synth chords.
The music “persuade” is the concept behind this song, filled with echoes of dance-pop, electropop, and a touch of electroclash, featuring a melody that feels distinctly European and a mastering quality that could be deliberate, and which, much like ‘Flowers’ and ‘End of the World’, serves nostalgia and immediate pop. The chorus ‘the kids don’t want to dance’ would refer to today’s youth distracted by social media, and the track is an invitation to live in the moment alongside other human beings.
The song’s references, delivered in a spoken-word style, reinforce precisely that call to reclaim the analog in the face of current hyperconnectivity: from the phone screen and the nostalgia for a time when you had to wait for MTV to discover a hit, to the invitation to ‘go analog’ and to look out the window instead of remaining glued to the phone.
Even though this time it doesn’t particularly serve as a vehicle for her powerhouse voice, ‘Bass Persuades’ reminds us that enough time has passed to reference the 2000s, just as Gaga did with ‘Abracadabra’ last year. It also predominantly recalls Gaga’s fashion and choreography in the accompanying video.
