Fast Times at East Northumberland High

Sadly, not the next Gregg Gillis album

I've been listening to Miley Cyrus' "See You Again" a bit lately. Actually, more than a bit. We're not quite talking five times a day while facing Mecca levels, but I do quite like this song. Disney has been unleashing a Rommel-esque marketing assault on the store where I work, so all the Hannah Montana posters and commercials piped through the intercom gradually wore me down, and I set to trying to work out why America had decided to pluck "See You Again" from out of the Disney Channel ghetto and make it a real pop song (it's currently number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100). I'm not sure of the exact history, but Dave Moore says it hit regular radio before Radio Disney started playing it, and I'll believe him.

I meant to review Cyrus' Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cyrus album for Stylus back before it shut down (no really), but I ended up writing about Dashboard Confessional instead. I gave the Cyrus album a couple listens though, and wasn't particularly impressed by it. When I started reading about the apparent popularity of "See You Again" (it's not on the radio yet here in Australia) I couldn't even remember which song it was. So I expected to play the song and be completely baffled by its mainstream success.

Didn't happen. Turns out this song is pretty great. It uses the Disney production trick of shearing away any aspect of the song that could be seen as abrasive or unusual (it takes a lot of skill to make the musique concrete rhythm of "Get'cha Head in the Game" sound bland, for instance). But for once that commitment to conformity works in favor of the track rather than against it. Perhaps this is because "See You Again" is a simple song that benefits from streamlined production. Where the Disney predilection for Eurodance beats usually creates songs that have all the cheese of the most mass-appeal techno but none of the ecstasy (pun intended), in "See You Again," the guitars and new wave synths lock in with the four four kick and the disparate elements complement rather than undermine each other. The combination gives the song a propuslive directness; the verses sound like they're co-ordinated by a guided missile system. Adornments like spy movie guitar and glistening, descending synth lines are subsumed into the attack, and even though those sounds shouldn't really belong together, reined in by the exacting production, they sound entirely natural.

But though this is a very enjoyable song musically, that's not what really interests me about it. It's in the lyrics that "See You Again" really comes into its own.

For a start, and this is almost certainly crucial to its crossover success, this song doesn't require you to know anything about Hannah Montana, Disney or kids claiming they lost relatives in Iraq to get tickets. It's just a pop song, and that it happens to be made by a girl who's bigger than Jesus amongst elementary schoolers has no real bearing on whether you like it or not. Unless you're an elementary schooler.

The song's concept is that Cyrus has fallen for this great guy, but every time she talks to him, she gets nervous and makes a fool of herself. That's OK, though, because when she sees him again, she will charm, she will slice, she will dazzle him with her wit. It's a storyline that should ring true for anyone who's been a teenager or seen a romantic comedy.

But in performance, the song doesn't really stick to it's concept. The verses are fairly uninteresting and even if you're listening attentively enough to focus on the lyrics, there's not much going on. Cyrus knew the guy was "something special when [he] spoke [her] name," and she felt "a deep connection" when he looked in her eyes. But when the chorus comes along, things start getting detailed, and the details don't actually have anything to do with this fairly anonymous guy.

"The last time I freaked out" is the first big hook. Cyrus' delivery is commanding and catchy, but though she means that she freaked out the last time she and the guy spoke, she doesn't pause between "the last time" and "I freaked out," making the freaking out the apparent subject of the sentence rather than "the last time." She sounds like freaking out is a regular occurence for her and she wants to talk about the most recent freak out. That takes a cute instance of social awkwardness and makes her sound genuinely disfunctional. The attention given to her freak out over the next couple of lines heightens this: "I kept on looking down/I st-st-stuttered when you asked my what I'm thinking 'bout/Felt like I couldn't breathe." Suddenly, Cyrus has transformed into this social wreck who struggles to deal with everyday interactions with other people. That's the sort of neurosis you rarely get outside of characters in Michael Stipe lyrics ("Binky the Doormat," "The Apologist," "Falls to Climb" — Stipe likes his social misfits).

Cyrus doesn't identify the guy who ostensibly forms the song's subject (he's not that important), but she lets us know her best friend's name; it's Leslie. Leslie excuses Cyrus' behavior by telling the guy that Cyrus is "just being Miley." The line is another great hook, and on paper it seems like Leslie's trying to save the situation. But the way Cyrus sings it, Leslie sounds like a real bitch, as if she's compounding Cyrus' awkwardness. Not only does the girl fail to have a proper conversation, she has to deal with the indiginity of her best friend telling her crush what a retard she is. The chorus finishes with Cyrus promising she will "redeem" herself, and that her "heart can't rest" until she's given the opportunity to do so.

And yes, I am absolutely reading stuff into this song that isn't intended to be there. But I don't think my interpretation is at all unfair. The specific choice of the word "redeem" is telling; Cyrus wants to see the guy again not so much because she enjoys being around him, but because she wants to erase the shameful stigma of their previous encounter. There's very little in this track to suggest that it is a love song. There's none of the dizzy joy of, say, Liz Phair's "Why Can't I," which also has a singer feeling silly about the effects a new crush is having on her ("Why can't I breathe whenever I think about you?/Why can't I speak whenever I talk about you?"). The song's details are concerned only with awkwardness and shame. The only other character with any significant role in the narrative is a friend who at best offers weak support, and at worst helps add to the humiliation. The title refers to a need for redemption, not a fulfilment of desire. Emotionally, this song comes from a very unusual place, and it helps make an already enjoyable tune fascinating.

But whether you find the song enjoyable or not, I find the hostile reaction to Hannah Montana (as pre-teen icon, not her music) rather bizarre. I mean, isn't this just like Power Rangers or Ninja Turtles or The Monkees or any other entertainment phenomenon that keeps the kids happy? Since this is part one of William Bowers Pitchfork article "I Went and Saw Me Some Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert," I'm going to give him the slight benefit of the doubt and assume he's going to redeem his silliness when Part II is published. He certainly suggests he has the ability to treat Cyrus' music with a bit more thought and nuance than he's demonstrated in his column so far.

(Some parts do make me wonder though. Bowers writes, "I've attended "kids marketing conferences" and received pamphlets in which Nickelodeon (not to be confused with Disney, but, yeah, still) reminds an industry audience that its product isn't shows or toys, but children, which it delivers to its true customers: advertisers." Isn't Pitchfork's existence at least somewhat dependent on its ability to get indie kids to look at models in American Apparel underwear?)

The ending of the article is hilarious though, and I'm struggling to believe that Bowers could not have intended it to be so:

I looked over at Date. She was sobbing.

"All that money," she said. She looked around the theater. Kids were bopping to the hits. "All these children."

I didn't know where she was going with that, or what to say.

At which point Hannah Montana sang, "Life is what you make it!"

To which Date responded, "The Guinea worm. In Sudan. It exits you. Slowly. In 2006 alone, over 20,000 people infected."

Hannah Montana's smiley retort: "Why be sad, brokenhearted? There's so much to do/ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah/ Life is hard or it's a party/ The choice is up to you."

Date leapt up and walked out of the theater.

The Date is comedy gold! I'm laughing. And if you're not, seriously, what's the deal? As Shawn Carter told us, "It's only entertainment!" At least conservatives are decent enough to get upset about music that has exciting things like sex and drugs. I'm not a huge fan of Disney squeezing the transgression out of pop music, but I'm sure we'll survive; R. Kelly's still free, isn't he? Miley Cyrus is just the ignorant shit the kids like; fuck, shit, ass, bitch, trick plus ice. And if Scarface the movie did more than Scarface the rapper to Jay-Z, perhaps it's even possible Tony Montana is nearly as bad as Hannah Montana.

"The best of both worlds, chico. And everything in it"