Miley Cyrus - Lockdown feat. David Byrne
Miley Cyrus and David Byrne have each had busy years in their own right - Byrne released his latest studio LP, Who Is The Sky?, just two weeks ago at the time of writing, on September 5th, and Cyrus has achieved significant acclaim with her own record, Something Beautiful, released earlier in the year. Now, the two artists come together on the latter’s deluxe edition - for a huge, thirteen-and-a-half-minute collaborative track, “Lockdown”.
The story of this track is one in four parts. The first three minutes or so are a smooth, smokey track reminiscent of the slower songs on the original Something Beautiful album. The production is airy and sparse, with silky instrumentation wrapping itself effortlessly around Miley Cyrus and David Byrne’s vocals. It does have to be said that the mixing on Byrne’s voice is a little odd, feeling a little too spaced out on a few lines; but that issue doesn’t majorly detract from the overall sound.
Around the three-minute mark, however, the song slowly fades into a minimalistic transition segment, which takes it into a sprawling, eight-minute instrumental break, a slow, measured buildup with some experimental musical passages and sounds. Then, the vocals come back in around eleven minutes in for a brief, fast-paced bridge, after which the song lowers the tempo again and returns to the sound of the first part; finally, the track transitions into the outro, loud and chaotic at first before ending more gently and slowly.
The instrumental work throughout the song is brilliant, especially when it comes to the lengthy interlude; a large variety of instruments come together and mesh in captivating, sometimes unorthodox ways; each layer feels purposeful and is right where it should be, nothing feels out of place. The lyrics are fairly simple and circular, but effective and well put together, mostly serving as the setup for the music. Miley Cyrus delivers a mostly compelling, sincere vocal performance, until the first half of the outro segment, where she starts making bizarre screaming and moaning-like noises, which detract somewhat from the immersion of the hypnotizing flow of the track.
It does also have to be said that the length of the track feels a bit excessive. Some segments feel like they take a little too long to get going, and some parts probably could repeat fewer times - the song probably could’ve benefitted from being around seven or eight minutes long at most, rather than close to fourteen.
Overall, “Lockdown” is an impressive piece of music. The technical instrumental elements are executed to perfection, the content of the track, while not complex, is engaging and compelling, and the vocals are well-performed and fit in well. The excess length does make it a little difficult to engage with all the way through, and there are a couple of other minor flaws, but they don’t totally take away from all the amazing work that has been done to bring this massive project to life.
7.4/10
