Leah Niebuhr | Contributing Illustrator

Where does a pop girl go when she’s lost her way? Inward, maybe — enter the cliché “my most personal album yet” — or perhaps she sands her rougher edges in a grab at mass appeal. For Miley (sans Cyrus), it seemed to be a return to the ancient texts. On “Bass Persuades,” the lead single to her new album of the same name, Miley pulls from Britney’s “Blackout,” Gaga’s “Born This Way,” and Madonna’s “Confessions on a Dance Floor,” covering the trite material all surface-level pop is concerned with: bodies, dancing, parties, and a vague concept of “forever.” Enticing, if not a little redundant — who better to resurrect the hedonistic dance-pop of the mid-aughts than someone whose stardom was just then burgeoning?

Alas, call it the Dua Lipa Problem: “Bass Persuades” is a case of false advertising. On the whole, the album doesn’t deliver a slick, Gaga-lite pop revival, but is rather a midtempo romp through the duller parts of Miley’s psyche. It commits a worse sin than simple boredom — for someone with a history of pushing the mainstream envelope, it’s a disappointment. Although not without highlights (“Different Religion” is an experimental, industrial cut, grimy and disjointed in its ferocity, and “Aftermath” soars with melancholia), the water that Miley treads on the rest of the album is inoffensive, familiar ground.

“Bass Persuades” is bookended by its two strongest tracks: the title track and its remixed sister. In the music video for “Bass Persuades,” Miley saunters back to her natural position — the apex predator of the room, clad in leather, commanding a mass of ripped, shirtless men. For a moment, Miley’s star-status is justifiable, her God-given right, even. If only it weren’t a translucent veneer on a wholly unremarkable project. She’s right to lament that “the kids don’t wanna dance;” the death of the dancefloor has been chronicled again and again. But when this is the soundtrack, is it really our fault?