Hollywood 002129
Executive producer: Jason Morey
Track listing: Breakout / 7 Things / The Driveway / Girls Just Wanna Have Fun / Full Circle / Fly on the Wall / Bottom of the Ocean / Wake Up America / These Four Walls / Simple Song / Goodbye / See You Again
August 9, 2008
1 week
In pop music, a little controversy isn’t necessarily a bad thing, even if it involves a sexually provocative photo of an underage starlet. Just ask Miley Cyrus. Three months before the release of Breakout, her second album, the 15-year-old singer/actress found herself at the center of a firestorm.
Acclaimed celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz captured Cyrus wrapped in a satin sheet with her topless back exposed and a come-hither look on her face. The photo generated a media frenzy even before the May 2008 issue of Vanity Fair featuring the shot hit the streets. Right-wing TV talking head Bill O’Reilly blamed Miley’s father, fellow chart-topper Billy Ray Cyrus, for the snafu. “They go into Vanity Fair,” which is not her audience at all,” O’Reilly said. “He puts her into a situation where she becomes, at 15, a sex symbol. Middle America, they don’t like this.”
The teen star quickly issued an apology. “I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be ‘artistic’ and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed,” Cyrus said in a statement. “I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about.”
That seemingly was enough to prove O’Reilly wrong. Once Breakout was released, the young Cyrus’s fans turned out in droves — even apparently those in Middle America — as the album sold 371,000 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Those figures bested her previous chart-topper, Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cryus, the two-CD soundtrack/solo effort designed to help the singer transition from TV starlet to legitimate singing sensation. The first Hannah Montana soundtrack, which served as Cyrus’ entrée as a recording artist, also hit the summit.
For Breakout, Cyrus hoped to show her growth as an artist. “It’s grown-up. I wrote all the songs except two,” she explained to Billboard‘s Cortney Harding . “My last one, Meet Miley Cyrus, was more just meeting me, finding out who I am, and here it’s more getting in depth of what’s been going on in my life in the past year.”
However, when looking at the album’s credits, Cyrus’s claims are a bit overstated. She actually has a co-writing credit on eight of the album’s 12 songs, collaborating with past Disney hit-makers Antonina Armato and Tim James on six songs, including the first single “7 Seconds.” Elsewhere Cyrus turned to proven staples from the ’80s and ’90s. The album includes a string-laden cover of Cyndi Lauper’s Robert Hazard-penned ’80s anthem “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” and the title track’s songwriters include Go-Go’s drummer Gina Schock. Also contributing several songs were Scott Culter and Anne Preven, formerly of the Los Angeles-based band Ednaswap. That act wrote and originally recorded the song “Torn,” which became a big hit for Australian singer Natalie Imbruglia in 1998.
Any behind-the-scenes players, however, were merely a footnote to Miley’s hardcore fans, who were just as likely driven to the album by the singer’s TV persona as they were her music. Whatever the case, Miley couldn’t have been happier on the eve of its release. “I’m so happy with what I’m doing right now,” she told Billboard. “I recognize that I’m super blessed and thank the Lord every day that I get to live my dream.”
THE TOP FIVE
Week of August 9, 2008
1. Breakout, Miley Cyrus
2. Love on the Inside, Sugarland
3. Mamma Mia!, soundtrack
4. Rock N Roll Jesus, Kid Rock
5. Tha Carter III, Lil Wayne