It’s Respect Thy Elders Day! First up, Miley just being Stevie…
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Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Stately!
[5]
Alfred Soto: I didn’t need to see You Know Who in the credits to know Miley Cyrus was channeling Stevie Nicks, albeit to a lesser effect than when she ruthlessly stole “Edge of Seventeen” for “Midnight Sun.” The “adult” vocal and deliberate banality of the lyrics call to mind the Nicks of forgotten albums like Street Angel. I suck at predicting which Miley singles will hit, though.
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TA Inskeep: This is nearly perfect, and a perfect melding of Cyrus’s style (as chameleonic as she can be) with the sound of Fleetwood Mac. It’s striking just how much Buckingham’s guitar and, especially, Fleetwood’s drumming lend “Secrets” a real Mac feel. This isn’t a simulacrum; Cyrus doesn’t sound like either Stevie Nicks or Christine McVie. But it feels right. The song is a smart pairing with this style of production, too, allowing Cyrus to use all of her vocal range. Maybe one of the year’s best singles.
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Claire Davidson: We would not be talking about “Secrets” if not for the pedigree attached to its guest stars. The song tries to split the difference between gentle soft rock and stadium-sized grandeur, and instead renders itself a complete non-entity. The bass is slathered with so much gauzy reverb that nearly every instrumental touch surrounding it is drained of all color, detracting from the modest goodwill instilled by the admittedly pretty intro and outro. Miley Cyrus isn’t served well by this approach, either, her voice compressed to the point that she somehow sounds both less present and more braying. The lyrics, an extended vow of loyalty to a partner, aren’t anything to write home about, but they might resonate in a song with a bit more urgency, or, God forbid, passion.
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Ian Mathers: Is she actually getting worse at singing at time goes on? Bringing in Buckingham and Fleetwood to gussy up your Fleetwood Mac pastiche with a little of the ol’ authenticity does nothing to hide how nakedly this wants to be a Stevie Nicks song, which feels intensely disrespectful to her and her craft. For one thing, the lyrics are bad; I need anyone who was too harsh about Brandon Flowers’s “are we human or are we dancer?” to listen to the first verse here and then apologize to him. Embarrassing! Dire!
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Katherine St. Asaph: When Miley Cyrus said she’d taken inspiration from the music of bygone years, I didn’t think she meant Katy Perry.
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Nortey Dowuona: Shawn Everett and Michael Pollack have done better. Like this.
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Kayla Beardslee: Getting actual features from Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood feels like overexplaining the joke — thanks, Miley, without their names in the credits I might have thought this was an Amy Lee tribute — but I know this is only meant to be a low-stakes, feel-good collab done for the love of the game.
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Stevie Nicks is still alive, you know [4]