Shut Up, Haters! She's Just Being Miley

I  have lived with my shame too long, and I can't take it anymore. My name is Mark Peikert, and I'm a 24-year-old Miley Cyrus fan.

Notice I said Miley Cyrus, and not Hannah Montanna. I could care less about her Disney Channel juggernaut (although she has enough pull to nab Heather Locklear as a guest star). No, I am a lover of Miley's music career.

Like most addictions, the whole thing began innocently enough. A friend made me listen to "See You Again," without telling me the singer's name. Intrigued by the cigarette-gutted voice rasping out stalker-like lyrics, it wasn't until the chorus when she sang "She's just being Miley" that I realized, to my horror, I was rocking out to a tween idol.

I listened to "See You Again" over and over in secret, fascinated. How could she not be legally allowed to drive, but possess that husky, hoarse voice? Why did I like her so much? But with her new album, Breakout, all became clear: I love Miley Cyrus because she makes slick, insistently catchy music.

Take "Fly on the Wall." With a hook straight out of "Doncha" and the same heavy distortion that made Britney Spears seem capable of commenting upon her damage on Blackout, the whole song sounds light years away from most teenage singer's albums. But what I like best about Miley is that she plies that forty-year-old divorcée voice of hers to invest even her most insipid songs with a wisdom that never swerves over into creepy. Divorced from context, the singer seems world-weary, but not cynical or bitter. Within the context of the Miley Cyrus media circus, she just sounds like a very smart, self-aware teenager struggling with crazy boys and even (on the album's weakest track) global warming. That's quite an accomplishment, frankly.

And it also helps that Miley can rock out with the best of them. Her cover of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," featuring heart-pumping strings, is the kind of high-energy song that it pays to make your wake-up song, along with "9 to 5" and Proud Mary." Download it, if you don't believe me. And there's no need to be ashamed to admit that a teenager is rocking your world. Miley Cyrus is a force of nature, and you might as well bend to her will. Besides, at least she's not one of those Jonas Brothers. Digging them would be really embarrassing.