Miley Cyrus - Damned, Dangerous, and Divine
2019 iHeartRadio Music Festival - Night 2 ©Getty Images
I honestly don’t know why, but I am ashamed that it has taken me this long to do what I am about to do here. That is, acknowledge Miley Cyrus for inspiring me to not make a boring magazine. Yes, I acknowledged her in my very first editorial and a number of times elsewhere, subsequently. But, since our launch in 2016, I never once wrote an article or attempted to interview her for this magazine. I never acknowledged her in a way that she deserved. So, why now, you may ask?
To be perfectly honest with you all, the thought to write this just popped into my head fifteen minutes ago. Sitting at my desk wondering which recording artist I should interview next, I figured I ought to write about the woman who’s pretty much responsible for my interest in pop music, or rather, the kinds of pop music I found myself attracted to during the past six years. In my first editorial, I neglected to fully explain Miley’s influence on me and my writing. I mentioned her irreverent nature and how it inspired me, but I’d like to get a little deeper into that.
I thought Hannah Montana was a cute show. I had a friend whose kids watched it regularly, which is how I first saw it. Though I knew who her father was (country singer Billy Ray Cyrus), being an adult with no children at the time, I had no idea who she was. One day, there seemed to be some kind of scandal over a photoshoot that she and her father did for Vanity Fair in 2008. Being in my fuck-pop-music-phase, I didn’t pay it much attention. She was a kid from a kids’ show and who made songs for kids. I didn’t care and on top of that, I was into hip hop and heavy metal. Fast-forward to 2013 when Miley performed a cringe-inducing performance at the MTV Video Music Awards and dropped the single and accompanying video “Wrecking Ball” causing both the music industry and fans to lose their collective minds. I almost forgot there were a couple of Rolling Stone covers that got everybody twisted in knots. Me? I thought she was a train wreck and I endeavored to ensure that I would never hear another word about her ever again. That only lasted about a year.
By this time, there were changes in my life that “softened” me up some. I started to look at things differently and listening more. During this period, I was formulating what would eventually become this magazine. Research was required if I was going to be successful at it and so I purchased magazines on art, photography, interior design, music, and pop culture. The best place to find these kinds of periodicals is in a boutique magazine shop. It was in one of these shops that I saw her on the cover of one of my favorite magazines, then again on the cover of another. I bought both on separate occasions. The first contained an interview with Miley conducted by Karl Lagerfeld. The other mag contained photographs of Miley in the nude in all manner of sexual positions. The images weren’t crude at all but were genuinely amazing works of art each one of them. In the process, I learned about her Happy Hippie Foundation, an organization that funds “programs that support homeless youth, LGBTQ youth, and other vulnerable populations”. I didn’t become a fan of her music until much later, but at this point, I became a fan of Miley the human being. I began to understand her and to see the world through younger eyes (eventually, I would become a fan of her music and respect her as a musician).
I’m going to do a bit of rehashing here, despite covering this territory in my most recent editorial, but it’s necessary to finally paint a complete picture of the influence of Miley Cyrus on this magazine.
Miley has gone from adored (Hannah Montana) to damned (the VMAs), to dangerous (unfuckwitable), a transition fueled by her artistic drive. She was born a creative, whether one chooses to believe it’s genetic, environmental, or both. Not all creatives are created equal, however. Miley exhibits the kind of passion I’ve seen in few musicians and possesses a strong desire to explore and express her artistry in any and every way imaginable. Part of her artistry is the ability to flawlessly transition from lady to trollop, to rock star as the moment demands. Most people talk about their “good side” and “bad side”, but humans are all multifaceted creatures; we aren’t simply one thing or the other. Whatever Miley we may see at any given moment, it’s always the genuine article.
But you already know all of this, right? So, what does any of it have to do with me or my magazine? In the beginning, Kingdomz X was an arts and entertainment mag; art, music, photography, fashion, literature, film, and television. Now, if you follow this link and scroll down the page a little, you’ll see a blue logo that, in retrospect looks ugly to me now. I was trying to create a logo that looked “artsy” and “festive”, not as “formal” as the logo before it had been. Miley had pulled me out of the all-black-everything headspace and I needed color and flamboyance. I thought the new logo set the mood for the kinds of content I wanted to publish. Where the previous logo looked “serious”, I thought the blue one looked like… fun (?). Something had shifted inside of me. My feminism took root, I came out (to myself as much as the world) as bisexual, and my taste in music changed drastically. I wanted to publish an explosion of color and sound and paint the world pink! For the first time in my life, I felt like I was living my truth and I wanted Kingdomz X to reflect that. It did, for a while.
When I began working at the famed Decoration & Design Building, I decided to add interior design to my publication. Working at the D&D gave me access to the kinds of people I never imagined I would ever meet, much less socialize with. I wanted to make Kingdomz X the kind of magazine that would appeal to that kind of audience; wealthy, sophisticated, etc. So, we became a luxury magazine. Once again, I had a new logo made that I felt looked formal but still had enough color (gold and pink) to make it appear less “stiff”. Since then, I have redesigned my logo and pretty much left a lot of what made us popular behind. Then the COVID-19 pandemic forced me to reassess what I wanted to accomplish with the mag (though it almost destroyed us too). I spent a year listening to artists I would have never had listened to at one time and I enjoyed it immensely! My digging for new music led me to artists like Milfie, Ayesha Erotica, Nitrah Neon, Slayyyter, ppcocaine, and maybe a hundred more. This was the kind of music I would absolutely enjoy writing about (no offense to the brilliant Emma Guzman or any of the other artists I’ve written about to date). Of course, where there’s a music genre, there’s culture. I started seeing hashtags attached to this music like: #y2k, #hyperpop, #scenecore, #glitchcore, etc. It’s a glorious psychedelic rabbit hole that I am only now coming to terms with. Nightly, I augment my listening pleasure with weed, booze, and poppers, and I am hooked for life.
Photograph Source: artists social media
But, how in hell am I going to incorporate all of this into a “luxury” magazine? My problem isn’t really a problem when you take into account that it’s my magazine and I can do what I want with it. I believe that having contrasting content can work, you just have to find the places where these seemingly disparate elements meet. I think Miley Cyrus did it well as I mentioned before, and I honestly wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t taken inspiration from her those many years ago. I would know nothing about the artists I’ve mentioned above and I think I might have stopped publishing Kingdomz X Magazine out of sheer boredom. I know that, ultimately, I am the only one responsible for the many roads I take in life, but I have to give credit where it’s due. I was inspired by many things to create this magazine, but Miley opened up a door of possibilities, I stepped on through, and here I am.
That was supposed to be the end of the article, but I’d like to say one more thing. In the unlikely event that she ever reads this: thank you for being you, Miley!
