No, Miley Cyrus’ new single doesn’t copy Maneskin
Four kicks: tum tum tum tum. To someone on social media, the preview of “Doctor (Work it out)” recalled “I wanna be your slave” by Maneskin, which Miley Cyrus met in 2021 in Los Angeles. In reality the reference seems to be another: “Everybody get up”, one would want to shout at the beginning of the piece. If you didn’t understand, the quote is from “Blurred Lines”, Robin Thicke’s hit – but what happened to it? – which became popular all over the world in 2013. After all, he’s always behind it, Pharrell Williamsgenius of stars and stripes music of the last twenty years.
And perhaps it is no coincidence that “Doctor (Work it out)” is a piece on which Miley Cyrus and Pharrell Williams originally worked in 2012, practically while the former N.E.R.D. worked together with Thicke on the hit which sold over 20 million copies in world class: Miley and Pharrell took it out of the drawer after over ten years, dusting it off and officially releasing it as a single after previewing it in January at Paris Fashion Week.
“Doctor (Work it out)” would be part of the album, announced several times by Pharrell, with which the King Midas of pop who turns everything he touches into gold decided to collect material recorded in recent years together with friends and colleagues but never published: there is already a title, “Phriends vol. 1”, but it is not known at the moment whether the album will see the light by the end of 2024. Gold, you can bet, this single with Miley Cyrus will be gold toowhich sounds like a perfect closing of the circle: it was precisely by duetting with Thicke on “Blurred lines” that in 2013 the former Disney starlet
forever locked in the attic the role of Hannah Montana, the alter ego with which she had become an icon for teenagers all over the world thanks to the series of the same name, rediscovering herself as a bad girl. “Doctor (Work it out)” would have been born during the sessions of “Bangerz”, the album that Miley sent to the shops a couple of months after the much talked about performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, when – left in lingerie after taking off her bodysuit – the ex Hannah Montana became the protagonist together with Robin Thicke himself of a hot curtain on the notes of “Blurred Lines” destined to mark the history of the MTV VMAs: of that album, Pharrell produced four songs, “4×4”, “Get it right”, “Rooting for my baby” and “On my own”.
“Doctor (Work it out)”, which is Miley Cyrus’ first single of 2024 and comes after the success of “Flowers” and the album “Endless summer vacation”, which repositioned the singer after a moment of crisis, recalls Cyrus’ “Bangerz era” also inbrazen, insolent attitude. And for the sake of it provocationalso: “You’re my lover / I show you sympathy / take your sugar / and pour it into me”, “You’re my lover, I show you sympathy, take your sugar and pour it inside me”, Miley sings in the chorus of the song, in which she enjoys playing doctor and patient – I wanna be your doctor? – with your partner, on an irresistible rhythm. You may like her or not, but one thing must be recognized: that ability to always manage, in one way or another, not to go unnoticed.
