Miley Cyrus’ ‘WTF Do I Know’ Is About ‘Being Less Mainstream’: ‘I’m Gonna Stand Out No Matter What’
Singer Miley Cyrus’ career evolution is something to behold. She’s gone against the grain arguably more than any other artist from her Disney Channel era. Her latest album, Plastic Hearts, shows an entirely new side to her, as evidenced on tracks like “WTF Do I Know.” Here’s what Cyrus said about the inspiration behind the song.
Miley Cyrus’ new album is Plastic Hearts
Miley Cyrus announced her seventh studio album, Plastic Hearts, in October 2020. “I began this album over 2 years ago,” she tweeted. After citing the fire that burned down her Malibu home in 2018, Cyrus noted, “It never felt right to release ‘my story’… with a huge chapter missing,” explaining how her EP series turned into this album.
Weeks later, Cyrus revealed the tracklist for the album. It includes Plastic Hearts‘ first two singles — “Midnight Sky” and “Prisoner (feat. Dua Lipa) — as well as collaborations with the likes of Joan Jett and Billy Idol. There are also unlisted covers. “Think you’ll love it — + if you don’t — f*ck you,” Cyrus wrote.
The artist doesn’t think she’s ‘special’
From her fans to her critics, many praise Cyrus for being one-of-a-kind. She forged a unique path from preteen TV star, to pop icon, to bonafide rocker covering classic hits. But while the artist acknowledges how she is different, she doesn’t think that makes her better than anyone else.
“Uniqueness to me is my religion — just being the one and only,” Cyrus told Zane Lowe for Apple Music. “And that is not a superpower I have,” she clarified. “As unique as I am, I’m not special,” explained Cyrus. “Because, in a way, we’re all just special. Everybody’s special. Then one star isn’t brighter than the other.”
Marc Jacobs taught Cyrus to embrace being a public figure
One person Cyrus spoke to about this theory is designer Marc Jacobs, telling him, “I’m like everybody else.” He disagreed with her, saying, “You will never, ever blend in. You will always stand out. Even if you decide today you don’t want to be ‘you’ anymore, you’re always going to be you. You’re born with that.”
The singer recognized he was right: Regardless of her profession, she is who she is. “I would still be me, no matter what,” Cyrus told Lowe. “There would be an attraction, and there would be a magnetic pool that made people want to come to me. That’s who I am.” She added, “So I just embraced it. Instead of trying to run from it.”
‘WTF Do I Know’ shows off her ‘unapologetic way’
Cyrus told Lowe about songs from Plastic Hearts, including the first track, “WTF Do I Know.” She sang the lyrics, “I don’t want to have another conversation/Probably won’t want to play me on your station/I’m gonna pour out a bottle full of my frustration/Here to tell you something that I don’t know.”
“It was a little bit about the frustration of the unapologetic way that I do write my songs can make them feel in a more alternative space,” Cyrus explained. “Especially this last record, I would say. And me being a woman and this aggressive idea then makes it, in a way, less mainstream. Because there’s still a politeness that’s expected [of me].”
