The chasm between what this show believes it is—a high-art exploration of music, erotica and nebulous stream of consciousness for a critically mature and appreciative audience—and the reality of its setting—a pop concert attended mostly by confused children and their furious parents—only adds to the surreal nature of the show. The only thing more entertaining than the Bangerz tour is witnessing the stunned expression of short-straw dads watching it with their kids.
Miley can pretend she’s in a Brooklyn gallery space rather than an all-ages show, if she wants to. But she can’t pretend things are going well in terms of ticket sales. There were plenty of empty seats at the O2 and, unusually for an artist of her sway, she only played one night there. Things haven’t picked up on the rest of the European tour, with tickets still available for many of her upcoming dates. In the US, sales for the tour also struggled, particularly after she was seen smoking weed on TV. Forbes believe it’s unlikely she’d sold out “as many as half of her shows”. Tickets on secondary ticketing sites were selling for less than face-value as touts just tried to make some of their money back.
Her record sales have also been surprisingly poor. Despite being repeatedly described as “the person of the year” with unprecedented coverage across the worlds of music, entertainment and news, not to mention having two of the most watched music videos of all time, Cyrus’ album was only the 71st best selling of last year in the UK. Records by Alt-J, Kodaline, dutch jazz singer Caro Emerald and violinist Andre Rieu all performed considerably better. Globally the album did slightly better, but was still a long way off the top 20 global albums of 2013, an important measure for world-straddling artists.
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