Miley Cyrus, best known for her Disney Channel TV show, “Hannah Montana,” is now a Grammy winner for her song “Flowers,” which won in the category of Record of the Year. Though “Flowers” was a culturally significant moment for Cyrus, it is not a proper representation of the award.
Released Jan. 12, 2023, “Flowers” was a chart topper sitting at No. 1 and No. 2 for a majority of 2023 and is sort of an anthem for anyone feeling like they don’t need a significant other. However, Record of the Year is credited to the artist and production team of the song. Aspects like production, mixing, and vocals are taken into consideration, while how much money or streams the song generates is not.
In its category, “Flowers” did not stand well against hits like “Not Strong Enough” by boygenius, which is an incredible song with amazing vocals and a fantastic production quality. Phoebe Bridgers, a vocalist for boygenius, was even classically trained, meaning Bridgers was taught foundational technique from an early age.
Cyrus, on the other hand, was only classically trained on the piano and it shows. Cyrus’s vocals are average on this track and do not show off her vocal range or flexibility. There is nothing vocally outstanding about “Flowers,” other than the southern twang Cyrus sings with.
“It’s not the worst technique I’ve ever heard in a rock-pop singer,” voice coach at the New York Vocal Coaching Studio and vocal music faculty at Marymount Manhattan College, Stephen Purdy, said to Obsessed. “It’s certainly not the best, but when it comes to sheer vocal performance, it’s not the worst technique I’ve ever heard.”
Being a Record of the Year winner is about being the best and not just ‘the most decent’ in the category. On the Grammy’s website, the article announcing Cyrus’s win does not have a single mention of a reason why Cyrus’s vocals or production team stood out and deserved the win. The site does say, however, that “‘Flowers” was a massive commercial hit, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent eight consecutive weeks in the top spot, something that is not even supposed to be taken into consideration for choosing the Record of the Year.
“Record Of The Year category awards a single track and recognizes the artist’s performance as well as the overall contributions of the producer(s), recording engineer(s), and/or mixer(s), and mastering engineer(s),” writer Nate Hertweck said on the Grammy’s website. “The award is based solely on talent and skill, and if one of these is not up to par, it should not be nominated for, or let alone win, a Grammy.”
This is not to say that the production value of “Flowers” is not good–there is just nothing new that has not been heard before. Both of the lead producers for “Flowers,” Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson, worked on Harry Styles’s album “Harry’s House,” released May of 2022, before working with Cyrus. Both men contributed to Styles’s unique funk vibe that they also used for Cyrus, but as “Flowers” was released almost a year after “Harry’s House,” there was nothing new or innovative about the sound. Taylor Swift, who was also nominated in this category for her song “Anti-Hero,” has the same amount of production quality but the innovation Jack Antonoff, her producer, put into Anti-Hero creates a much more original and interesting sounding song.
“Swift and trusted collaborator Jack Antonoff keep the production simple- a methodical drum loop, simmering synths- focusing in on a series of vignettes in which Swift is haunted by past mistakes,” Pitchfork writer Olivia Horn said in a review. “A good production can add to the story the artist is trying to convey, without one, the track ends up boring and repetitive.”
The primary reason for “Flowers” success, then, must be because of the lore behind the song. This song is thought by many to be a revenge track about the end of Cyrus’s ten year relationship and divorce of Liam Hemsworth in 2019. Although Cyrus has denied any association to her divorce from Hemsworth, she has left lots of easter eggs throughout her music video for fans to find. Because of the deep roots in Cyrus’s past, fans have a hard time separating the lore from the actual quality of the song.
Streams and fan-fueled stories do not make a song automatically good or worthy of a Grammy. Cyrus’s victory is a low point at the award show. The Academy needs to stick to the guidelines they set out and separate good songs, like “Flowers,” from true Records of the Year.
