Hannah Montana fans (and their parents) knew this was coming. Miley Cyrus was on the verge of adulthood and anxious to shed her bubbly Disney persona—but she wasn’t quite there yet. Despite the title, 2010’s Can’t Be Tamed is relatively, well, tame, especially for the artist who would soon be stirring up controversy twerking on stage, stripping naked on video and collaborating with psych-rock subversives The Flaming Lips. But for her third album, Cyrus was still 17, still on the Disney-owned Hollywood Records, and still trying to unshackle herself from the TV-teen image. She was also still buzzing from the success of 2009’s “Party In the U.S.A.” and priming to prove her standing in the pop world. “Not a prisoner anymore,” she proclaims on the party-starting opener “Liberty Walk”, as she weaves sassy, Kesha-inspired raps through glittery synths. At the start of the 2010s, “TiK ToK” dominated the charts—and so did Auto-Tune—and Miley uses both as a jumping-off point, wrapping her newfound defiance in polished dance-pop hooks and digitised vocal effects. In the dizzying “Permanent December”, she orders, “Don’t call me a Lolita”, and on the disco-fied “Robot,” she makes a bold declaration of independence: “Stop tellin’ me I’m part of the big machine. I’m breakin’ free.” Another way Cyrus steps out of her child-star shadow is by talking about love, whether she’s flirting on the dance floor (the club bouncer “Who Owns My Heart”), lamenting her loneliness (the sweeping ballad “Stay”), or taking on a classic power ballad (Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”). But the biggest glimpse into the future Miley comes on the fizzy electro title track. “For those who don’t know me, I can get a bit crazy,” she announces at the top, later confessing, “I wanna be a part of something I don’t know.” That latter line is prescient—Miley’s career would be defined by taking big risks and continually challenging the public’s expectations. Cyrus co-wrote all 11 original tracks on Can’t Be Tamed, but she already knew this would hardly be her defining statement. During the recording, she expressed that this would be her “last pop record”. Miley, the chameleonic provocateur, was about to be unleashed.