Miley Cyrus – We Can't Stop
2013 · Directed by Diane Martel
4.9M Likes
Best comments
1.“The world was not prepared for this when it came out.”
More comments
- 2.“'This is too sexual.' Cardi B: 'Hold my WAP.'”
- 3.“9-year-old me: wtf. 15-year-old me: relatable.”
The story
Summer 2013, and Miley Cyrus was done playing nice. Director Diane Martel threw her a house party where nothing adds up: a mountain of white bread, a skull made of French fries getting kicked across the floor, taxidermied animals wearing jewelry, a pretend slicing of a woman's fingers, and clips of a 1974 computer-generated face from the University of Utah. Martel said she and Miley wanted something trippy and over the top, like one giant selfie. She called it a long Vine.
Miley dances with a teddy bear, kisses a doll and rides a bike with her butt out. There's product placement too, a Beats Pill speaker and EOS lip balm, because even chaos has sponsors. A director's cut came out that July with more simulated sex and, per Idolator, less tongue.
The song was the lead single from Bangerz, produced by Mike Will Made It and built on a sample of Doug E. Fresh's La Di Da Di. It's about a house party and the recreational drugs that come with it. It went to number one in the UK and number two in the US, stuck behind Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines – another Martel video, as it happens. The clip pulled 10.7 million Vevo views in its first 24 hours, a record at the time, scored four MTV VMA nominations, and Rolling Stone named it the best video of 2013. Critics argued about it all summer. Then Miley broke her own records a few months later with Wrecking Ball.
