No good can come of this. In recent years, ever since the Beastie Boys slung their anti-school rhetoric on the airwaves, pop singers' lyrics have attacked educational institutions with alarming frequency and ferocity. The latest instance: Teen sensation (and Hannah Montana star) Miley Cyrus's new song "Breakout," which begins, "Every week's the same / Stuck in school, so lame / My parents say that I'm lazy / Getting up at 8, it's crazy." Cyrus then dives into the tune's infectious chorus, which promotes nothing less than anarchy: "We're gonna breakout / Everyone we know / We're gonna have some fun / We're gonna lose control." This type of nonsensical nattering makes one yearn for the wholesome days of Kris Kross, those delightful young men who didn't know front from back but who nonetheless crooned so delightfully about school-related responsibility in their hit "I Missed the Bus." The chorus still brings tears to Gadfly's bug eyes: "I missed the bus / I missed the bus [ohh] / And that is somethin' I will never, ever ever, do again." Not to mention that Mr. and Mrs. Kris Kross brooked no nonsense: "Standin' on my block like a fool / for (1) I'm all alone and (2) the bus is gone / (3) if I miss school this weekend I'll be at home." No school, no play. Responsibility comes first. This message is, sadly, wholly lost on Miley Cyrus, who unfortunately continues to propagate her undisciplined, anarchic tunes to the masses.
Breakout, by Miley Cyrus