There's always gonna be another mountain...

I watch VH1 in the morning for a couple of reasons. For one thing, ESPN is starting to piss me off. I’m at a point now where I can’t watch SportsCenter. It’s nothing but Red Sox highlights, Kobe/LeBron worship and endless, exhaustive, meaningless windbaggery.

Anyway. The second reason I watch VH1 while I’m getting ready -- it’s the only time you can see music videos. Seriously. The only time. Unless you’re willing to set an alarm and watch MTV between the hours of 3:30 and 4:00 a.m. And I’ve always been a fan of music videos. When I was a kid, I would record videos onto our fancy, new-fangled VCR and then watch the tapes over and over again. My personal favorites from these tapes – Livin’ on a Prayer, Borderline, Thriller and (of course) Wild Side. But I’m getting away from my point. VH1. Most of the videos fall somewhere between “terrible” and “easily ignored.” For every “Poker Face” (which is awesome) there’s a “We Made You” (which is godawful).

A video that’s recently entered the VH1 morning setlist is “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus. I’ve never had a problem with little Miley. “See You Again” was actually one of my favorite summer songs last year. But. Well. There wasn’t a video for it (not one I’ve ever seen anyway). So I didn’t actually have to look at her.

Here’s the thing – she cut her acting teeth on the Disney Channel. And if you’ve ever watched five seconds of the Disney Channel – be it “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody,” “Hannah Montana,” “The Jonas Bros,” whatever – you know that the kids all painfully overact.

So in Miley’s new video, her complete lack of anything even approaching subtlety ruins the entire thing. It’s impossible to take this song seriously.

It’s as though the director said, “Move like the big girls do in their videos” and she did the most over-the-top, Disney-fied version she could muster. There’s a lot of fist pumping, hair flinging, looking skyward…it’s painful. Painful.