FROM DISNEY SWEETHEART TO POP’S REIGNING PROVOCATEUR, MILEY CYRUS’ FASCINATING CAREER ARC SPANS DIZZYING THEATRICS, TABOO-BLASTING PERFORMANCES, AND FEARLESS VULNERABILITY, CEMENTING HER STANDING AS A VERITABLE ARTIST APART FROM HER FATHER’S COUNTRY-ROCK RENOWN. HER LATEST ALBUM IS MERELY THE NEXT CHAPTER IN AN ONGOING CONFESSIONAL THAT BLENDS SOUL WITH STADIUM-FILLING SPARKLE
BY DAN SALAMONE
brief writer’s anecdote: I have a friend who, by some bizarre statistical impossibility, happened to be the college roommate of a fellow who, not long after graduation, became one of the most famous, feted, recognizable, and desired men in the world. They remained friends through the fame. A few years ago, my friend joined his incredibly famous buddy for a wedding whose guest list was largely comprised of other ultra-famous household names. I asked him what his former college roommate was like now. “To be honest,” He told me, “he’s become really weird.”
In 2025, the internationally famed, beautiful, successful, and hyper-talented multi-hyphenate Miley Cyrus is a very “weird” person. But before you read the story above as criticism, one should remember that the most important artists of the modern age are (or were) considered weird people: from the mildly quirky to the downright zany. (Think about Ozzy Osbourne, who bit the head off a live bat during a show, and allegedly snorted a row of ants by a pool). So, yes, Cyrus once waved a giant foam finger while sporting a latex bikini during her MTV Video Music Awards performance, but she’s in good company. Her latest LP, however, is cinematic in a way that doesn’t create a tabloid feeding party. Something Beautiful, released in May, celebrates the now-32-year-old’s intoxicating eccentricity with a 13-track confessional that’s rich in emotion and timbre.
Cyrus described the album as “[Pink Floyd’s] The Wall, but with a better wardrobe and more glamorous and filled with pop culture.” It’s a wildly ambitious concept album festooned with a stacked cast of incredibly talented and critic-celebrated musicians, including Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard, The War on Drugs’ frontman Adam Granduciel, Nick Hakim, Alvvays’ singer-songwriter Molly Rankin and guitarist Alec O’Hanley, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ guitarist Nick Zinner, and Haim’s lead guitarist and vocalist Danielle Haim. The album’s tracks are a combination of ultra-glossy, melodic art rock (the Yeah Yeah Yeahs collab makes perfect sense in this regard), and ambitious, even-moreglossy pop.
The first two singles, “Prelude” and the title track, are essentially thesis statements for the rest of the album. They lean on exemplary influences from the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s: the lush electronica of Brian Eno, the spoken-word madness of Laurie Anderson, the dusty Western soundtracks of Ennio Morricone, the staccato escalating instrumentation of Philip Glass, and the jazz freakouts of Miles Davis at his most addled all tip their hats within the two tracks. They are Cyrus leaning into her weirdness hard. It’s her way of letting the casual chancers know she is making art here, and they point to the possibility of a very interesting future record only in this style.
But the record also has nuggets for the long-time fans. In fact, for a concept album built on the idea of weird, there is plenty to reassure her pop-hungry followers. Songs like “Easy Lover,” “Walk of Fame,” and “Every Girl You’ve Ever Loved” can easily slide into your Spotify playlist full of her Plastic Hearts-era, disco- and soul-influenced bangers.
That’s the fascinating dichotomy of Cyrus in 2025. You can feel the internal tug-of-war of the two sides of her character: Miley the international popstar, and Miley the peculiar SoHo bohemian who finds music just one of many forms of art worth exploring during a 3 a.m. bout of insomnia. (Cyrus even debuted an accompanying 55-minute short film for the album at the Tribeca Film Festival.) The former Disney starlet and daughter of country-rock two-time Grammy winner Billy Ray Cyrus is a study in winking, knowing contradictions, offering palate-pleasing fodder for both the hipsters – who claim her as a guilty pleasure – and the “Flowers”-belting pop squad who hold her records as proof that their playlists have room for adventure, too.
Miley Cyrus