She Is Coming (for real this time)
Could Miley Cyrus’ upcoming ninth album, Something Beautiful, live up to its title? Its promising singles certainly suggest so.
Miley Cyrus would probably get more credit for being one of pop’s most chameleonic figures if she was better at sticking the landing. The former Disney star spent her early years as a recording artist ostensibly trying to shake the Disney association from her name; her first record to show this, Can’t Be Tamed, was a noble effort to mature Cyrus’ public persona, yet still felt processed and PG. Since then, her attempts at shape-shifting have ranged from cringeworthy (Bangerz) to underwhelming (Younger Now) to utterly baffling (Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz), and though each of those records had their bright spots, they never managed to fully convince you that Cyrus was in the right lane.
One album of Cyrus’, though, is markedly different from the rest of her catalogue. Released at the tail-end of 2020, Plastic Hearts was that rarity in Cyrus’ discography – a skipless record! – and enabled her to showcase her electrifying, throaty voice like never before, atop driving rock instrumentals. With cosigns from Joan Jett and Stevie Nicks, coupled with the best reviews of her career, this stylistic shift finally seemed like the right one for Cyrus.
Nonetheless, she pressed on and rebirthed into summery disco diva on her most recent LP, 2023’s Endless Summer Vacation, which might be her most frustrating output to date. While much of the record is characterised by milquetoast, unambitious pop formulas (‘Flowers’, ‘Used to be Young’), there are a handful of left turns that tease a more curious musical mind behind the songs. ‘Violet Chemistry’, for instance, is a dazzling nighttime romp with intriguing lyrics; the shroom-trip ‘Handstand’, meanwhile, boasts one of the strongest bridges of Cyrus’ career. As with ‘Lighter’ on Dead Petz, it’s telling that when Cyrus forgoes instinct for ambition and experimentation, she strikes gold.
It’s a recipe for success she seems to finally be paying attention to for the rollout of her ninth album, Something Beautiful, which is due May 30 this year. As of writing, three singles have been released: the lead, ‘End of the World’ and the promotional singles, ‘Prelude’ and the title track. Like Cyrus’ previous records, this one promises another artistic metamorphosis (the album is also a visual album, and its announcement makes note of the archival Mugler worn by Cyrus on the cover, all of which indicates a mature, story-based record), though there’s a key difference with these singles that sets them apart from most other Cyrus singles. They’re astonishingly good.
‘End of the World’, which has been touted by some as an early contender for song of the summer, plays within the confines of a disco concoction, straddling the line between ABBA and Chappell Roan while enabling Cyrus to spill confessionals about her family drama. Chiefly, though, the track celebrates hedonism and joy in the face of impending doom – something many great pop songs of late have done. Though it’s the least interesting song of the three on offer here, it’s on par with Plastic Hearts’ ‘Midnight Sky’ for her best lead single.
The other two tracks reveal more about the sonic and lyrical world of Something Beautiful. ‘Prelude’, which also opens the album, switches it up with orchestral flourishes, as Cyrus gets existential and thinks about the duality of beauty in the throes of a healing journey. It could all sound very LA-yoga-Erewhon-levels of pretension very quickly, but Cyrus’ delivery, the startingly poetic nature of the lyrics and the crescendoing strings section make it an enthralling sermon rather than a lecture. That’s before it erupts at its coda into Hollywood-ready swoon, stuttering but never failing in its sheer beauty. It’s a marvellous composition, and unlike anything Cyrus has ever recorded.
The same can be said for Something Beautiful’s title track, which toggles between a sultry jazz club ditty and a psych-rock freakout that bewilders the ear as much as it entraps it. The verses are sumptuous, a ‘Rocket’-adjacent tale of slow-dancing with a lover just before things get hot and heavy. In the chorus, it happens all at once: “I’m losing my breath / Boy, you’re marking up my necklace,” as Cyrus’ cravings engulf her. At once, it reminds you of both Pink Floyd and Tame Impala, yet the vocals – making an impassioned, throaty return – stake Cyrus’ own flag on the track.
Together, these three songs released in promotion of Something Beautiful are stellar in their own right; even more so in the context of Cyrus’ uneven track record. Though the full album and film have still yet to be unveiled – as of writing, we have yet to know so much as a tracklist for the LP – it’s clear that this project is something unlike anything she’s attempted thus prior (and this time around, that’s a good thing). Listening to these songs, one can’t help but feel that Cyrus is at once unrecognisable and yet has never sounded more sure of herself.
Writing about Cyrus’ artistic transformation recalls her tepidly-received 2019 EP, She Is Coming. Dropped between album cycles, the EP’s title was a misnomer, since the touted trilogy that the EP would’ve been the first chapter of never materialised. If anything, Something Beautiful deserves that title more than the EP; there’s a palpable sense of excitement around the release of this album (even known snark Anthony Fantano liked the title track!), but most of all, Cyrus seems to be stepping into her own, embracing her talents and giving us her most fully realised body of work to date. Now that really is something beautiful.