Miley Cyrus is wasting her talent ...Middle East

Miley Cyrus should be one of the world’s biggest superstars. Born into a country music family – her father is Billy Ray Cyrus; her godmother is Dolly Parton – and with the might of Disney propping up her early career as fictional pop star Hannah Montana, Cyrus had the makings of an empire at her feet from a very young age. But nine albums – and several controversies – later, that megastardom still seems out of reach.

I have been a fan of Cyrus since we were both teenagers. She would be on my television as Hannah Montana every afternoon after school, and later, on my bright pink bedroom stereo as she began to release music under her own name. I can chart my own life according to Cyrus albums – Bangerz was the soundtrack to my hedonistic university years, Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz got me through my first major breakup, Plastic Hearts was on the car radio when I moved out of London for good. But while I love her – perhaps because I love her – I know that Miley Cyrus isn’t living up to her potential. 

On Friday, Cyrus released her ninth album, Something Beautiful. Advertised as psychedelic and, in her own words, “hypnotic”, the album was written with the aim of distilling some of Cyrus’s “nastiest times” into, well, something beautiful. On synth led “Walk of Fame”, she examines how fame has affected her own perception of herself, while on ballad “More to Lose”, Cyrus laments the end of a relationship she thought would go the distance. It’s a personal project, yet Cyrus still keeps distance from her listeners with weird and experimental choices like long saxophone solos and obscure spoken word pieces. It’s not bad by any means, but (with the exception of “End of the World”) this isn’t the accessible, radio-friendly pop of “Flowers” or “Party in the USA”. 

Cyrus has an identity problem – and I’m not talking about the pearl-clutching moral panic over her sexualised image or very public drug use (now a thing of the past; Cyrus is fully sober now). Even after supporting her career for decades, I would struggle to explain what a Miley Cyrus song sounds like. Is it the slick, sunny production of her eighth album Endless Summer Vacation? Or the Flaming Lips-inflected psychotropics of her LSD-fuelled 2015 album Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz? Or the rebellious teen rock of her early releases like “Can’t Be Tamed” or “Fly on the Wall”? Cyrus’s music can’t be easily defined – so it’s not easily marketable.

A Miley Cyrus single is usually something to get excited about. “Flowers” – her first Grammy winning song – was a huge hit around the world (including the UK, where it hit number one), as was the first single from 2013’s Bangerz, “We Can’t Stop”, and the Stevie Nicks-inspired “Midnight Sky” in 2020.

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But her albums never quite live up to those expectations of pop perfection, instead going off into strange tangents with no through line between songs. The first half of Something Beautiful, for example, is laden with radio-friendly simple songs, before delving into a Pink Floyd-esque swirl of layered vocals and, in the case of “Give Me Love”, a hallucinatory description of a fantasy world not a million miles away from The Beatles’ “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds” (which Cyrus has covered numerous times). 

There’s no denying that Cyrus, now 32, is an A-lister. But the majority know her for her celebrity – for her relationships, her drug use, her family – rather than her artistry. It’s this distinction that stops Cyrus from elevating her public image from the status of “a celebrity who also sings”, to being known as the powerhouse vocalist I know she has grown to become. But in our increasingly simplistic world of binaries, Cyrus can’t have it both ways – she can’t be both an accessible pop star and an obscure, weird artist.  

The one thing Cyrus has conquered is the art of the live performance. The songwriting and production may be dodgy, but her powerhouse, raspy vocals are the jewel in her musical crown and nowhere are they better showcased than on stage. If Cyrus toured, I have no doubt her belting out the end of new song “Pretend You’re God” would set social media alight. Alas, Cyrus has dampened any hopes of her going on the road any time soon thanks to Reinke’s edema, which she explains as “abuse of the vocal cords”.

“It’s extremely difficult to perform with because it’s like running a marathon with ankle weights on,” she recently told Zane Lowe in an interview. “It’s not that I don’t want to. I just can’t risk damaging my voice … My songs are big. I don’t write little songs, and I don’t lip-sync.” In lieu of a tour, Cyrus is releasing a film later this month to accompany Something Beautiful, but whether that will help the masses get closer to the work remains to be seen.

Over the years, Cyrus has deliberately stepped back from her celebrity status in favour of focusing on cultivating her image as a musician. But when the identity and artistic vision is as muddled as hers, it’s hard to really know who Cyrus really is. Perhaps she doesn’t know either. 

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