“Thousand Miles” by Miley Cyrus ft. Brandi Carlile, Sunday, May 28, 2023

 

Last week fans were upset when Miley Cyrus announced that she wouldn’t go on tour for her latest record, Endless Summer Vacation. The singer hasn’t headlined an arena tour since 2014’s supporting tour for Bangerz. Cyrus told British Vogue that “singing for hundreds of thousands of people isn’t really the thing that I love. . . There’s no connection. There’s no safety. It’s also not natural. It’s so isolating because if you’re in front of 100,000 people then you are alone.” So, as the music industry is trying to return to normal in 2023, just how many major players will throw a Miley Cyrus wrench into the Ticketmaster machine?

I’M HOLDING ON LIKE A ROLLING STONE. Miley Cyrus’ eighth studio record Endless Summer Vacation has brought Miley Cyrus back to the spotlight nearly ten years after she swung into the number 1 spot on Billboard’s Hot 100, nude on a “Wrecking Ball.” In fact, this year’s “Flowers” beat “Wrecking Ball”’s 3-week reign atop the Hot 100 chart by 5 weeks, 8 weeks total, and at the time of writing this post “Flowers” has spent the most weeks at number 1 in 2023.  Chart analysts compile data from December of last year, so Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” is the natural competitor with “Flowers.” Both singles spent eight weeks at number 1, so unless there’s a Lil’ Nas X Tik-Tok upset, it will be interesting to see the former country starts duke it out for number 1 of 2023. But why did it take so long for Cyrus to become relevant again? The answer lies within her own artistry. While critics and some-to-many fans haven’t been keen to Cyrus’ work post-Bangerz and pre-Endless Summer Vacation, it’s clear from interviews  that Cyrus fully believed in her avant-garde productions, even if they didn’t earn her big hits. Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Pets was a complete left turn from the catchiness of Bangerz and subsequent releases were left turns from that release.  

INSTEAD OF HANING UP, I HANG MY HEAD. Whether we call Miley Cyrus’ left turns into less commercially viable markets a misstep or a god-given right for an artist to experiment, 2020’s venture into rock music reminded critics that Miley Cyrus exists. In the middle of the pandemic, the popularity of classic rock soared as teenagers were listening to Spotify at home. Club records didn’t make sense when music listeners were cooped up indoors on a Saturday night. The lead single from Plastic Hearts, the Joan Jett and Stevie Nicks inspired record, “ Midnight Sky” sees Cyrus singing ‘80s-styled rock. And while the track peaked at only #14, the record showed listeners and critics what a deep-voiced rebel-hearted Miley Cyrus could sound like. We get that sound on Endless Summer Vacation, despite the record being a kind of return to form for Cyrus. You may complain about hearing “Flowers” too much on the radio—something that happens to almost every number one track. It’s unfortunate that “Flowers” has pretty much eclipsed the possibility of other tracks becoming hits because those tracks hold what I think may be a contender for album of the year. The beginning of the album is packed with rock-inspired pop gems. They may not be as catchy as the first track “Flowers,” but like today’s song, “Thousand Miles”—a song originally written about the suicide of a friend—contain a depth of experience not found among her Bangerz. 

Read the lyrics on Genius. 

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