[Music] Hi everyone, Smoke the Nish Show Tano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new Miley Cyrus album, Something Beautiful. Here we have the newest and ninth fulllength album from pop singer and songwriter Miss Miley Cyrus. One of my most anticipated pop albums of the year.
Even though up to this point, I've never been a super massive Miley Cyrus fan. Don't get me wrong, Miley Cyrus is undoubtedly a super talented singer and one of a few artists who's actually managed to keep her career interesting after riding the Disney Channel actress to pop star pipeline. I mean, in a lot of ways, you could actually say she set the tone for some of these newer faces who took a similar path and also uh got a bit edgier in their transition into pop stardom.
I mean, it's funny to think of how many people just freak out on social media over stuff like Sabrina Carpenters Juno live performance poses, but I don't know. To me, that's kind of nothing in comparison with the stuff Miley Cyrus was doing on stage during the bangers era. The outfits, the drugs, the twerking.
I mean, sure, a lot of the music was terrible, but I can't deny it did turn heads and it did successfully break Miley out of a lot of the expectations people boxed her into up until that point, which her previous album, Can't Be Tamed, utterly failed to do. And I can also commend Miley for keeping the music interesting for the most part and at least uh taking some risks on that front during this time period, too. I mean, there was that uh record that featured numerous collaborations with Flaming Lips, Miley Cyrus, and Her Dead Pets, which was admirably weird, even if it is her biggest flop commercially and critically.
Subsequent records from here though showed Miley continuing to evolve and uh stay adventurous. You had her going back to her country roots on her Younger Now album. And then she headed in kind of a proto Joan Jet direction on Plastic Hearts, which up until this point has been my favorite Miley Cyrus record.
But her last LP, Endless Summer Vacation in 2023, in a word was tame. About as standard as pop gets in the 2020s, I fear with ubiquitous hits in its track list like Flowers. And I was sort of worried that this album was essentially going to be the future for Miley at this point.
that with nothing left to prove and with no one to shock or surprise that she would kind of just settle into a really predictable pop path. But thankfully on Something Beautiful, Miley's experience and maturity is manifesting in some pretty creative and epic anthems which all kick off with a pretty surprising opener, a prelude with these Han Zimmer style arpeggios set to some spoken word poetry, some tremolo distorted bass as well, it sounds like. And it might be a little overly dramatic in tone, but at least there's some feeling behind the surreal imagery in the lyrics.
And the whole thing ends on this epic burst of orchestrations that are stunningly beautiful. I mean, handily the most grandiose opening to any Miley Cyrus album ever. Then we have the first full song on the album, the title track, which was a mindblowing single, frankly, and sounds even better couched into the record.
It starts off pretty inconspicuously, honestly. It's a bit of a spotlight, soulful ballad with some great vocal inflections from Miley herself. Light horns, distant pianos, nice sway on the beat.
It's moody, it's pleasant. But right after the pre chorus comes in these blaring horns that sound as loud or as thick as something from a late era Swans album or a King Crimson record. It really is one of the heaviest things I've ever heard on a pop album.
And then it goes into this incredible buildup on the back end with these whailing saxes, Miley's vocals intertwining with all of that. It's such an unhinged and unexpected wall of sound that gives the record an incredible start. Now, from here in the track list, things kind of lighten up a bit.
The sound of End of the World is very synthy, very peppy. There's a bit of an 80s sheen on it, but don't let that distract you from the fact that this track does contribute to a ongoing micro trend currently of end times pop. While it still very much is a love song through and through, it is simultaneously a bit of a reflection on the dire state of things currently.
The vocal performance and production are a lot more measured in comparison with the title track just before to the point where it makes this track sound a little bit like karaoke in comparison. Very expensive, very well performed karaoke, but still a bit of karaoke. I think the same is true to an extent for the following track, More to Lose, which for sure by comparison is a much more emotional performance, but it still feels like the sort of song you would pick in order to make sure that you're really impressing the audiences and the judges at a singing competition due to its dramatic peaks, its nostalgic changes and very relatable simileies that uh made me kind of roll my eyes.
Like uh the TV's on, but I don't know, my tears are streaming like our favorite show tonight. Thankfully from here though the record does pick up with Easy Lover which is this fiery string kiss disco track which Miley just sounds amazing over. Her voice just fits this era of music so perfectly like she has the range to pull off these uh more soulbased influences on the track but simultaneously has this smoky tone to her voice where she gives a dance track of this style a bit of you know like a Stevie Nicks or a JoanJet edge.
Again, it's very 70s. It's very groovy. It's very club friendly.
It's a little beeges I would say, but there there's a darkness to it. There's a nastiness to it. And the track just gets catchier and catchier as it goes along.
From here, we go into a pretty strong final leg for the record as well. Golden Burning Sun is one of the more standard sounding pop ballads on the record. I think it even could have been on Miley's last LP.
But I actually do like the tune on this one quite a bit. I think it's a lot stronger than a lot of the material on that record. And the lyrics do sound more specific and personal to this time period in Miley's life where she's looking for a love, a connection, a relationship that has a bit more depth and longevity to it.
Of course, the following track, Walk of Fame, is a meditation on fame, which uh just based on how many of those there are out there today in the pop landscape, I I I would just like, you know, write such a thing off now at this moment because again, there's just so much of it going on. Yeah, that is something I would do if it wasn't for the fact that the instrumental on this track is incredible. It's like this crazy electro pop and rock extravaganza with shrieking rhythm guitars, sequence bass synths, persistent beats, these hype cascading refrains with a male vocalist.
The chorus is very gaga, the drama of it all. And also apparently Jonathan Rao of Foxgy fame is involved in the production and uh creation of this track as well as others on the album. Britney Howard is in the mix on this one, too.
But yeah, this track is just a six-minute monster which undergo some pretty incredible phases, including this complete electro disco bridge that has these soaring vocals on top that feel almost oporatic in a way. And the whole thing ends off with these haunting refrains of like it's it truly is an epic. Pretending your God is like this art rock and pop meditation that has a pretty strong peak at the finish as well as a linear build.
Seemingly, it's very much a song about being at a point of emotional weakness to where uh the person who you're into, it's almost as if they're God, the way they have a command over your emotions and maybe the love that you're feeling for them is unrequited. In fact, uh Miley doesn't even want to ask if uh she is being loved back in this situation, but u I don't know if you have to ask such a thing. With every girl you've ever loved, the electro vibes return.
We have catwalk, groove, spoken word refrains, pose. She speaks the perfect French. And the song kind of describes this guy who's like going through a lot of women and relationships is maybe indecisive.
Can't really commit. And Miley is singing about all the things that she and these women are doing for this guy and she just yearns to be more for this person or any person uh than just merely fun in the dark. And again, like many of the best moments on this record, this track too undergoes a lot of uh very dance-based uh progressive and linear evolutions.
The track Reborn also brings more vintage late night dance grooves with more of a cinematic spin this time around, I would say, which I think is very much fitting for the lyrics on this track, which uh likens this love that Miley is describing to heaven itself. She's been in heaven before. This love makes her feel like she's there again, hence the whole reborn thing.
And the there's a bit of a closing theme going on here. Maybe a trilogy among the final tracks on the record. They're definitely connected in a way because I feel like a lot of these themes and sounds are reinforced by the final track on the LP, which is just a jubilee of orchestrations.
Sounds like the goddamn Garden of Eden. In fact, that itself is even referenced in the lyrics of the track. But it feels like we've reached uh the final resting place emotionally for this record.
It's kind of transcended into the spirit realm with the final bars of the record saying, "Uh, so I'll send my goodbyes to the earthly delights while my perfect Eden goes down in flames. I'm eaten alive by the mouth of a monster while fearlessly calling out your name, which is obviously a very dark finish lyrically anyway. Uh, which contrasts very strongly from like the way the instrumentation sounds.
So, I mean, while I guess we didn't exactly end up in the place Miley wanted to be, uh, narratively in a way, it at least like, you know, sounds like we're there. But, yeah, I walked away from this record like really impressed and loving the vast majority of what I heard here. Like, not only was the writing on this record, I think, the best among all of Miley's albums, the vocal performances were topnotch.
And on top of it, this is the best production on any Miley Cyrus album so far, too. I mean, not just because it's uh well recorded and well mixed and so on and so forth. I mean, it is certainly that, but there's actually a lot of moments on this record instrumentally and and genre combo-wise that are much more adventurous than what you would get on like your average pop album today.
Sonically, Miley took a lot of risks on this LP. Uh, but they actually panned out very well, you know, as opposed to when she was kind of doing a more experimental thing on Dead Pets. like those blaring horn sections on Something Beautiful sounds way crazier than anything on that record.
And yet, this is like the more preferable and wellput together. But yeah, a bold, creative, fun, captivating, emotional record that like really showcases everything that is great about Miley Cyrus. Just just really powerfully condensed into uh the strongest crop of songs on any of her records yet, in my opinion.
which is why I'm feeling a decent two strong eight on this LP transition. Have you given this record a listen? Did you love it?
Did you hate it? What would you rate it? You're the best.
You're the best. What should I review next? Hit the like if you like.
Please subscribe and please don't cry. Hit the bell as well. Over here next to my head is another video that you can check out.
Hit that up or the link to subscribe to the channel. Anthony Fantano, Miley Cyrus, forever.
