It seemed to signal a new maturity, as if the rebellious former child star was finally assuming the long-predicted mantle of dance pop superstar. And then there was the 2015 psychedelic concept album about beloved dead pets (literally Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz) made with alt rock mavericks The Flaming Lips.įlowers has just delivered Cyrus her biggest hit since she figuratively demolished her American sweetheart image by swinging naked across video screens on 2013’s Wrecking Ball. Cyrus’s output has encompassed everything from experimental hip hop to snarling rock via country power ballads, twerking controversies, lung-busting karaoke covers and duets with an astonishingly wide range of artists, from Wu Tang Clan rapper GhostfaceKillah to Cyrus’s godmother Dolly Parton.

She has been household name famous for two decades and is still only 30 years old, yet her career has sometimes looked like she is pinballing erratically around pop’s penny arcade rather than following any kind of masterplan. The daughter of country crossover star Billy Ray Cyrus (of Achy Breaky Heart fame), Miley made her TV debut in 2001. Even though, in Cyrus’s case, everyone probably is.Įndless Summer Vacation is Cyrus’s 8 th or 13 th studio album, depending on whether you count her output under her Disney alter ego Hannah Montana. One might pontificate that its solipsistic message (“I can love me better than you”) is perfectly suited to our narcissistic selfie age, or you can simply revel in the joy of dancing like no one is watching. The smoky tones of Miley Cyrus have never sounded so perfectly framed as on this defiant glide across an empty dancefloor, a post-divorce anthem of redemptive liberation that shares DNA with Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive.

The bittersweet disco of Flowers has become the inescapable hit of the year so far, number one in 35 countries and at the top of global streaming charts for two months straight. Miley Cyrus, Endless Summer Vacation ★★★★☆

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