Miley Cyrus ‘Something Beautiful’ Review: A Rapturous Prog-Pop Fantasia

For greater than a decade, Miley Cyrus has swung intentionally backwards and forwards between maximalism and a comparatively easy pop formulation. For each Miley Cyrus & Her Useless Petz in her discography there’s a Bangerz. For each “Mom’s Daughter,” there’s a “Malibu.” And like clockwork, Cyrus’s ninth studio album, One thing Stunning, finds the singer squarely within the former mode, following up the extra simple pop of 2023’s Infinite Summer time Trip with a post-apocalyptic prog-pop visible album.

In contrast to that of its predecessor, the music on One thing Stunning oozes as a lot character because the singer herself. Following a psychedelic prelude wherein Cyrus outlines her inventive ethos—“The sweetness one finds alone is a prayer that longs to be shared,” she says—the title monitor, an intermittently explosive prog-rock torch tune, serves as a Huge Bang of types, as Cyrus’s need is expressed in brief, ecstatic bursts of brass and electrical guitar.

Whereas solely a single monitor on the radio-ready Infinite Summer time Trip cracked the four-minute mark, the songs on One thing Stunning take their candy time unfolding, luxuriating in sax solos, spoken interludes, and a few loosely outlined world-building. Upon first look, the album’s lyrics largely evade specificity—one thing about ego demise and the top of the world couched in slightly standard-issue love tropes. “Present me the way you’d maintain me if tomorrow wasn’t comin’ for certain,” Cyrus wails on the euphoric “Finish of the World”—potential Armageddon scored to reside strings, glockenspiel, and a few massive, ABBA-esque piano chords.

An intriguing ambivalence, although, begins to floor all through: “You drive me loopy, however I nonetheless miss you while you’re gone,” Cyrus sings on “Straightforward Lover.” She asks, “Do you continue to love me?/I gotta know,” on the haunting “Fake You’re God,” earlier than including, “By no means thoughts, simply preserve it quiet should you don’t.” She likens herself to a pearl in her lover’s palm on “One thing Stunning,” and whereas an open palm is usually related to belief, the formation of a pearl is a protection mechanism in opposition to one thing threatening. These contradictions bolster Cyrus’s imaginative and prescient of a tradition she sees as sick and confused—one which she believes can solely be remedied with love.

If the primary half of One thing Stunning rides the ebb and circulation of the intro’s cosmic microwave background, from the shimmery piano ballad “Extra to Love” to the bluesy “Straightforward Lover,” whose infectious hook begs you to sing alongside, the album’s again half is a bona fide barnburner. “Each Lady You’ve Ever Cherished” is a feminist anthem that channels ballroom tradition, full with synth stabs out of 1985 and a spoken verse from Naomi Campbell, whereas “Reborn” is soiled, darkish, and rapturous, with what seems like Gregorian chants submerged below a deep, wobbly bassline and sweeping strings. It’s as if we’ve been dropped right into a dystopian discotheque.

Elsewhere, the six-minute “Stroll of Fame,” which encompasses a blistering backing vocal from Alabama Shakes’s Brittany Howard, marries the operatic bluster of Girl Gaga’s Born This Means with the disco splendor of Donna Summer time’s Dangerous Ladies. The tune conjures neon-tinged snapshots of a ’70s-era Sundown Strip so vivid that it’s exhausting to think about that the musical movie that accompanies One thing Stunning may ever reside as much as them.

On the album’s ultimate monitor, “Give Me Love,” Cyrus surveys humanity’s path from paradise to hell, impressed by a duplicate of Hieronymus Bosch’s portray “Backyard of Earthly Delights” that she discovered at a yard sale within the Valley. Ultimately, she bids farewell to her “good Eden,” maybe resigned to the conclusion that love can’t save the world in any case. Possibly, although, pop music can.