Every Single Album - 'Endless Summer Vacation' | Every Single Album: Miley Cyrus

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

'Endless Summer Vacation' brought Miley Cyrus her biggest hit and her first Grammy. Nora and Nathan talk about the massive success of "Flowers" and why that song became such a big hit (1:00), songs like "Used To Be Young" and "Violet Chemistry" that might have been overshadowed by "Flowers" (25:03), and how the recognition she got from this album opened up new doors for her creatively (38:07). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan HubbardProducer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellany. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight, which streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat.

Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again? Follow the town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. To every single album, Miley Cyrus. I'm Nora Pinciotti, and I am joined, as always, by Nathan Hubbard. For the last installment of our Miley Cyrus series that looks back, we're going to talk about endless summer vacation today. And I do feel that as a through line in this conversation, we're going to be leading up to the present.

Isn't that right, Nathan? Endless, smiley conversation. That's not the name of the album. But this is the album that predates something beautiful, which, of course, we are going to talk about next. That episode is going to drop in conjunction with the release of that album. So surprise, you guys are going to get to hear from us, not once, but twice this week.

Just a little programming note. with that and maybe we'll have some extra special surprises on an ongoing basis. However, have you listened to the new album? We should tell people. We have it. Wow. I wasn't going to reveal this deep dark secret, Nathan. Yes, I have listened to it. Have you? Oh, okay. I have purposefully not. Because you want to keep your experience pure. But here's the thing is that you are like a music industry person of significance who gets albums before they are released a lot. And so to you, this is like whatever.

To me, whenever, even like when I get TV screeners and stuff for other podcasts, you got to go right on it. I'm like, does it even work? Like, ooh, I get a little secret. And then sometimes it's like, I'm like, why do I, I will have the same thing with TV stuff too where I'm like, I don't want to watch this before everybody's talking about it. Like, for some reason I was getting white lotus screeners, even though I wasn't covering it. Wow.

But then I would never watch them because I was like, I want to watch with everybody else. But it does, it makes me feel very special because it doesn't happen to me that often. Well, it is special, but I wanted to sort of purely go on the journey because there's a lot of Miley stuff on parts of these albums that just was not a part of my lexicon. And I have to say, you know, I did, the one thing that I did cheat was I have watched a lot of Miley talking about this new album. And so as we move into endless summer vacation, it does feel to me like she thinks about this album, A, as like a release,

and B, as a stepping stone to what we're going to get in a week. Yeah, I think, and I don't want to, I both don't want to use what I know from having listened to it, but also don't think that I need that to, to say this, it does really feel like a stepping stone. Because I think one thing that that crystallized for me, having gone through the whole discography with you and then just listening back to Endless Summer Vacation, is that like, Miley Cyrus has always been a pop star in how she moves through the world and culture as a celebrity.

But she has spent various amounts of time really making pop music versus making many different types of rock versus dabbling in country versus, you know, spending some time with hip-hop signifiers. I think this album is where Miley kind of comes into her own as a pop singer, which is a really powerful thing for her to understand in a contemporary sense of like how she fits into that landscape, particularly because I think her other poll as a pop star, had been Hannah Montana. And so it's like the full evolution of how does Miley inhabit a pop space without it feeling too

connected to this thing that I think she has evolved. Her thinking on it is more warm to than she was shortly after the Hannah era ended, but still in a way that feels her own. And I think that's the space that something beautiful seems to be coming from. and it does really start to entrench itself here on an endless summer vacation, and in particular with the song Flowers, which I think is going to really dominate the conversation that we're about to have. Well, can I just ask you about that thought?

Because I'm interested in making sure that I get your point there. When you say that she came into her own as a pop vocalist, do you mean literally her voice in the way that she sings, or her just sort of like voice? as a pop star. I think her voice is a pop star in the sense of, when I say that Miley moves through the world and culture as a pop star, which I think she has done pretty consistently,

even at times when she's not making pop music, that is about the spectacle of Miley Cyrus. That is about the parts of the Miley Cyrus career project that create discourse, create scandal and things that people talk about and things that sort of reflect the world back onto what she's doing. When I say Miley Cyrus coming into her own as a pop musician, a pop vocalist, I'm not talking about her voice because I think her voice has remained remarkably consistent in how she sings. It's the craziest fucking thing.

It is crazy. But it is how does Miley Cyrus make a song like flowers that is so digestible, that is digestible in the way that like die with a smile is digestible, right? Like, it can be at the CVS. It can be all over the radio. Careful. But, okay, parentheses complementary, not parentheses derogatory, right? Yeah.

It can do all of that stuff. That song holds a particular spot in this podcast, Kryptonite Locker. I heard it the other day. And I was like, oh, God, this again. But where she can do that and not feel the Miley instinct to reject. it and say, this is inauthentic. This is the type of thing that would come out of the Disney machine, right?

Like, this is the type of thing that doesn't offend anybody or get anybody talking and therefore it's not me. Like she, I think here figures out how to do both of those things at the same time. And there's the ongoing, because we started to talk about this with plastic hearts a little bit, there's the ongoing sense of, oh, she can sort of settle a little bit. that doesn't have to be the constant rejection of the thing that came before it. Does that answer your question? It does. It does.

And she told us very recently that she's in love with this song, Flowers. And I do think that there's an overarching theme of this album, although not so much in the midsection, but more so in the beginning and the end, that is the adultification of Miley Cyrus. and particularly as we move into something beautiful, having not heard the music yet, but certainly having heard the way that she is talking

about her evolution as a human being and what this music means to her in this moment, I'm so interested in understanding the ways in which this mind, this child who was, we made her famous, in one of the hardest moments ever to be famous. We made her famous in a moment way too soon, too young, super unfair,

in a culture that the TMZification of the culture was happening, both in terms of paparazzi in the U.S., but also social media. And she's had to stay. I mean, she absolutely was frozen in some ways, and a lot of people will talk about this, that they're famous people sometimes freeze from the moment in which they got famous. And she was famous as a child.

And so there are parts of the journey that we've been on in which some of her behavior, I think in hindsight, has been childlike or a function of not having that time as a preteen, teenager, adolescent, young person to actually kind of figure out who you are. And I think that is consistent with the ways in which she's whipped between genres,

that seems to be a parallel to her finding herself and sort of rooting herself. But this song is something that she, I mean, it's a career achievement for her, right? And you'll give us the stats. But I want to ask you, is it good? And why is it good? Flowers is good.

I want to have two distinct conversations here. One is, like, by which I mean, I don't want my saying flowers is good to suggest that it inherently makes sense to me that this is the biggest Smiley Cyrus song. Right. Right. It's massive. It is the biggest Miley Cyrus song. It is the song that got her, the Grammy that gave her the validation that somewhere inside her she knew she needed, but that sort of allowed her to release, I think it gave her. more comfort in her skin as an artist, it maybe finished her full transition into adulthood. And as you spoke about, I thought very eloquently on the last episode, how did you describe her not swearing herself

her past off anymore, right? She sort of accepted herself fully, not, you know, denigrating her past work, right? It really is this transformational release thing. And I like flowers. but I don't think of it on first listen when I heard it as like, that is a slam-bam hit that is going to be eternal. And it is eternal.

It is, you know what surprised me when I was looking back at some of the data because I have in my head, Flowers was this like massive, massive song. It broke the Spotify record for the most streams in its first week. And I think also in its second week, eight weeks at number one. It's her first number one since party of the USA.

It is the best selling song worldwide of 2023. This is a massive, massive song, but I'm going, okay, some of that. You don't get to that type of scale without the song being monumentally huge. Some of the Spotify records, they are always made to be broken because as more and more people adopt streaming services,

they go up and up and up. What surprised me is that on a daily basis, so now on an ongoing basis, it remains her most streamed song. Right. So more people every day are listening to flowers. Look, it's close with party in the USA. But still, it's more for flowers. And that really surprised me. I thought, okay, you have a distinction in the total because party in the USA was released when there were a lot fewer people on stream.

My gut says it flowers is embedded in more playlist because it came out. in the era of digital. And therefore, there's a lot of circulation that comes from that, too. Yeah. In other words, that number is a reflection of as much push from Spotify as it is poll from listeners.

Part in the USA is a little bit more poll people searching and listening because it didn't just sort of automatically slot into existing playlist. But I think you're exactly right. I mean, it is still her most popular song. And so I want to just ask you to help me unpack it,

because I like the song. I'm into it. I think the vinyl record at the beginning and end sound is cool. The disco 70s beat and the bass walk is cool. It's like super carmically fitting that the final chapter

of her relationship with Liam that we have had to endure for 10 fucking years plus, right, ends in her biggest hit ever. So sorry that happened to you? Yeah. It's great for her. And there's, it's, it's,

the way it, should have been, there's purpose to everything, right? But like, do you think it's the self-love and acceptance and independence thing, which was really big coming out of COVID and the sort of taking care of yourself? Like, what is it about this that just drove people to ecstasy, right? Yeah. So I think it's a few things. Let's let's lay out the case. Okay. So factor one, it's a catchy as fuck song, right? Like, that is a melody that you can sink your teeth into. That is an infectious sounding sequence of notes. Yeah. It's a circle of fifth song where, you know, the, they, it's about, they're just a bunch of fists that sort of if you follow the progression,

the melody kind of writes itself. And that's, that's what they talked about. It goes where you, where you're, wherever your brain thinks that the next note is going to be, you are satisfied in those assumptions. It's a very satisfying song to listen to. Number two, Miley Cyrus is a very charming person. And this song, more than a lot of others in her catalog,

deploys that, I think. Yeah. Okay. I think the, like, the self-love, and acceptance piece of it is definitely big. But I also think that that coming from this specific person, just the way that she sort of like tosses off, you know, I can buy myself flowers.

Like all, it just because it's about you, it can be about anybody, but coming from Miley, it feels even better, I think. Look, you and I don't totally understand the Die with a Smile song, but this also has a connection to Bruno Mars, doesn't it?

Yes. It appears to be paraphrasing when I was your man. That I should have bought you flowers and held your hand. Yeah, I mean, I think more than, and there was litigation over this, and, and I mean, more than appears to be

in terms of the echo of, I should have bought you flowers, I can buy myself flowers. like those lyrics match up kind of one to one. I also think it helps that people know that song. People like audiences like familiarity. So if you know that, and then all of a sudden you're hearing this other sort of version of it

where it is new enough, it has a much more uplifting spin. But in addition to the melody being constructed in a way where your ear sort of knows what to expect, You also know what to expect because you've heard a song that it has some derivation from. But Nora, that is exactly the way we talked about a ton of the songs on plastic hearts. And part of why that album worked for us was there was some old stuff that you could find little pieces of that you definitely had heard before, but it managed to sound fresh. And it feels like that's also the formula that she used on flowers.

I totally agree. I will say that I don't get why Midnight Sky wasn't a bigger song. So, like, I don't have a great answer for you for, like, I think that if I had heard... Because it was edge of 17, but... Well, right, but sure, but this is a derivative song too, right? Like, if you had played me Midnight Sky and Flowers and I knew no context, I don't know that I would have gotten it right, which one was going to be, like, the huge, huge mega smash. And I don't know in some ways

If it still totally makes sense to me Here's the other thing I think the biographical stuff really helps too I think the fact that there is a reference to You know the house burned down We were right Till we weren't Built a home and watched it burn

And you have a sense that This is a Liam song And there was dropped on his birthday So yes Yep, yep That element helps. You have a sense. Yeah.

She wore a gold dress in the music video that people took as like an allusion to the possibility that he cheated with Jennifer Lawrence during the Hunger Games. I've stunned Nathan in his tracks. I think all of that stuff helps the song be big. Inevitably, people are interested in those kinds of things. do we think, I mean, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves,

but there's definitely, Muddy Feet is a song about cheating. Is that a J-Law song? You can with your muddy feet. I mean, like, J-Law says unequivocally, this did not happen, this is not what this is about. You can try your own conclusions, I suppose. It's definitely, there are other songs about infidelity on this album.

I believe J-Law. Let me hold on to believe. believing in J-law. J-law has been wearing some great sunglasses lately. Her Hot Wings performance alone just makes me believe that she will speak the truth

any and all times. Should ask about that before she got to DeBomb. I'm going to hold on to that and assume that muddy feet with its get the fuck out my house. I feel that those connections between the music video dress

and are a little bit spurious. Well, this coming from the woman to convince me just in the last episode that we are getting Taylor's version of reputation. Okay, I'm like fucking back on, by the way. I know you are. I knew you were going to be back on because you're down the hole on all of the social media things now that are feeding you all of the shit of connecting sixes and 26es because it was on the cake

and I bet you think about me. Just saying. Give the woman a rest. Give her some time to just. I'm not bothering her. I'm not bothering her at all. I'm, oh my God. Let her just have the hairy back

without anybody paying attention for just a little period of time. Can she just have one thing? Why is his back so hairy? Daddy's a reddy. He's a grown-ass man. But it stops. Like it stops below the shoulder blades.

I have not paid attention to that. I just, I think we just need to let it go. and what I'm telling you is... That's going to be hard for me. Are we talking about Riley, Cyrus? That's what I'm going to tell you about is, I think, just to bring this back

from back hair to flowers, the perfect pivot. I just, I still as I step back, like, by the way, maybe it's the low register in her voice that people are drawn to. Like, this is a song where she's not exerting too hard and she's not. There's something cool. Yeah,

there's something conversational without, you know, the fucking actual conversation that happens in Handstand on this album. But here's the point. Everybody thinks they can hear a hit. You know, I think we listen to that Sabrina Carpenter

record. We listened to the Charlie XX record. And you could hear the stuff on there. Like, yeah, Juno is a big fucking song that wasn't a single. And guess what plays the best live. It's Juno when she's on the heart and she's doing the positions. And like, we could hear that. Like there was something not formulaic, but mathematical, I think, or predictable about that being a hit. This one is not one that you necessarily would put on and be like,

yo, this is going to sit at the top of the Spotify 200 for a long fucking time, the Billboard Hot 100. And this one's going to go down, even though it's only 2023, as unquestionably one of the biggest songs of the decade. And so it's interesting to sort of pull apart the components and do a full breakdown of the robot to understand what actually goes in to making this contraption. And Flowers is one where I think even when you do that, you can be confused, but you cannot, and you are not confused about its impact and success. Yeah, I mean, I think the component parts, when you pull it apart, it's the, it is, the accessibility of the song

because people knew the Bruno Mars song because of the way that it's constructed because of the way that the melody is. I think it is that like quasi tabloidy you feel like you know something about the backstory. God, we've heard a lot of Liam songs. Yeah. You know, it's not like this was fresh news.

But it's a really easy one to parse, right? Like, if you're not, it's not complicated what her message is, right? Yeah. It just has really one or two lines where it's explicitly talking about the house burning down. And so there's not, you don't have to do the, you know, tortured poets department act of you have your notebook out and you're doing math and putting together, okay, she said this. And then this means like, where was she on that day?

and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, it doesn't take that kind of forensic analysis, but you still feel like it connects to this thing that exists in celebrity culture that you might know about. And then I do, like, do you remember, I forget what album we were talking about when this came up, but a few weeks ago, I said to you that there is a quality to Miley where she's sort of like the highest possible expression,

the best possible expression of like a lounge singer. And you were like, that's so insulting. And I was like, no, that's not. how I mean it. It's a compliment. I need to try to explain that again because that is the Miley that's the Miley that had these little private concerts at Chateau Mourmet and introduced flowers and used to be young in those settings. So I, in that sense, I completely agree with you. I started to cry, but then remembered I'm to see all my own company. You see I used to be I say I used to be young.

And it's, there's a, it's personality driven. It is her charm. It is the type of singing where you imagine her at the chateau, up on the stage, but she's doing the little asides and she's talking to the crowd. She's talking to the audience and it's intimate and everybody's joking together. Like I just, I think that comes through even in the polished recording. recorded version. I would be remiss not to say,

you spoke of the fact that this is a feel-good song being part of its success. Originally, she wrote it as a pretty sad song. She wrote it as... Like a ballad. Yeah, like, I can do all these things. I can buy myself flowers. I can write my name in the sand.

Like, I'm self-sufficient, but I can't love me better than you can. Like, I can live on my own, but I can't have love in the same way on my own, which I do think that if that version came out, like it would not have been like this. I think that's right. I think the empower,

I mean, does this feel like a, like female empowerment, feminist anthem to you? I guess it is on a sort of literal basis. To me, it doesn't feel inherently like feminist or related to women specifically.

It just seems like, like if a man wanted to claim this, song, I wouldn't be like, no, that's not for you. There's some Gloria Gaynor, like, I will survive in this song. Yeah. Yeah. And that's infectious. And people, you know what?

Like, we can be corny about it all we want. Like, people need songs like that. That is a meaningful thing. That's my point. But you just told a story that basically says the difference between it, maybe getting lost in the shuffle and being what it is, is an apostrophe T being removed. Yeah. Yeah. Which is fascinating. I'll say this. This song was so big that it took all of the air out of everything else that they were trying to do. It was so big that it kind of froze them in a good way because it had so much life that they just kept saying, we're not going to fuck with this. Like we just need to let this thing run and do its thing. They postpone.

releasing more singles for a long, long time. And I do think that it ended up just drowning out, choking out, asphyxating, used to be young. That's because I used to be young. Which is a song that I really like that's on here and that we'll talk about. And that I think actually really matters as we talk about this, the adulting of Miley Cyrus. but flowers, like, it's so rare to see something that just is a full-on total eclipse of the sun and blocks out any other light. And I think it probably made it hard for this album to do much in some ways.

And this is, I mean, my peak, Miley thing is that here we are once again with Miley Cyrus releasing an album that has just epic, an epic song on it, one or two, not unlike bangers, not, you know, and the rest of it kind of gets lost a bit because maybe the songs just sound nice and they're not transcendent, or maybe you just can't see it because your retinas are blind from the sun that's right in front of you on a song like flowers

or wrecking ball, et cetera. I think that's right. I do think the fact that it happened, even if the success of flowers eclipsed the album as an album, I do think it was really good for her. I think it was really good for her at this point to land another number one and to have a moment of sort of dominating culture.

For sure. Because it had been a minute. But she didn't do what she's done before when she was dominating culture. We didn't see her everywhere. True. They were very particular about where she showed up. And this is the moment in time when I think they start to decide,

it happened around plastic cars, but they started to decide she's an icon. And when Miley's there, it matters. The Disney Icon Award that she got. I stand here still proud to have been Hannah Montana because she made Miley in so many ways. This award is dedicated to Hannah. Yeah. You know, she didn't go out in tour,

and now we have a little bit more insight just in the last week as to some of the reasons why she hasn't toured related to the health of her vocal cords, which is a fascinating discussion that will continue. But I think here, again, with the song, there was just a reticence to mess with it because it was out there in the hands of the people having its full-on viral moment,

in the true definition of, in this moment, 23 of what it meant to be viral and you just don't fuck with it. You just, it now has its own life. It's out there. It is a hurricane. It is unstoppable. And you just sit back and watch what it does. And so we didn't see that much of her.

And I think, I do wonder if she feels like it was going to be impossible for the rest of the album and the art to live up to flowers at that point. I just don't, I don't suspect that she went into. the album cycle thinking, well, I got one song and it's going to choke everything else out. No. I mean, you wouldn't, right? But some of these things are hard to predict, as you said. Everybody thinks they can smell a hit, but some of it is more random than other songs that take off. And then also, you know, we'll get there. I'm going to talk about it a lot in my peak Miley was her performance at the Grammys and that whole thing. But at a certain point, it wasn't just about that song being a part of culture.

It became apparent that it gave her a chance at some types of recognition that she hadn't had before. And so I imagine you wouldn't want to step on that either. In terms of this being a point where she did shift a little bit how she went about her business, she became a little bit more scarce, deciding that when she shows up, it's a real moment. It is funny. We've been doing these, you know, let's place ourselves in the timeline, what's going on in her life. And so many of those have been, on my notes, these like lengthy, bulleted, there's all this shit going on. Like, she's doing this.

And then she decides to do this. And then she says she's going to do this. This one is really simple, which makes me feel like maybe she had a little bit of personal piece. I'm at least going to hope to think of it in that way. The one thing that does happen with her as a sort of professional juncture point is that she finishes her record contract with RCA and this ends up being her first album with Columbia. As our music biz insider, do you think that there was anything in terms of that moment marking a transition or a shift for her? it's it's interesting that you ask that I think my assumption is that the choice that an artist makes not my assumption my observation has been that a the choice that an artist makes with their label they spend a lot of time sort of shopping that around and you sit down and what you're looking for is somebody who has the same creative vision and somebody who's going to let you do the things that you know resonate with where you are as an artist and that sounds a little bit of

little fruffy, but what I'm saying is it's a total vibe check. And so for where Miley was and the music that she was making in that moment, I think Columbia is why she went. And my guess is at that moment in time, she has a lot of leverage in that negotiation. And so she's got a lot of artistic freedom. And so I think their pitch was probably, we can market your stuff, no matter what you do, we can distribute you, and we're going to give you a ton of freedom. Now, what comes with that is you don't get the, oh, my label did or did not do the work. You don't get to point fingers. You don't get to say, well, I mean,

Miley Cyrus and her dead pets would have done a lot better if Warner had actually put any weight behind it, right? Sure. Or, well, if I hadn't been on Disney, I could have, you know, said what I really wanted to say. Now it's entirely on you at this stage in your career. It's not unlike where Taylor is with her, what is effectively a distribution deal with Universal,

where they're distributing and doing a little bit of marketing. But, you know, Taylor's got the wheel. And in this situation, Miley has the wheel. And for an artist who still has ambition and drive to create, you know that you're getting the art in the purest form that they wanted to put forward. Sometimes that's great. Sometimes that's fraught with problems

because the A&R layer of a record label, which is really people who put ears on stuff and give notes and help you work material to make. it great. Those people are generally less involved in a process like this. I think in Miley's case, what we know from this album is, first of all, she's doing some work with a guy who she's going to be in a relationship with for an extended period of time. And there are a lot of different songwriters who participate in this record. And she's working with Kit Harpoon, who last we saw was working with Harry Stiles to create the album of the year, the year before.

this album came out. Well, and an album that I think you can hear a lot of, particularly in some of the songs that come early. I mean, I think both jaded and rose-colored lenses are songs that could have been on Harry's house. Interesting. Really? Yeah.

In the, there's a gauziness to it. where it is pop, but it has this kind of simultaneously, like it's how they get that balance between contemporary and classic sounding, but I think both of those songs, particularly rose-colored lenses. Go listen to rose-colored lenses and turn on your ears in a way

where you're imagining Harry-style singing that song, and I think it will start to, it will click. It's so funny. I mean, I think, I just think about keep driving and I think about music for a sushi restaurant. And I think about, from the Harry album, even more than I think about as it was. You know, it's not the same as it was.

Anyway. That's an exercise for another. That's an exercise for you. I think I think you'll hear it. Cool. Because to me, I get a lot of the influence of Harry and the understanding. This is less true of flowers than some of the other stuff that didn't hit as big. So I don't think that this speaks to, you know, what was popular and what wasn't.

But I do think that overall there was an attempt to place this music in a very, vein of sound that has a connection with music that had recently been really, really successful. I think you're right about that. You go to Kid Harpoon to do that. It's why Maggie Rogers went to Kid Harpoon for the second record. It's why, like, you have some faith that Kid Harpoon has his finger on the pulse of culture in that moment. There's no doubt about it. But I mean, this album has some consistency throughout it, but it, it, it, it, it, moves around a bit. I mean, she put it out right with this idea that there's an AM and a PM side to the album. Goes through the course of a day. Right. One of her, which when you get to handstand, it's a little bit

weird for me because that doesn't feel, that doesn't feel like that's an AM song, but that is part of the AM part of this. But there's also, she doesn't exactly whip up. across genres per se, like she has in some of her other projects. But it isn't quite as consistent from top to bottom in the way that younger now or plastic hearts even was. And you wouldn't necessarily think that a song like handstand or a song like muddy feet or even a song like Island. Yeah.

Would be side by side with flowers. which feels like a more traditional pop pop hit. And I don't hate it because she is pulling in some stuff that we've heard before. Jaded, you talk about Jaded, I mean, there are some lines on there. I love the chorus on that song, but there's some lines on there that feel really similar

to Wrecking Ball. It feels like an evolved cousin of Wrecking Ball. Yeah, and then it does, I like Jaded, and I like the chorus too. It's a lot of really flat A sound. I don't mean flat in the pitch sense, but just like jaded, that I don't love how that sounds to my ear.

It's just if we're comparing it to Wrecking Ball, that's lofty praise, and it doesn't quite get there for me. But I like it too. I mean... Yeah, I like the way she sings some of those. Do you... Is there anything...

Is there anything on this album that you think qualitatively stands up to flowers? Oh, no. I think Violet Chemistry's cool, but it doesn't get there for me for a song that was written with Sia and James Blake. I like used to be young. I really do. Me too. That's the one that kind of sits with me. And outside of that, there isn't, you know, Island doesn't suck, but it's just a little bit different. And it is, just as it is the second to last song here, it feels like that second to last

SNL sketch where they're like, I don't know, fuck it, let's do the, you know. I find Island really weird. Let's do the corksoker sketch. Go for it. The three songs that you mentioned, handstand, muddy feet, and island as feeling a little bit incongruent with the rest of this. Yeah. Muddy feet, I think, is cool, actually.

It is cool. It is cool. I would say that handsstand and island. I could live without. Handstand. I mean, who is Big Twitchy? Let's just start there. We're back to some dead pets shit on that song.

Yes, we are back to some dead pet shit on Handstand. And there is something comforting about that. For as much as she vacillates, like, Mike Will Made it is still working on this record. For all of the herky-jurkey elements of the career, all of those little, she, like, like still sprinkles a lot of that stuff in, which I actually think is really nice

because it makes it feel real and less just tried on for a moment in time that then disappeared. But the handstand to me is a little too gritty. Like River has a few of those textures, but it's just a little bit more palatable. And handstand for me goes a bit too far. She called that song River nasty.

I mean, those three songs in particular, you. Which is, we're having tonight, get drunk by the light, then I'll pick a fight to make up on the floor of your own.

Which is, we're back to the, you know, we're having sex, we're getting drunk again. Maybe that's about Max Miranda. Yeah, although you is, you feels,

I like you actually. Yeah, I'm okay with it. Because it's waltzy, it's schmaltzy. It has that lounge quality that like I'm realizing I actually really like for Miley. Yeah, fair enough.

Handstand gets, I mean, the opening sort of monologue with the boat and the, I don't, the dingy or whatever we're talking about, I don't know what's going on. That is some dead pet shit. And River, I mean, it almost feels like there's a little groove that feels like it could be a duo song or the vocal almost sounds like a Kesha song to me. You could be the one to have the honor of my babies is the line. It's not the lyric for me, but it's certainly the one where you're like, oh, oh, shit. She hasn't talked about that before. That's interesting. And then the rest of the album feels like spaghetti on the wall to me.

I don't hate Wild Card, actually. I like the way she growls on that chorus. It somehow makes me feel sorry for her. There's a sadness to like that I could be your wife. Like I think it's hard. I mean, it obviously was. It's really hard for Miley Cyrus to date. Do you want a playhouse?

your wife going to meet your mom and a dress too tight and then we get to Wonder Woman at the end she can't stop her eyes for wedding and I have to say Miley has this pattern

of putting the schmaltiest shit last it's like with every single album she wants to have the goodbye piano ballad-y thing. And we've had our issues with pop,

like the end of the Tate album we take issue with. This just feels like such a lift of the Sarah McLaughlin song. Arms of the Angel. Yep. She's a one. She knows why she's a lie. That I just have trouble taking it in.

And in this moment in time, Wonder Woman is just so perilously close to being called Woman's World. Well, that's not fair. We didn't have that in its time. I know. But I'm just saying right now, I just couldn't dispense with being like, I'm not fully comfortable. This is so funny because normally I think you have a higher tolerance for schmaltz than I do. I actually like when Miley's schmaltzy. Like, I don't mind.

I, Wonder Woman is not in my top three or four from this album, but I like it. Well, we need it. We need it, yeah. Because it is sort of... And she's just a beautiful singer. Like, no offense to Sarah McLaughlin, but I would rather hear Miley Cyrus's voice in Sarah McLaughlin. Oh, that's, I mean, I really like Sarah McLaughlin. You better be careful there.

I stand by that. Hmm. No, I stand by that. I got into trouble last week because. I kept saying seven things when I meant to be saying see you again. And I was having like a, my brain was breaking in real time as we were podcasting and you were making me name Miley Cyrus songs that I like more than fly away, of which there are very few. This, that is not happening here. I do, I would rather listen to Miley Cyrus than Sarah McLaughlin, respectfully. Okay. Well, I don't

love this song. I have to tell you. I understand why it. exists, but I just don't, this one, I don't feel like I need. So that's your cut. That's what you're cutting Wonder Woman. Is that what you're telling me? I think I'm cutting Wonder Woman. Okay. Okay.

But you could talk me out of it. That's the thing. This is another one of those albums where I don't hate anything. You know what is it would be a good exercise for us to do? I'm not putting you on the spot for it right now. Okay. What is Miley Cyrus's worst song? Because it's going to be pretty hard.

Like this always happens. She has a stunning and instantly identifiable voice and an inherent musicality. And for as fucking weird as some of her songs are, very few of them are bad. Catitude. You think catitude is the worst Miley Cyrus song? Okay. What's the worst Miley Cyrus song? Iris dog that's like not completely unhinged.

Well, that's the thing. That's hard. That's a really hard question. Yeah. We'll spend some time on that and come back. It's like probably something off younger now. Maybe it is. But it's hard.

But the only, the point that I'm trying to make here is that it's a hard question because she has a, she, again, outside. of the category of things that are completely unhinged, incredibly high floor, which is a very high floor producer of songs. Yeah. I think Dream from Hannah Montana, the movies sucks.

No, Dream is good. No, Dream is good. Oh my God, I can't believe you're slandering dream. I'm just telling you what I think. You know what else sucks? True friend sucks. True friend is not bad. I mean, I learned from you.

Sucks. Okay, I learned from you is probably not good. I can't believe you're going down this path. Anyway, there's a lot of stuff that doesn't suck. But on this album,

there isn't anything that sucks for me. And that's the thing that, you know, let's go back out. I think Island is too kitschy. I think Island is pretty weird. It's like I don't like it. Okay.

I think it's okay. I mean, it's a little bit your two in your bag as a celebrity. Well, and also, like, it feels too, like, Jimmy Buffett. I just think she actually was on an island and, like, isolating herself because she's famous and trying to decide if that is a peaceful place to be or a super lonely place to be. Yeah, no, I actually think lyrically, it's kind of an interesting song. But the production of it, which does sound like if you walk into, if you walk into a, like, a beach, hotel the dumb music that they're playing in the lobby.

Right. That is a little bit what I get from Island. So Island and handstand, I think this album would be better served by not including those ones. Well, you asked me if there's anything else that holds up to flowers. And I do think it's used to be young for me. It doesn't quite hold up. But it really is important in the journey for me because it's the only time in her lyrics where she's really accepted the moniker of being crazy.

That's because I used to be young. She uses this word crazy all over her music from the very first album. And in so many cases, she sort of scorns people who call her crazy, right? And she, I mean, you know, at the end of, Golden G-string, she said, you dare to call me crazy. Have you looked around this place? It's not my fault, is what she's saying.

There's, even on this album, in you, she says, I'm kind of crazy, because that's how you made me. I'm kind of crazy. But on this song, she, like, kind of accepts it. And it's, it's that, again, it's the adulting of Miley Cyrus.

Like, the last time we saw her, at least the last time we talked about her, and slide away, right, where she said, move on, we're not 17, I'm not who I used to be. You'd say that everything changed. You're right. We're grown now. Great song. A moving line for you. Um, but here it's, I think it's, I know I used to be crazy. That's because I used to be young. There's this moment in her life where she started thinking about herself as an adult. And it sort of is this signifier of an evolution of her. And when,

you now look at the way that she talks about herself and her life, she is so introspective and able to, she's always been honest. But I find so much wisdom in her. And what is astonishing about this entire fucking conversation is that she's only 32 years old. Seriously. She's got so much more in front of her. And for whatever reason, and it is because we made her famous too young. She has lived multiple lives because she's been in the spotlight for 20 years. And I think that song to me is mildly growing up.

And for whatever reason, I think it really matters to me in my understanding of her, at least the way that I perceive her. How could I possibly understand her? Or pretend that I understand her. But I think it's a really important, one to listen to and sit with. And I think it got lost in the shuffle because Flowers was so big. But it's a really important part of her of her catalog. Well, they did try. I mean, I think you're right that for the most part, they tried to not step on flowers and just

let that thing have its run. But they did that whole TikTok series that I love so much where she's talking about moments from her use. So there was some attempts to let this elevate. But if Flowers, I do think sort of was just going to take all the oxygen. The thing that I love about used to be young is at the end when she, instead of, I know I used to be fun, the lyrics transition to messed up, but God, was it fun? I know I used to be crazy.

Messed up, but God was it fun? And then you have those wasted nights are not wasted. the fact that by the end of that, there's a self-acceptance to it. And it's not just about... Right. And I love that. Those were the words you used last week.

I love that so much that that happens in this song. And she can say, I have grown up and I am different, but that doesn't have to be an inherent dismissal of who I was in the past. Right. and that's been the pattern of hers through all the music that she's made, isn't it?

She's put stuff out, and before we've even heard it, she's moved on to the next thing. And as you said, disavowed that era. And I'm, it's really wonderful. And I think that's why I'm so excited to hear this new album, because I think one of the things that this speaks to

is she's gotten better at making albums, Nora. Yeah. And it really started with plastic hearts. And this album is not bad, It doesn't have moments where you're like, what the fuck is going on here? Like, in what way was this, is this a collection of cohesive thinking, you know, beyond some massive hits and then some other experiments? And that's okay. Like, I've come to appreciate her as being a creator of music that shifts between eras, right?

I mean, she is coming. She's, she bagged two EPs just because. it just didn't feel right. She did a total drug trip album about dead pets because it did feel right. And so that is what you get with Miley Cyrus and you have to sign up for it. But I do think there is this shift that has happened now and that I think it's what makes this the next album appetizer. There isn't any one individual song in my view, having not heard it. But my guess is this is that stepping stone to her freely stepping in to making an album as an adult with the self-love that we actually hear on flowers, that isn't her putting on a face, that isn't her pushing back against the constraints.

In so many ways, I think in this moment, you know, the constraint that she accepts is her sobriety, right? Yeah. And that she's sort of operating with that as her North Star and creating in a way that probably feels different than a lot of these albums that were not made in a state of sobriety. Do you remember when during the Ears tour that Taffy Ackner, New York Times Magazine? Oh my God. It's one of my favorite things I've read in five years.

Well, and that's sort of about this, right? It moved me so much. And what she was writing about was the experience of that tour and what that tour meant to so many people was not about Taylor Swift's eras, but about revisiting your own eras and accepting them. Right. And loving the person that you were in high school or college or whatever moment in the past, even if it was sort of cringy, but celebrating all of that instead of tossing it off. Because I think that's a very common, you know, it doesn't usually happen in the way that it

happened with Miley Cyrus, right? where we're talking about something that was experienced at extremes of the degree of the shift in how she was presenting herself and also just the circumstances of doing that so publicly and in a way that shifted culture and caused so much controversy. But people to, you know, oh, God, I was so cringy in high school. Like, everybody does that to some extent. And that convergence. of something that is very much about Miley Cyrus but also can kind of be about anyone. Like, that's popular music, right?

And like, that's a really, really potent formula. So I agree with you. And I think the end of this song in particular of used to be young representing that, I do think is an important moment if one that perhaps got overshadowed just because Flowers is so big. Yeah.

And I want to use this word carefully because I don't mean to imply physical violence, but there was violence in the shift in her life. She went through divorce in a relationship that had whipsawed back and forth in the way that her music whipsawed back and forth, and I think there's a strong correlation and causality between those two things.

She lost her home in a wildfire where everything was destroyed. And so there is a inevitable change in perspective about life. and about the seriousness of grinding on a foam finger that maybe makes it easier to let go and accept when you've gone through some things that are so deeply painful, but also violent in the way that they break the timeline

and the normality of the cycle of your life. Well, and also, I think her family life at this point was complicated and probably just taking up a lot of her thought, but also putting her in a place where she was working on processing and working on sorting it all out. Let's go through the categories that we've hit because I want to do, I want to give you one of mine,

but biggest hit is very obvious. It is. I think we're both in agreement that there are some other strong contenders here, particularly used to be young. But Flowers, Flowers wasn't, just a perfect storm of factors. It's still, I believe that that is a song with some special qualities.

It's funny, it used to bother me that it was so derivative of Bruno Mars and now it doesn't at all. Yeah. Well, DiW With a Smile is the biggest song on the Gaga album, but it's not the best. Flowers is the biggest song on the Mila Cyrus album we're talking about today.

And it is the best. And it is the best. I do also love the song with Brandy Carlyle. Thousand Miles. You do? Yeah, because I just like hearing her same with Brandy Carlisle. It just didn't move me. It's country pop that's kind of me.

And I wanted more because both of those two are capable of writing a song that moves you. Yeah, I think that's true. And that song is probably not Thousand Miles. That said, I like hearing Miley Cyrus and Brandy Carlisle sing together. So I'm not upset by it. I cut handstand and Island. You wanted to get rid of Wonder Woman. You can kill Handstand.

I don't need Handstand. I don't need to know what she's doing with the left hand and the right hand. It's kind of enough already. Hey, she's consistent. But listen, it sounds like she's a Wonder Woman. Well, here's where to me she was a Wonder Woman. I have a combination

like Easter Egg conspiracy corner slash peak Miley for you which is that I just I want to talk about the Grammys. Okay. Because... What specifically? I want to talk about the performance. She told everybody you know this song.

What are you doing? Why aren't you dancing? Yes, but also where she did the I didn't want to leave you, but I had to. I didn't want to fight. We did. And then she goes,

I just won my first Grammy. Like, I love that. You, but had to. I didn't want to fight. But we did. Started to cry.

Then remembered, I just won my first. And I do, like, that is the essence of Miley as, no, I loved it. I mean,

it was kind of silly. Yeah. But I love that so much. I thought the mix on TV made it a little bit more cringier than it probably was on site. Because you didn't. have the crowd noise.

So you just, so to you, because you have her, like, interjecting with herself and not anything else around it, you were like, ooh, is this? And she had just scolded them for not dancing. She's like, come on, it's not like you don't know this song. Yeah. I mean, that part, I don't, that part doesn't live in my brain quite as much as the, well, so that's the difference is that you're thinking of the part where it's sort of like, oh, God, does she have to do this because people aren't into it?

And I'm thinking of the other part, which I think is like cheeky and fun. but I also do think the like, I didn't want to fight, but we did. Yes. Does that thing where it's like, oh, Miley's spilling. Like, Miley is giving us the tea. And I do think that that is a through line with the success of the song is that she was sort of willing to go there and Easter egg a little bit.

Like not an artist who we associate with someone who like drops clues. And I don't think it's a hint. It's just sort of she's saying, well, we fought a lot. But I do think it still serves that thirst for, I want to know the backstory here. Then we got the acceptance speech. Yeah.

And the acceptance speech really has like two notable things. She thanks a bunch of people. She gives her speech. Then at the end, she says, I don't think I forgot anyone. my mommy, my sister, my love, my main gaze, because look how good I look. Thank you all so much. I don't think I forgot anyone.

Which was interpreted as pointed because she had thanked her mom and everybody else, but she had not thanked her dad. Correct. And then she says, but I might have forgotten underwear. Bye. But I might have forgotten underwear. Bye. And she twirls off the stage.

Yes. And to me, that's Peak Miley. Like, she's like sort of airing the family dirty laundry. No pun intended. She is saying she might not be wearing underwear. Which she is not. Well, I mean, she's wearing like the dress had a bottom to it. But anyway.

And it was the type of thing that did get into headlines. Obviously not in the same way as like the VMAs or any of these huge. huge moments in her career. But it did strike that kind of chord, but it was also part of a really wonderful musical moment. And I will always remember her at that Grammys. And I'm glad that Miley Cyrus has won a Grammy. I think it's important that Miley Cyrus has won a Grammy. It is important. And it is important to her. Because as she, again, told us whether she understood it or not, that was validation that she craved. And so I think it's great that she got it. it really mattered to her.

There's a lot of people. I mean, I know some artists and bands who have Grammys in their bathrooms because they just don't really value it. But I think we need to pride of it for so long. It matters. Or because they're sort of seeming like they don't value it? I think there's some who care about it more than others do.

And I think, you know, the time to wait. I bet Beyonce has the album of the year Grammy featured in the center of whatever home she and Jay-Z value the most. And I don't blame her because she waited a long-ass time for that thing. I assume that Miley

does the same. But I also think that was like the butterfly wings that started the sandstorm that became the hurricane for the family drama that we've been dealing with for most of 2025.

But that now seems to be in something of a better place she has spoken to it, which she usually does. does not, yeah. And spend time with her dad, which it had been a while. But yeah, I mean, that was definitely, at least in my memory, the moment when you started hearing about a lot of the, okay, who's on, you know, who's on mom's side, who's on dad's

side, are they talking? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, you were exactly right. The family dirty laundry, the cheeky sexual innuendo, the pure joy and honest. and just the sense of humor and personality all came out across those two performances. You win Peak Miley on this one for sure. Anything else in terms of conspiracies, Easter eggs?

No, I'm not following that. I think that's exactly it. You finished your conspiratorial portion when you said that Miley was inspired by Evermore. Yes. Well, because, you know, I think dead pets predated folklore. So I think there's been some back and forth, but we don't have to fall down that rabbit hole. So next album appetizer, I mean, I think you said it in the sense that it's kind of the whole thing. I think this is the gateway drug for what we're going to talk about next week. But unlike you,

I haven't heard it. So I don't know. I can, I don't want to go too far. because I don't want to overuse my insights here, but I guess I will say that I agree with you. And I do think that flowers in particular, even if it overshadowed some other stuff that I'm sure she would have loved to see get a bit more time in the sun, I do think that song, the success of that song,

was meaningful to her at this point. I think the fact that that was such a big song, like the fact that the last Miley Cyrus song had the biggest song of the year that it was released in, I do think that that is really meaningful in terms of how people are looking at something beautiful and how people are sort of anticipating it.

And it's interesting because since, I'm not saying like just since this album came out, but this album did come out at kind of like the tail end of the period before the last two years of these like album albums coming out of particularly women in pop that have given us so much to talk about, but also sort of felt like part of this, you know, rising tide or just big trend of releases.

But I think she feels like this, this album feels like, and by this album, I mean endless summer vacation, this album feels like it comes from the before times. And then now this next one, something beautiful, feels like it is being released after she, as you often say, you know, took her time, chose her moment, but is putting it out in this ecosystem that we've had for the last couple of years where it is just like chalk full of these album projects that are received as albums. So I think in that sense, it is both the precursor. It is the thing that's set up where we are now. but it's going to be an interesting point of comparison, I think, because of that. Is this album good, Nora? I do think it's good. Do you know what I think it is?

How do we rate albums that have massive hits and the rest of stuff that you probably don't come back to as much? It teaches us, again, about Miley. I'm glad it exists. Does it get revisited? there is just such a polarization in her music where it's so important to hear the whole catalog, to learn her, it helps you understand

so much about the way that she has sort of been in culture and moved culture. It helps you understand more of what's behind the hits. But I don't know that you spin it back. I don't spin it back time and time again. I think it's a B. She feels like a B Just a solid B

Yeah It's an easy Throw it on the radio Chill California Sunshine Drive Up the Coast Kind of album Except for handstand

It gets interrupted By some dead pet shit And you know I love dead pets But I do think I do think that we're in agreement that this is a, it is a, it is a door that she uses to open to what's next. You know, at this point in her career, I think she has learned so much about herself. I think she has learned about, she has explored so many genres that she understands where she thrives. And she has now synthesized music in a way, because she is a musical mutt.

in a way that doesn't sound so forced and, you know, at the worst moments appropriated, she was accused of, but she more seamlessly integrates the influences in her life into music. And I think that then gets reflected in the consistency across these albums. So she's learned how to make albums. That makes me hugely excited to see where only 32-year-old Miley Cyrus is as an artist in this. moment in time. Me too. And good news is that people are going to get to hear us break it all down and dig into that

when you will have heard the new project, something beautiful, later this week. And I'm very excited for it. This has been every single album, Miley Cyrus. As always, I'm Nora Prynciotti. He's Nathan Hubbard. Thank you to Kaiya McMullen for producing this episode. And we will talk to you again very soon.