Album Review: Something Beautiful by Miley Cyrus

Jun 05, 2025 admin_bitlc Features, Jukebox Reviews, Music News, Reviews 0

By Eduardo Gomez

Something Beautiful lingers. It breathes. And for the first time in a long time, it feels like Miley isn’t just trying something on, but living in it.

Miley Cyrus free-falls headfirst into a world of experimentation and cinematic soundscapes with her latest album, Something Beautiful. In a recent sit-down with Zane Lowe, Miley describes the past 20 years of her career as “white noise.” Facing personal struggles through a whirlwind of shifting personas and sonic detours. This project offered her a chance to step back from the many identities she’s explored in the previous albums and instead devote herself to combining them into Something Beautiful, pun intended. In the past, some might argue that Miley never fully immersed herself in a single project. Her approach often seemed reactionary; releasing an album, then quickly moving on to the next without giving much attention to world building. With this project, however, she breaks this pattern by delivering a more intentional and unified body of work.

“Prelude” opens the album with a haunting introduction to its central theme.

The pursuit of beauty is fleeting moments, all while wrestling with love amid a hypnotic existential crisis. Miley recites a reflective poem, her voice drifting between vulnerability and defiance, as a grand explosive electronic instrument erupts beneath her, pulling the audience into the self-titled track, “Something Beautiful.”

“Something Beautiful” truly lives up to its name. The track opens as a slow, jazz-inspired ballad, intimate and smoky until it unravels into a sandbox of experimental rock and orchestrated distortion. Brass instruments swell and clash in a kind of controlled chaos, their dissonance adding texture rather than noise. But it’s not just the instrumentation that spirals. Miley herself becomes consumed by the chaos. She screeches with raw desperation, “Eat my heart / Break my soul,” tearing through the layers like a final confession. The track stands out as one of my personal favorites because of its glitchiness. A beautiful kind of mess that mirrors emotional honesty. There’s no biting your tongue here. The song rejects restraint in favor of raw, unfiltered expression. We’re so used to dressing up our feelings, trying to be polite, posed, romantic, when deep down, we’re starving for passion. The track doesn’t ask for permission, it devours.

“End of the World” transports us into a classing pop dreamscape built on what-ifs that craft the illusion of an alternate reality where love survives the wreckage. It’s showered with optimism and hope, sounding like a love song for a future that hasn’t happened yet, but it feels entirely possible. The bridge is what stands out the most to me. Sure, the lyrics repeat, but that’s the point. We’re not just listening anymore, we’re dancing on the flow of the beat and the rising guitar, caught in a build that leads to the final chorus. Then comes a moment of glowing pause, and Miley’s vocals pierces through like a spotlight.

“More to Lose” taps into one of my favorite sides of Miley’s sounds. Of course, this is second only to the powerhouse rock persona we all know, love, and secretly hope makes a full return someday. But here, she trades distortion for vulnerability in a beautiful ballad that aches with honesty. Miley reflects on a love she thought was more securely tied, singing about the quiet unraveling that comes from holding on through the hardship “I’ll stay when the ecstasy is far away / I’ll pray that it’s coming ‘round again,” choosing to let go. The lyrics cut deep, but we hear a return of those brassy, expressive instruments paired with spotlight on her vocals that elevate the moment. The powerful lyrics, paired with her stripped-down vocals, make the song resonate on a deeper level.

“Interlude 1,” our first transition. A haunting, cinematic moment that feels straight out of a James Bond movie. A moody, atmospheric instrumental that acts as a bridge between acts, and guides us into the next single, “Easy Lover.”

In her interview with Zane Lowe, Miley reveals that “Easy Lover” was originally sent to Beyoncé for her Cowboy Carter album. As a Beyoncé follower, hearing the line “Tell ‘em B” tucked into the final version feels like a breadcrumb of false hope that a collaboration might still be on the horizon. Still, “Easy Lover” is an instant classic in its own right. The song feels light, effortless, and catchy. There’s tightness to the song that makes you want to strut, dance, and maybe even learn the choreo. The lyrics are easy to pick up, making it the single that invites everyone to sing along. As far as single choices go. Miley made the right call with this one. I’m hooked.

“Interlude 2” drives us smoothly into “Golden Burning Sun”, a track full of nostalgia and hope. It feels like falling in love with the idea of surrendering. Giving herself over to someone else, completely and willingly. This is the kind of song that makes you want to stick your head out of a sunroof and sing along at the top of your lungs. The reverb-soaked guitar, the slow, dreamy tempo, and tender lyrics all wrap around you like a golden hour haze. It’s a moment frozen in time, one that makes you feel life could always feel exactly like this. I’ll be okay, just hold me as I surrender. And for a moment, we believe it.

“Walk of Fame,”featuring Brittany Howard on the guitar, is a breath of fresh air. A synth-pop tone shift that brings new texture to the album. Background vocals belting and melt into the instrumental with effortless fluidity, wrapping listeners in the idea of her lifestyle. It feels like that pivotal moment in a film when the protagonist is suddenly flooded with the weight of her reality. For Miley, that reality is life under a constant spotlight. “Every time I walk / It’s a walk of fame.” The song touches on any person’s inability to adjust to her lifestyle. Can someone love her in spite of, or because of, the spotlight? Can she love herself within it? As the bridge arrives, the energy subtly shifts. A bouncy synth beat lifts the atmosphere just enough and we enter the end of the track with a male voice entering, singing, “You’ll live forever / In our hearts and minds / An ageless picture / A timeless smile.” It’s cinematic. It’s a reflection on legacy disguised as a pop track. The ending hits me hard. The male voice feels like another realization crashing in. Yes, there may be sacrifice, but there’s also permanence. You’ve made your mark. You’ve reshaped pop culture and no one will forget. This being said, the song does start to feel repetitive. The looped lyrics left me craving more depth, more story. But the ending redeems it.

“Pretend You’re God” is a moment of denial. A dreamy plea to escape the end of a relationship. Miley imagines her lover as a divine force, someone who can rewrite the truth, erase the ache, and make her forget the reality of what’s unraveling. It’s a fantasy she clings to, until she shatters. She wakes up from this dream, and “He’s missing.” From here the song explodes. The production twists into something haunting and chaotic, feeding us an experimental soundscape that mirrors her emotional collapse. Distorted instruments, echoing from earlier tracks, come flooding back in waves, now drenched in grief. Miley’s vocals erupt into raw screams, mourning the loss not just of love, but of illusion. We’ve exploded. We’re no longer floating, we’re drowning. There’s no looking away from this life we now live in.

“Every Girl You’ve Ever Loved” feels like a time capsule. Miley’s voice carries a tone of her 2010s sound. The track opens with a saxophone, setting a jazzy tone before bursting into a fast-tempo beat that becomes confrontational. It’s a musical tug-of-war between self-assurance and self-doubt. Miley steps into a persona who knows her worth, but she still finds herself shaken by the realization that the guy in question doesn’t fully see her, not the way she sees herself. And that disconnect pushes her to start questioning, not just him, but herself. “Aren’t I pretty enough for more than fun in the dark?” It’s a gut-punch. It cuts through the confidence. It’s the emotional anchor of the track. The track, featuring Naomi Campbell, opens with her iconic voice listing the traits of this “perfect girl.” It’s hypnotic. It’s almost like a commercial for unattainable perfection. She outlines the benefits of this girl in the narrative, desirable, composed, unforgettable/ But as the track unfolds, we start to drift. We start to drift toward the best part of the song. The repeated words “Pose” loop, with swirling strings dancing behind it elegantly, but also tightening the tension. Layer by layer, the vocals rise, stacking on top of each other until they burst into what might be the most satisfying ending of any song Miley has ever

done. It’s euphoric. We’re dancing. We’re posing. We’re in the middle of a club, caught in a beat we never want to end.

“Reborn” exists in the same universe as the previous track, but this time, we’re dropped right into the dance. No slow build, no hesitation. A heavy, hypnotic beat drives us forward, pulling us into a trance. It’s not just a groove, it’s her reckoning. This is where Miley embraces everything she’s explored throughout the album. The mess, the beauty, the longing, the chaos. It’s acceptance. It’s released. It’s rebirth, not as a conclusion, but as a continuation of all of the versions of herself we met along the way.

“Give Me Love” feels like Miley’s personal musical theatre moment. A ballad that belongs entirely to her. It’s theatrical and intimate. The lyrics reflect on the cyclical nature of life, the highs, the falls, the lessons in between. There’s a kind of Disney-like innocence to it, not in naivety, but in clarity as she comes full circle. After everything she’s experienced, the noise, the heartbreak, the reinvention, she looks at the world with new eyes and simply says, “Give Me Love.”

Miley Cyrus’, Something Beautiful has the depth that I dont think I’ve heard from any of her other albums. It feels cohesive and calculated. It teaches us a lesson. It holds a narrative. The album does hold moments where I catch myself waiting for the end of a track because the best sounding parts are toward the end, making the rest of some of the songs a bit bland or repetitive to me. However, this elaborate project is not one to miss. It’s mature. We see a side of Miley that reflects on her entire life rather than the period where she is at in the current moment. My top listens to the track are, Something Beautiful, More to Lose, and Every Girl You’ve Ever Loved. I recommend listening to this album in order and paying attention to the story she’s telling us, and carefully picking out the ideas that later tie into the ending. Miley really has made something beautiful.

Miley Cyrus’ Something Beautiful has a depth I don’t think I’ve heard in any of her previous albums. It’s cohesive. It’s calculated. And most importantly, it tells a story. This project feels like a reflection of not just where Miley is now, but of every version of herself she’s ever been. It holds lessons, it builds narrative, and it embraces the cycle of love. That said, there are moments where some tracks feel repetitive. Where I catch myself waiting for the end because that’s where the real magic kicks in. Still, that doesn’t take away from how elaborate and intentional this album is. It’s mature, cinematic, and emotional. My personal favorites? Something Beautiful, More to Lose, and Every Girl You’ve Ever Loved. I highly recommend listening to the album in order. Let the story unfold the way Miley intended. If you do, you’ll start to notice the sounds she’s carefully included throughout, culminating in a finale that ties it all together.

Rating – 7.8