The 50 Best Miley Cyrus Songs

The theme to Cyrus’ dual-identity Disney showcase is the blueprint for her career, in a way. It blends spunky dance pop with country twang, while its self-referential lyrics about fame are shot through with humor and the optimism that powered even her most out-there artistic choices: “Who would’ve thought that a girl like me/Would double as a superstar,” she wonders on the pre-chorus, drawling the last word as if she knew the answer was “yes” all along. —M.J.

Madonna’s 1989 hit is so iconic and on a playing field all its own, but Cyrus brings something fresh to the table with her cover. Featured on her brilliant live album Attention, the singer’s signature rasp adds a rock edge that the Queen of Pop should be proud of. Like any truly great Madonna cover (and there are few), she doesn’t try to imitate the original, instead making it feel like it was a Cyrus original all along. And like a true bandleader, an underrated aspect of her evolution, Cyrus makes sure all of her musicians and backup singers shine. It’s a cover that could easily be added to all of her concert set lists from now on. —T.K.

In 2009, Cyrus released the motivation-minded cut “The Climb” (see below), which was about facing life’s adversities with positivity. This cut from 2017’s Younger Now is that song’s older and wiser — if more world-weary — sibling. Her voice sounding slightly weathered over a spectral pedal steel, Cyrus takes stock of societal ills like climate change and widespread hatred, and while there’s a tinge of despair to her lyrics (“Is anyone watching us down here?”), the strings that come in midway underscore her assertion that “we are meant for more.” —M.J.

This duet with Joan Jett is like the single diamond stud earring of Cyrus’ all-too-brief mullet era. Not necessary, but it certainly completes the look. “Bad Karma” easily could have been a bonus track from Jett’s 1988 album, Up Your Alley. The song bridges the generational divide between Jett fans who don’t “get” Miley and Miley fans who grew up loving Jett’s work on Shrek. The coolest thing you learn as they trade verses? Basically the only differences between their voices is the way they pronounce “heartbreaker.” Everything else is rock & roll. —S.G.

A wild ride with Pharrell Williams at the wheel and Cyrus flying high on the passenger side, the hick-hop techno hoedown throwdown “4×4” is one of the freest-wheeling moments on Bangerz, with a big assist from Midwestern rap icon Nelly. “It’s about having fun,” Nelly said, adding, “a 4×4 truck symbolizes rebelliousness … you know, mashing out, wanting to ride with the bad boys.” Cyrus played “4×4” to open her 2014 MTV Unplugged performance, in a Dolly Parton wig and red-and-white checkered-tablecloth jammies, as she got down and twerked with a life-size pantomime horse that looked like it had wandered in from a Seventies kids’ show. Hee-haw! —J.D.

This ballad from 2017’s Younger Now lives on as a much-needed bisexual and pansexual anthem from the era, and perhaps the song with the most depth on what was an otherwise underwhelming LP. As Cyrus graciously says goodbye to a lover and returns to her ex, it signals a kind of maturity that she longed to be the crux of Younger Now: “I wanna start by saying ‘Thank you’/I’m gonna miss you, honey/You gave me things that I can’t buy back with money.” —I.K.

The Freewheelin’ Miley Cyrus dips into the Bob Dylan songbook. She does a country version of his 1975 heartbreaker “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go,” from the 2012 Amnesty International benefit album Chimes of Freedom. This was a turning point for her as a top-notch interpreter of classic songs. She was the youngest singer on the compilation, which has legends like Lenny Kravitz, Sting, and Patti Smith. So she got to clear her throat for a different adult audience who’d never heard her sing before. This is where Blood on the Tracks meets Bangerz. Cyrus’ Dylan affinities go deep — “Younger Now” is her shout-out to his classic “My Back Pages,” where he sang, “I was so much older then/I’m younger than that now.” —R.S.

Bangerz featured a whole host of interesting collaborations — some that worked, others that didn’t. The R&B-inflected “My Darlin’” flips Ben E. King’s 1962 classic “Stand By Me,” detailing the excruciating feeling of living inside a fading romance. Sad and spaced out, it features Future and is steeped in his brand of dreamy Southern rap; Cyrus and Future slow dance together through gauzy synths that threaten to drag the track into the abyss — which, considering it’s breakup theme, ends up fitting the song’s emotional tenor nicely. —I.K.

A sassy deep cut, “East Northumberland High” is the first glimmer of Cyrus’ future rock sound, with staccato guitar riffs and her unique vocal growl on full display. Even though the track is presumably about a junior-high crush — given Cyrus’ age at the time — it’s named after songwriter Samantha Moore’s high school alma mater. Either way, it’s a fun nod to Cyrus’ love for rock & roll, which would flourish a decade later. —M.G.

Cyrus’ various forays into hip-hop haven’t always been smooth sailing, but throwing herself into unlikely musical scenarios that may or not work out and seeing what happens has always been part of her appeal. Mike WiLL Made-It’s “23” is certainly evidence of that. On the silly, club-ready track, Cyrus awkwardly delivers a series of swaggy bars: “I’m in the club, high on purp with some shades on/Tatted up, mini skirt with my J’s on (you know it).” Still, the song works because it’s undeniably catchy. —I.K.

Cyrus’ strained vocal bleat does all the important lifting on the title track from her rock-inspired 2020 album. Plastic Hearts is a made-in-L.A. metaphor for fake friends, fake bodies, and fake lives. The song positions Cyrus as a stranger in a strange land — a country girl lost in Hollywood as she sings about living in the Chateau Marmont, where zombies suck her into “black hole conversations.” The singer’s frustrated yelp scratches the varnish off the song’s sleek production, which is so overwrought it actually makes her sound even more alone — that is, until Andrew Watt flies in with an electric-guitar solo you wish had come just a bit sooner. —S.G.

In Hannah Montana: The Movie, Miley Stewart had one shot at saving the treasured park in her hometown from being snatched up by land developers. Of course, she couldn’t do much on her own as a small-town girl from Tennessee. But she had a trick up her sleeve, or actually, her blond wig. Taking the stage as Hannah Montana, Cyrus poured her Southern twang into “You’ll Always Find Your Way Back Home,” the film’s grand finale, about staying grounded and humble, penned by a young Taylor Swift. Their shared roots in early fame and the country-pop arena made for an effortless collaboration. —L.P.

The singer’s 2015 psychedelic art-pop album, Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, hits a poignant emotional peak with this piano-ballad tribute to her beloved deceased blowfish, Pablo. She debuted “Pablo the Blowfish” in one of her “Backyard Sessions,” dressed like a unicorn yet delivering the song with an undeniably sincere sense of loss that comes through just as deeply as on the album. “I won’t forget, even one second we had/’Cause you might be gone, but you could never be dead,” she sings, before prayerfully imagining Pablo in the afterlife making babies with a seahorse named Sadie. —J.D.

The punchy title track from 2008’s Breakout has New Wave cred — among its co-writers is Go-Go’s drummer Gina Schock, and if you listen hard enough, you can hear strains of that band’s 1982 smash “Vacation” in this song’s cascading chords. Cyrus sells her frustration with being stuck in school, even though the travails she was weathering at the time as a 15-year-old, which included controversy over a risqué Vanity Fair photo shoot, were a bit more complex than navigating boring homework assignments and early-morning wake-ups. —M.J.      

Cyrus, Yo-Yo Ma, Elton John, Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith performing a Metallica power ballad was, well, unexpected. Yet they all sound pretty spectacular together. For Cyrus, interpreting James Hetfield’s ode to tour misery seems to have shaken something out of her already massive vocal range. On “Nothing Else Matters,” her subtle twang is undetectable. Whether or not that was a conscious decision on Cyrus’ part, letting her vocals scratch and soar made this cover a reckless thrill no one saw coming. —S.G.

Cyrus’ TV alter ego had a ton of catchy songs herself. Between the cheer claps and theatrical guitar riffs of Hannah Montana’s “Rock Star” is a pop-punk anthem about self-confidence that goes beyond her musical ambitions. “I’m unusual/Not so typical/Way too smart to be waiting around,” she sings, realizing she’s too good to waste her time needing anyone else’s approval. By the end of the track, she’s convinced herself: Hannah really is a rock star. —I.K.

Like the rest of humanity, Cyrus loves Fleetwood Mac. One of her many fine covers is a reverent version of the Mac’s 1975 classic “Landslide.” On this deluxe-edition offering from Bangerz, she and co-writer Pharrell Williams try their hand at adding to the California soft-rock canon with this well-turned, light-touch ballad, a digital-pop-age iteration of vintage Maction. The fragile lovelorn hopefulness evokes Christine McVie, while Cyrus’ vocal performance exudes Stevie Nicksian grandeur. —J.D. 

Cyrus announced the release of her left-field collaboration with the Flaming Lips,  Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, while hosting the 2015 VMAs, where she closed the show by performing the project’s opening track, “Dooo It!,” with the Lips’ Wayne Coyne on hand. “Yeah, I smoke pot,” she brags before the music kicks in, and the stoner-trap ruckus that follows drives home that point. “We’re so much alike in believing art is supposed to be fun,” Coyne told Rolling Stone of working with Cyrus. ”She’s just a freak. I love her to death.” —J.D.

“High” showcases what Cyrus does best: let vulnerability push her gravelly vocals to delicate heights. The stripped-down song is a metaphor for the singer’s intoxicating and addictive approach to love and relationships. But it’s also literally a reference to the drinking and drug use she indulged in when she was “playing house” with Liam Hemsworth — a reality she revealed in her 2020 Rolling Stone cover story. —M.G.

“I”m gonna add a little hip-hop to this hoedown!” Cyrus announces to the crowd at the start of this pivotal scene in Hannah Montana: The Movie. She brings down the house with “Hoedown Throwdown” at the barn party, a benefit to save the local Crowley Meadows from getting turned into a mall. Cyrus mixes up a country line dance with some old-school rap, leading the crowd in a soul clap and giving the banjo player some, chanting, “Pop it, lock it, polka dot it!” The song turned into a Top 20 hit. That was quite some barn party — Taylor Swift also showed up to sing “Crazier.” —R.S.

“SMS (Bangerz)” is a bombastic club-ready anthem featuring two of pop music’s biggest stars. But the braggadocious hip-hop-meets-pop track is also enjoyably messy and weird, which might be why it wasn’t released as a single from Bangerz. However, punchy empowerment lines like “They ask me how I keep a man?/I keep a battery pack!” are the song’s saving grace. That, and Britney Spears, of course. —I.K.  

On 2008’s “Fly on the Wall,” Cyrus boasted about all of the sweet secrets the media wished they could get their hands on. There wasn’t nearly as much to criticize as there would be by the time she recorded “WTF Do I Know” for Plastic Hearts more than a decade later, but she’s still 10 steps ahead of them anyway. “I’m completely naked, but I’m makin’ it fashion/Maybe gettin’ married just to cause a distraction,” she teases. “Here to tell you somethin’ that you don’t know.” —L.P.

2017’s Younger Now was meant to be a return to Miley’s country-pop roots. She was only 24 years old at the time, but successfully inhabited the nostalgic folk-rock mood of its title track. Cyrus meditates on her many shape-shifting eras with a mea culpa shrug (“Change is a thing you can count on”). But what really puts the song over is the singer’s powerhouse vocals as she reflects on her own growth. —I.K.

In 2019, Cyrus made a well-received turn in Black Mirror as the fictional Ashley O, a pop star with no creative or personal freedom whose personality is cloned into a popular doll. Of course, returning to her roots (playing a fictional pop diva with a secret) meant she released music as this new alter ego. This time, Ashley O’s songs were adaptations of Nine Inch Nails tracks, now with capitalistic, upbeat spins. “On a Roll” is an empowering inverse of NIN’s aggressive, anti-establishment hit “Head Like a Hole.” Cyrus has fun with this juxtaposition, which turned the track into a bit of a cult hit. It’s so fun even Trent Reznor enjoyed the poppy take, with NIN releasing “On a Roll”-themed merch after the song dropped. —B.S.

“Start All Over,” and its accompanying music video, is Disney-pop rock at its finest. Cyrus’ edgy look in the clip — complete with a band tee, chunky highlights, and chipped black nail polish — changed many tween lives. It makes sense that the punk-tinged song was co-written by pop-punk pioneer Fefe Dobson, who lent backup vocals to the track as well. —M.G.

On “Gimme What I Want,” Cyrus channels Nine Inch Nail’s stone-cold “Closer” horniness, as well as Billy Idol, as she sings, “I just need a lover/So gimme what I want or I’ll give it to my-/Self-inflicted torture.” Backed by vocals from co-writer Majid Jordan, it’s a prime example of Cyrus giving fans exactly what they wanted with the criminally underrated glam rock of Plastic Hearts. —T.M.

“Something About Space Dude” is one of Miley’s loneliest songs, a highlight of Dead Petz, with the Flaming Lips. It’s full of acoustic guitar and her synth-filtered voice singing about the deep isolation of being in love with a “space dude” who’s beautiful but too distant. As she sings, “Something in the way you fuck me/You’re never fucking there,” it’s like Miley’s perfect version of a David Bowie song, right before Bowie’s final farewell. She’s always been a fan of the Starman — on her New Year’s Eve special, she teamed up with David Byrne of Talking Heads to do Bowie’s 1983 classic “Let’s Dance.” —R.S.

This wrenching country-ballad duet between Cyrus and Nick Jonas played off the real-life dissolution of their Disney-era relationship, and even though that breakup was two years before this track’s release, it added extra emotionalism to both sides’ vocals. “At that point she was 16 and she was singing her ass off,” Nick Jonas told Apple Music in 2019. “So, it’s no surprise now that people are coming around to [her talent]. But I’m sitting around going, ‘Told you so.’” —M.J.