Home Music Music Lists

The 50 Best Miley Cyrus Songs

She can’t stop, she won’t stop — from Hannah Montana to Bangerz to “Flowers”

The 50 Best Miley Cyrus Songs

KEVIN MAZUR/WIREIMAGE/GETTY IMAGES; RALF HIEMISCH/GETTY IMAGES; DENISE TRUSCELLO/GETTY IMAGES; VIJAT MOHINDRA/PEACOCK/GETTY IMAGES

Miley Cyrus has lived a hundred musical lives since she burst onto the scene at 13 years old as the titular star of Hannah Montana. Born into a country-music dynasty (her dad is, of course, Billy Ray Cyrus and her godmother is Dolly Parton), the budding teen idol fused her Southern upbringing with the Disney pop needed to make the fictional Montana successful. But it takes a true star to shine brighter than her alter ego, and Cyrus met the challenge with ease, transitioning quickly into a pop force in her own right.

Since 2007’s Meet Miley Cyrus, she has been in a constant state of musical evolution. Her journey has brought her to Eighties pop, metal pastiche, trap music, psychedelic art rock,and even back to country. But within all her eras, she can’t (and won’t) stop just being Miley.

Ahead of her eighth album, Endless Summer Vacation (out March 10), we compiled the top-50 Miley Cyrus songs. This includes material she recorded as fictional characters, as well as officially released covers she couldn’t help but make her own.

From Rolling Stone US

13

‘Angels Like You’

The Plastic Hearts cut “Angels Like You” is a somber stunner that features Miley at her most introspective. On the Eighties-style rock ballad, she is full of self-loathing as she recounts her own shortcomings, which have led to the downfall of her past relationships. “It’s not your fault I ruin everything/And it’s not your fault I can’t be what you need,” she sings with a twangy lilt. —I.K.

12

‘Adore You’

There are very few moments of restraint on Bangerz, but opener “Adore You” shines as the most important. The synth-and-piano ballad is an ode to the overwhelming feelings and moments of love and intimacy. It is as all-encompassing and satisfying as being in love can feel and as naked-feeling as “Wrecking Ball,” though it serves as the hit single’s polar opposite in both mood and sonic approach. While serenity is not always her preferred creative mode, it is certainly an underrated part of some true gems in her canon. —B.S.

11

‘Nothing Breaks Like a Heart,’ Mark Ronson feat. Miley Cyrus

In 2018, British producer Mark Ronson helped create Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga’s award-magnet A Star Is Born duet “Shallow.” But Ronson stayed in that deep end a little longer for his 2019 solo track “Nothing Breaks Like a Heart” — this time with Ronson on guitar and Cyrus as his modern-world girl, channeling the spirit of her real-life godmother Dolly Parton’s classic ballad “Jolene.” The supple anxiety of Dolly’s original pulses through the song. You hear it in Ronson’s ruminative fingerpicking and the varied pacing of the verses. Though Cyrus’ voice is fathoms lower than Parton’s, they both can flutter down several octaves on a single word. —S.G.

10

‘Malibu’

“Malibu” is without a doubt one of the most conventional pop songs of Miley Cyrus’ post-Bangerz era, but that doesn’t make it any less great. The breezy pop-radio hit is an unabashed love song teeming with jangly guitars that sees Cyrus basking in her mellow side and evoking the sun-kissed anthems of Sheryl Crow. Still, the weight of what it took to get to Cyrus’ version of contentment is underscored in the grittiness of her vocals as she mines her disbelief. As she said, “I never would’ve believed you if three years ago you told me I’d be here writing this song.” —I.K.

9

‘See You Again’

The song that introduced Miley Cyrus, untethered from her Hannah Montana persona, to the pop world is a spiky cut that Cyrus worked on with her frequent early-career collaborators Rock Mafia. If it were only the vehicle for her eventual catch-all phrase “She’s just being Miley,” this crushed-out jam would be worthy of inclusion on this list. But it’s also a fine launching point for her post-Disney career, and one of the stronger entrants in the late-aughts microgenre of growing-up pop; Cyrus’ serpentine voice curls around its verses’ chugging guitars, and its jump-and-shout-along chorus takes all the right lessons from the emo-pop boom that was cresting around that time. —M.J. 

8

‘7 Things’

Breakout was Cyrus’ first solo album not associated with the series Hannah Montana, and she came out swinging with “7 Things.” The guitar-driven power-pop track has the singer listing out all the things she hates (and then likes) about her ex. It’s as catchy as it is biting, perfectly addressing the Disney drama around the demise of her relationship with fellow teen idol Nick Jonas. It would become a huge hit, helping establish that Cyrus would do just fine without the help of her fictional alter ego. —B.S.

7

‘We Can’t Stop’

In another world, “We Can’t Stop” could have been a mess. Instead, it was an EDM/hip-hop-tinged party ballad with depth. The first single from Bangerz, “We Can’t Stop” paid homage to the hedonism of party culture: making out, MDMA, red cups, sweaty bodies. But layered beneath the wistful piano ballad’s excitement for the glory days of kegs and bathroom lines is the idea of how consuming and addictive the lifestyle can be; there’s tension between the redundancy of lyrics like “We can’t stop” and “We won’t stop” that allude to the tedium of the cycle Cyrus was currently living. It’s perhaps one of the most profound odes to drunken nights ever recorded. —I.K. 

6

‘The Climb’

As the standout single of the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack, “The Climb” has lived on as one of the most poignant songs in Miley’s discography. At the time, the country-tinged power ballad was an introduction to her genre-spanning abilities. But it’s since had an enduring legacy as one of the pop star’s most beloved songs — an aspirational anthem with a Christian-lite message that highlights her rootsy vocals and striking falsetto. It’s impossible to hear her sing “Ain’t about how fast I get there/Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side/It’s the climb” and not get chills. If there were any doubts about her vocals before, they were immediately quelled by “The Climb.” —I.K.

5

‘Flowers’

On “Flowers,” co-written with Gregory Hein and Michael Pollack, Cyrus sings, “I can take myself dancing/And I can hold my own hand.” She inverts every clichéd line about buying flowers and holding hands in the rain, all while gliding to the beat Gloria Gaynor gave us on “I Will Survive,” and the Pet Shop Boys reimagined with “It’s a Sin.” Cyrus’ resilience cuts through time and space to complete a glorious trinity with those defiant jams. Autobiographical flourishes like “built a home and watched it burn” — a reference to the home she and her ex built and lost to the Woolsey fire — add surprising depth. —S.G.

4

‘Midnight Sky’

Cyrus channeled solo Stevie Nicks on “Midnight Sky,” the shiny lead single of her 2020 album, Plastic Hearts. Her foray into the the leather and glitz of L.A.’s more-debauched past was a brilliant fit, especially as she was embracing the fun and freedom of single life as a more-mature and empowered adult. Above the glamorous synths, Cyrus’ raspy belt is a rock lover’s dream, transforming her into a smokey siren as she gives the ultimate kiss off to a range of exes while reining the night. As an added bonus, she would remix the song with Nicks herself, making a mash-up single of “Midnight Sky” with “Edge of Seventeen,” with new vocals from Nicks. —B.S.

3

‘Slide Away’

Following the release of her domestic-bliss album Younger Now, Cyrus was prepping a light return to the hard-partying anthems of her early twenties. But life and her music took a sharp turn following the She Is Coming EP. In August 2019, she dropped a one-off track that addressed the end of a relationship that defined a decade of her life. The mood was as resigned and somber as one would expect to feel in a moment like that. On “Slide Away,” a grunge-y slice of late-Nineties alt-rock, Cyrus serves up brutally honest confessions: “I want my house in my hills/Don’t want the whiskey and pills/I don’t give up easily/But I don’t think I’m down,” she sings on the first pre-chorus. Referring back to the ocean-driven love story of “Malibu,” Cyrus lets her past love “go back to the ocean,” as she heads toward the city’s lights on her own. The track is as potent as it is unforgettable. —B.S.

2

‘Party in the U.S.A.’

Cyrus took a song originally written for British singer Jessie J and turned it into a calling-card anthem, and her first classic hit. She gets off the plane at LAX with nothing but her dream and her cardigan, but that’s OK because in Miley’s America there’s room at the party for everyone. She subversively celebrates Jay-Z and Britney Spears with equal love; she sings, raps, and gets down as the guitars rock out over a hip-hop-pop beat. The result was a utopian notion of an optimistically inclusive U.S.A. perfectly timed for the early days of the Obama era. The song has become more resonant as the years have passed by. When Joe Biden was elected president in 2020, huge joyous crowds sang “Party in the U.S.A.” — just like they’d sung “Don’t Stop Believin’” when Obama won in 2008 — sending the song back onto the charts more than a decade after it came out. —J.D.

1

‘Wrecking Ball’

The Bangerz era was meant to upend Cyrus’ career. It was bold, brash, and abrasive in its delivery, from the first tongue-out twerk. But beneath the surface was a big broken heart, mending itself together again. “Wrecking Ball” serves as the emotional core of Cyrus’ fourth album and a true turning point in her pop career post-Disney. Though the song was originally written for Beyoncé, Cyrus meets its vocal challenges with both flourish and theatricality. Above a wash of moving, neon synths, she belts out a power ballad about the end of a relationship she can’t quite shake, one that has left her demolished. Her natural twang gives the song a great country essence, like her godmother Dolly Parton’s original take on “I Will Always Love You.” In an era focused on shocking visuals, Cyrus made sure that big voice of hers was heard. And it was loud and clear. —B.S.