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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

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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

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.