The Disney Channel series Hannah Montana traced the story of a teenager shifting from Nashville, Tennessee to Malibu, California while secretly pursuing a career as a pop performer. The program launched Miley Cyrus to fame via her dual portrayal of Miley Stewart and Hannah, with Billy Ray Cyrus cast as Robbie Stewart, her father and manager. Soundtracks tied to the show, notably the 2006 release Hannah Montana and the 2009 film edition Hannah Montana: The Movie, positioned her as the youngest artist to accumulate four albums at the summit of the charts. Numbers such as the multi-platinum single "The Climb" fused the pop approach of her Disney peers with echoes of her country background, aligning seamlessly with her robust vocal range.
Cyrus first caught the acting urge in 2001 after attending a staging of Mama Mia!, which led to her screen debut in a minor part on Doc in 2003. That same year she appeared in Tim Burton's Big Fish. With her mother serving as manager, she formed a connection with agent Mitchell Gossett, who arranged tryouts for roles including the lead in Hannah Montana. Landing the starring part, she saw the Disney Channel series become an immediate success following its March premiere. The debut soundtrack arrived in October 2006, coinciding with Cyrus touring alongside the Cheetah Girls. The album, which featured her performances plus a duet with her father, reached the top of the Billboard 200 Albums chart and sold more than three million copies worldwide.
Hannah Montana's following expanded steadily over the next several years. March 2007 brought the release of the theme "The Best of Both Worlds" as a single that reached number 92 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart by August. June 2007 saw the arrival of Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus, split between Hannah material and Cyrus songs, which ascended to number one on the Billboard 200 Albums chart the following month for her second consecutive chart-topping album. She began the Best of Both Worlds tour later that year, extending it into early 2008. April delivered the concert film The Best of Both Worlds and its soundtrack, which landed at number three on the Billboard 200 Albums chart. By then Cyrus was already in production on Hannah Montana: The Movie.
Hannah Montana: The Movie reached theaters in March 2009, and its soundtrack hit number one on the Billboard 200 Albums chart, confirming the 16-year-old Cyrus as the youngest performer with four albums atop the charts. The soundtrack's lead track, the country-pop ballad "The Climb," ranked among the year's most pervasive releases and earned Cyrus her first multi-platinum certification. The show's final season was filmed in 2010, with Hannah Montana Forever appearing in October of that year. After the series concluded, Cyrus asserted herself as a boundary-pushing pop figure through the hip-hop-inflected Bangerz in 2013. She explored trippy pop textures on 2015's Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz and returned to her country roots with 2017's Younger Now. The decade closed with charting singles that included 2019's "Mother's Daughter," "Slide Away," and "Don't Call Me Angel," a collaboration with Ariana Grande and Lana Del Rey featured on the Charlie's Angels soundtrack. Her portrayal of pop star Ashley O in the fifth season of the British sci-fi anthology series Black Mirror produced the viral track "On a Roll," which topped The Hollywood Reporter's TV Songs chart and placed Cyrus among the few singers to appear on charts under three separate names.
