Miley Cyrus

Miley Cyrus emerges as an innovative performer who weaves together an assortment of genres—pop, country, hip-hop, and indie—throughout her recordings while simultaneously sustaining parallel paths in acting and music. She first asserted her distinctive presence through cuts including the 2009 single "Party in the U.S.A." and strengthened her standing as an uninhibited, at times polarizing figure via the 2013 album Bangerz, whose hip-hop leanings earned a Grammy nomination and triple-platinum certification. During the course of the 2010s her output became progressively more wide-ranging. The 2015 album Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, marked by its psychedelic pop textures, brought together contributors from Flaming Lips and Phantogram, while 2017’s Younger Now honored her country-music origins through direct involvement from Dolly Parton. With 2020’s Plastic Hearts, whose rock and disco hues produced her sixth album to top the charts, and 2023’s Endless Summer Vacation, a Grammy-winning tribute to Los Angeles, Cyrus illustrated her capacity to fuse disparate creative facets without restraint.

Destiny Hope Cyrus entered the world in Franklin, Tennessee, where her mother Tish and father, country artist Billy Ray Cyrus, bestowed the nickname “Smiley”—later shortened to Miley—owing to her consistently upbeat nature. She developed an interest in performing after attending a 2001 staging of Mamma Mia!, and she made her initial on-screen appearance in a minor part on Billy Ray’s series Doc in 2003. That same year she also featured in Tim Burton’s film Big Fish. In 2005 she secured the starring role in the Disney Channel series Hannah Montana, which followed the story of Miley Stewart, a Nashville teenager who relocates to Malibu while concealing her identity as a pop star; Billy Ray portrayed her father and manager, Robbie Stewart. When the program premiered the next March, Hannah Montana quickly became a sensation. Its debut soundtrack arrived in October 2006, ascended to the summit of the Billboard 200 Albums chart, and ultimately moved more than three million copies worldwide. By March 2009 the 16-year-old Cyrus had become the youngest artist to accumulate four number-one albums. The country-pop ballad “The Climb,” drawn from that year’s Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack, marked her first multi-platinum single.

Her independent recording path proved equally prosperous. In July 2008 the album Breakout reached the top of the Billboard 200 Albums chart. That year her contribution to the animated feature Bolt garnered a Golden Globe nomination. The EP The Time of Our Lives surfaced in August 2009 and delivered “Party in the U.S.A.,” a track that remained inside the Billboard Top Ten for sixteen weeks. She also completed work on the film adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ novel The Last Song, which reached theaters in 2010. That June she issued the darker, dance-oriented album Can’t Be Tamed; it peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 Albums chart.

After Can’t Be Tamed, Cyrus stepped away from music for a period. She made several television appearances, among them spots on MTV’s Punk’d and CBS’ Two and a Half Men, and took parts in films such as 2012’s LOL and So Undercover. Beginning in 2012 she resumed musical activity, posting online videos of covers of songs she admired. She partnered with producers Rock Mafia and Borgore and joined Snoop Lion and will.i.am on the 2013 single “Fall Down,” which entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 58. For her subsequent album she recruited Pharrell Williams, Mike WiLL Made-It, and additional prominent hip-hop producers. Merging hip-hop rhythms with synth-pop, electro, and stadium-rock elements, Bangerz debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 in October 2013 and later received triple-platinum certification in the United States. The project generated the chart-topping single “Wrecking Ball” and “We Can’t Stop,” which climbed to number two on the Billboard Hot 100. To emphasize her departure from earlier child-star associations, Cyrus promoted Bangerz with a provocative set at the MTV Video Music Awards. The following January her MTV Unplugged episode, featuring Madonna as guest, became the series’ most-viewed installment in ten years. In 2015 Bangerz received a nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 57th Grammy Awards.

While on tour for the album, Cyrus contributed to With a Little Help from My Fwends, the Flaming Lips’ reinterpretation of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and invited the band onstage during multiple shows. She further collaborated with frontman Wayne Coyne on her own material. Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz was unveiled and offered online at no cost right after the 2015 MTV VMAs, which she hosted. Alongside Coyne, the album enlisted Bangerz producers Mike WiLL Made-It and Oren Yoel plus appearances by Big Sean, Ariel Pink, and Phantogram’s Sarah Barthel. Early in 2016 Cyrus joined NBC’s The Voice as a judge, succeeding Gwen Stefani. Later that year she co-starred in Woody Allen’s miniseries Crisis in Six Scenes.

After voicing the robot alien warrior Mainframe in Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, Cyrus resumed recording with September 2017’s Younger Now. Written and produced jointly by Cyrus and Yoel and including vocals from her godmother Dolly Parton, the album adopted a more roots-oriented approach than prior releases and entered the Billboard 200 Albums chart at number five. She subsequently served as a coach on the thirteenth season of The Voice and, in 2018, entered the studio with producers such as Andrew Wyatt and Mark Ronson. Late that year her initial collaboration with Ronson, “Nothing Breaks Like a Heart,” appeared and reached number 43 on Billboard’s Hot 100 the next January.

In 2019 Cyrus portrayed pop star Ashley O in the “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” episode of the fifth season of the British anthology series Black Mirror. The track “On a Roll,” a reworking of Nine Inch Nails’ “Head Like a Hole,” circulated widely and topped The Hollywood Reporter’s TV Songs chart, placing Cyrus among the few performers to appear on charts under three distinct names. Under her own name she released the May 2019 EP She Is Coming, followed by June’s “Mother’s Daughter,” August’s “Slide Away,” and September’s “Don’t Call Me Angel,” a collaboration with Ariana Grande and Lana Del Rey featured on the Charlie’s Angels soundtrack. Each single registered on the Billboard Hot 100. Beyond performing, Cyrus prioritized philanthropy by establishing the Malibu Foundation to support communities affected by the November 2018 wildfires in California’s Los Angeles and Ventura counties and by founding the Happy Hippie Foundation, which assists homeless and LGBTQ youth.

She introduced her next album via the August 2020 single “Midnight Sky,” a personal, disco-inflected track drawing from the sounds of Debbie Harry and Stevie Nicks that became a Top 20 hit in the United States and a Top Five hit in the United Kingdom; a remix titled “Edge of Midnight” combined it with Nicks’ “Edge of Seventeen.” Incorporating work with producers such as Mark Ronson and guest appearances by Dua Lipa, Joan Jett, and Billy Idol, November 2020’s Plastic Hearts merged 1980s rock and disco influences with current pop. The album debuted at number one on Billboard’s Top Rock Albums chart, securing her sixth chart-topping release and positioning Cyrus as the female artist with the most Top Ten album debuts on U.S. charts during the 21st century.

Early in 2021 she transitioned to Columbia Records; her debut release for the label arrived that April with “Without You,” a remix of The Kid LAROI’s single that reached number one on Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart. That June she joined Elton John, Yo-Yo Ma, and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith on a cover of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters” included on the tribute album The Metallica Blacklist. Cyrus also toured extensively across North, Central, and South America in 2021 and 2022, with much of April 2022’s live album Attention: Miley Live documenting her February 2022 performance at the Super Bowl Music Fest in Los Angeles. A few weeks afterward a deluxe edition added material from her Latin American concerts.

Following appearances in the holiday specials Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas and Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party, Cyrus opened 2023 with the January single “Flowers,” which entered at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, Global 200, and Global 200 Excl. U.S. charts and ultimately surpassed “Wrecking Ball” as her most successful single. The track previewed Endless Summer Vacation, an album framed as a love letter to Los Angeles and featuring production from Greg Kurstin, Kid Harpoon, and WiLL Made-It among others. Combining soft rock, disco, dance-pop, country, and singer-songwriter elements, the record also included contributions from Sia and Brandi Carlile. Endless Summer Vacation climbed to number three on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart in the United States and topped charts in the United Kingdom and eight additional countries. Late in 2023 Cyrus earned six Grammy nominations, encompassing Album of the Year and Pop Album of the Year for Endless Summer Vacation, Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for the Carlile duet “Thousand Miles,” and Best Pop Solo Performance, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year for “Flowers.” She claimed her first Grammy in the Best Pop Solo Performance category and later received another for Record of the Year.