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Miley Cyrus’ Endless summer vacation is the perfect farewell to messy stories and hello to new opportunities. Teased by the enlightened divorce bop “Flowers,” Cyrus focuses on the independence angle as she reflects on past relationships and finally accepts heartbreak while welcoming a new love for herself and others. .
The pop star’s eighth album is as much a statement of moving on as it is a mature amalgamation of her musical history. There are moments of perfect, hip radio pop mixed with country, psychedelic rock and 80s synths. The end result is a powerful, focused and lucid artistic statement as Cyrus seems to have found herself in her thirties.
Here are the main takeaways and first impressions of Endless summer vacation.
It’s not just a divorce album.
plastic hearts (and the single “Slide Away” kiss) were more direct statements from Cyrus about the end of her marriage to longtime love Liam Hemsworth. The two had been “through hell” together, as she mentions in “Jaded,” after experiencing on-and-off engagements, a devastating house fire, and ultimately a rocky marriage that ended faster than expected. “Flowers” — and the countless fan-readings of all the potentially shady references to Hemsworth’s alleged infidelity — had people thinking Cyrus was working on an album review of her marriage that would turn out to be even more scathing than her previous versions. But while there are sharp breaking moments on Endless summer vacation – on the visceral “Muddy Feet”, she sings “You smell like a perfume I didn’t buy” – Cyrus is firmly in the present, elated with where she landed.
Much of the album is all about budding romance and intimacy — and featuring Cyrus’ new beau.
Moving away from all the “Flowers” talk, Cyrus focuses on love and sex for most of the songs on Endless summer vacation. The tracks buzz with hope for new love and an end to sexual and romantic droughts, as seen on second single “River.” Other tracks like “Rose Colored Lenses”, “You” and “Violet Chemistry” are dripping with the exhilaration of meeting a new lover who feels like you’re the only two people in the world. To take it a step further, Cyrus even worked on a pair of these new songs with his latest beau, which is probably the inspiration for the album’s most promising material. She’s stepped out on red carpets with musician Maxx Morando, who is credited as a writer and producer on “Handstand” and “Violet Chemistry.”
The features are surprisingly unobtrusive.
When it was revealed that Brandi Carlile and Sia would be featured on the album, many anticipated some loud chanting between the stars. Instead, Carlile and Sia simply deliver gorgeous harmonies and ad-libs on their respective tracks, keeping Cyrus front and center. In the credits, his most surprising collaborators like director Harmony Korine (“Handstand”), James Blake (“Violet Chemistry”) and Greg Kurstin (“Jaded”) never take Cyrus’ clear vision away.
Cyrus is oddly more authentic when she lets herself be all creative versions of herself at once.
Since his Disney days, Cyrus has bounced dramatically between musical styles and big personal statements. Every time she shares a new version of herself, she jumps right in, completely ridding herself of her past in the process. Endless summer vacation feels like a pure distillation of his entire musical history, ebbing and flowing together in perfect harmony. The Nashville-inspired, forward-looking pop production from Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson helps hold the sound together while leaving plenty of room for old friends like Mike Will Made-It to come back into the fold and unlock something. something new with Cyrus. In his music, Cyrus has never had such a clear eye on the target. This time, she shoots to kill.
Above all, the focus of this album is Miley.
At the heart of every song is a staunchly independent Miley Cyrus, someone who thinks deeply about what it means to be her own partner. Tracks like ‘Thousand Miles’, ‘Island’ and ‘Wonder Woman’ focus specifically on the complexities of being your own support system: the sadness that often propels you towards this discovery as well as the freedom and relief that comes with it. follow. And unlike his past songs about love and intimacy, Cyrus largely avoids the self-mockery and addiction of his past songs about the same topics. Instead of showing up like a red flag like she did most of the time plastic heartsshe gently clarifies that the fittest will survive.