Miley Cyrus Something Beautiful

Critic's Take

Even the few reservations, notably about “Give Me Love”, only sharpen the sense that this is Miley at her most accomplished.

Key Points

• The album's core strengths are its ambitious reinvention, coherent sequencing, and adventurous yet disciplined collaborations.

Critic's Take

Miley Cyrus's Something Beautiful stakes its claim as a vocal showcase, and the review keeps returning to the album's bravest moments like “Something Beautiful” and “More to Lose”. The writer admires how the rasp and damaged instrument create unpredictable textures, praising the sonically daring flips of “Something Beautiful” while singling out “More to Lose” for its powerhouse balladry. The narrative frames those best tracks as proof that imperfect, lived-in vocals can make the album more compelling than a polished run of crowd-pleasers. Overall the tone is admiring but measured, noting flaws while celebrating the record's willingness to risk.

Key Points

• The best song, "Something Beautiful," is best for its mood-flipping, sonically daring production that foregrounds Cyrus's damaged voice.
• The album's core strength is its commitment to letting Cyrus's altered, lived-in vocals carry both pop bops and riskier avant moments.

Themes

Critic's Take

In his vivid, slightly breathless voice Matt Mitchell argues that Miley Cyrus's Something Beautiful finds its best songs in the extremes - the epic ballad “More to Lose” and the sugary romp “Golden Burning Sun”. Mitchell keeps returning to Cyrus' revelatory vocal grit and theatricality, praising how a rasp born of Reinke's edema adds texture while production swings from operatic to disco. He names “More to Lose” the greatest thing she has ever worked on, and frames the album's strongest tracks as proof that her chameleonic flair finally coheres into something worth calling her best.

Key Points

• The best song is "More to Lose" because of its dramatic vocal peak, multi-instrumental arrangement, and chilling delivery.

Themes

Critic's Take

He also singles out “End of the World” and the title track for adventurous production flips, arguing these best tracks underscore Miley's ambition and searching for beauty in darkness. The result reads as another bold, unpredictable swerve in a career defined by dramatic left turns, and those looking for the best tracks on Something Beautiful will find them in these theatrical, healing moments.

Key Points

• The album's core strengths are its reinvention, Eighties/disco influences, and theme of healing and redemption.

Themes

Critic's Take

Nick Levine leans into Miley Cyrus’s post-genre adventurousness, arguing that Miley Cyrus makes a convincingly cinematic record with Something Beautiful. He highlights “Golden Burning Sun” as sounding like a Fleetwood Mac-written blockbuster song, and praises “End of the World” for its drivetime glide and Beatles-referencing lyric.

Key Points

• The best song, "Golden Burning Sun", is the album’s most cinematic and vividly realised track, evoking Fleetwood Mac for an '80s blockbuster.
• The album’s core strengths are its genre-fluidity, cinematic production and confident, theatrical collaborations.

Themes

Critic's Take

In a typically expansive turn, Miley Cyrus makes Something Beautiful into a widescreen prog-pop fever dream where the best songs - notably “Something Beautiful” and “End of the World” - feel like miniature epics. Sal Cinquemani’s review revels in Cyrus’s maximalism, praising the title track as a Big Bang of brass and guitar and calling “End of the World” euphoric with strings and ABBA-esque piano. The tone is admiring and analytical, framing these songs as the clearest evidence that Cyrus’s bold theatrical impulses yield some of the best tracks on Something Beautiful.

Key Points

• The title track stands out for its explosive prog-rock arrangement and vivid imagery, making it the album's best song.
• The album's core strengths are its maximalist production, theatrical world-building, and emotional contradictions that deepen its pop ambition.

Themes

Critic's Take

In his measured, contextual voice Steven J. Horowitz frames Miley Cyrus's Something Beautiful as an "elevated experiment" that prizes scope over immediate hits. Horowitz insists the record is thrilling and challenging, and that its best tracks linger precisely because Cyrus stretches pop into unfamiliar textures.

Key Points

• The best song, "More to Lose," is best because it is the record's most immediate, heartfelt, conventionally structured heartbreak ballad.
• The album's core strengths are ambitious experimentation and convincing genre pastiche that keep Cyrus central despite fewer obvious hits.

Critic's Take

Never one for stasis, Miley Cyrus stages another reinvention on Something Beautiful, a high-camp pop opera whose best tracks crystallise the album's aims. The reviewer's favourites are the neon-lit “End Of The World” and the melodramatic “More To Lose”, and the stomp of “Easy Lover” is singled out as the record's '70s centrepiece. Overall, the album's ambition and standout songs make a convincing case for this new chapter in Miley's shape-shifting career.

Key Points

• The best song is 'End Of The World' for its 80s Euro-pop production and showcasing of Miley's gritty vocal.
• The album's core strengths are ambition, theatrical spectacle, and Miley's distinctive voice anchoring varied pop pastiches.

Themes

Critic's Take

Miley Cyrus's Something Beautiful is presented as a delicately crafted feast of melodic intricacy, and the reviewer's ear keeps returning to songs like “Something Beautiful” and “More To Lose” as the album's clearest rewards. This is a fascinating, occasionally uneven one-off that adds another layer to her story, rewarding close listens rather than instant streaming hits.

Key Points

• The best song is the title track “Something Beautiful” for its gorgeous slow build and explosive distortion.
• The album's core strengths are melodic intricacy and fearless experimentation that reward attentive listening.

Themes

Critic's Take

They single out “More to Lose” for Cyrus’s "extraordinary emotional heft", even while criticizing some Eighties brass noodling. Overall the tone is admiring of the record's adventurous spirit, while noting it is inconsistent and not quite as groundbreaking as Cyrus claims.

Key Points

• The album's strengths are its adventurous, theatrical collaborations and Cyrus's emotional vocal moments, despite inconsistency.

Themes

Critic's Take

Miley Cyrus treats Something Beautiful as a big, sometimes baffling concept, but the review points to a handful of best tracks that actually land. The result is an album that often fails to vibrate at a metaphysical level yet contains several of the best songs on Something Beautiful - songs that are well written, well made and genuinely catchy.

Key Points

• The best song is one of the synthy, hi-NRG tracks like "End of the World" because its chorus sticks and it recalls irresistible 80s pop hooks.
• The album's core strengths are well-made, varied vehicles for Cyrus’s powerful, raspy voice and a convincing revival of mid-80s hi-NRG textures.

Themes

Critic's Take

Miley Cyrus's Something Beautiful is at its best in the opening pair: “Prelude” and “Something Beautiful”. The reviewer revels in the dizzying production and unusual instrumentation of “Prelude” while praising how “Something Beautiful” finally lets Cyrus' smoldering alto cut through, complete with a squall of saxophone and muscular guitar. Yet the praise is tempered - after that high point the record drifts into generic, dated pop-rock and lyrical incoherence, making those two songs the clear best tracks on Something Beautiful. The narrative voice stays skeptical but admiring, glad that Cyrus can still mount an interesting experiment even when the rest of the album falters.

Key Points

• The best song is "Something Beautiful" because it pairs Cyrus' vocal texture with adventurous production that justifies the collaborators.
• The album's core strengths are its bold production ambitions and Cyrus' smoldering alto, but these are undermined by uneven songwriting and dated pop-rock detours.

Themes

Critic's Take

I kept thinking of Miley Cyrus's knack for theatricality as I listened to Something Beautiful, and the best tracks - notably “Something Beautiful” - show why she remains compelling. The title track flexes her rasp and range, shifting from lounge-y jazz to roaring distortion and offering the album's clearest moment of payoff. Yet that payoff is undermined by songs that ring hollow, leaving the record feeling like style without the emotional footholds it promises. In short, the best songs on Something Beautiful make the album worthwhile in moments, but they are too isolated to redeem the whole.

Key Points

• The title track is best because it flexes Cyrus's rasp and range and delivers the album's most convincing shift and payoff.
• The album's core strength is widescreen, larger-than-life production and adventurous pastiche, but it often prioritizes style over substantive hooks or emotional footholds.

Themes