Miley Cyrus has released “End of the World,” the lead single from her upcoming visual album, Something Beautiful, the follow-up to 2023’s Endless Summer Vacation. “End of the World” is decidedly more pop-friendly than the two cuts from Something Beautiful that Cyrus previewed earlier this week, the spoken-word “Prelude” and the title track, an intermittently explosive, prog-rock ballad.
Accompanied by a rollicking midtempo beat, live strings, and ’70s-coded piano chords, “End of the World” finds Cyrus pining for her lover in a pre-apocalyptic landscape: “Someday you woke and you told me wanted to cry/The sky was fallin’ like a comet on the Fourth of July.” The lyrics also make nods to Malibu, a city close to Cyrus’s heart, and the Beatles: “[Let’s] throw a party like McCartney with some help from my friends,” the singer quips.
Inspired by Pink Floyd’s 1982 rock opera The Wall “but with a better wardrobe” (Cyrus wears Thierry Mugler archival couture on the album’s cover and accompany visuals), Something Beautiful is, according to Cyrus, a “concept album that’s an attempt to medicate…a sick culture through music.” The album is due May 30 via Columbia Records.
Watch the music video for “End of the World,” co-directed by Cyrus, Jacob Bixenman, and Brendan Walter:
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