"Endless Summer Vacation" Highlights Miley Cyrus' Impressive Talents and Skills

 The versatile singer effortlessly navigates through various genres like a seasoned traveler.

Since bursting onto the scene with the popular Disney sitcom Hannah Montana in 2006, Miley Cyrus has consistently played with the idea of the pop star as a persona vehicle. Over the course of her career, Cyrus has dabbled in an impressive array of musical genres, including pop ballads, candy-coated odes to America, synthpop, psychedelia, country, and art-rock. With her eighth album, Endless Summer Vacation, Cyrus once again showcases her impressive range, breezing through genres with the ease of a seasoned tourist.

Throughout the album, Cyrus demonstrates the malleability of her voice, a powerful, rough-edged bellow that can easily curve into a beguiling coo when the moment calls for it. "Jaded," for example, is a swirling breakup cut that calls to mind both "Wrecking Ball" and "Déjà Vu," with Cyrus' rasp slicing through the haze of guitars on the regret-wracked chorus. "River," on the other hand, is thumping synth-pop with a soaring chorus that contrasts with the second verse, delivered in a deadpan monotone that lends a touch of incredulity to the song's confessions of love.

"Violet Chemistry," perhaps one of the album's sweetest pieces of ear candy, is a slick closing-time come-on that recalls Timbaland's mid-'00s imperial phase.

But it's not just Cyrus' voice that impresses on Endless Summer Vacation; the album's production is similarly varied and imaginative, with Cyrus and her team of collaborators incorporating a wide range of sounds and textures into their musical palette. From the shimmering synths of "Flowers" to the twangy guitar riffs of "Wildcard" to the sultry bassline of "Violet Chemistry," Endless Summer Vacation is a rich and endlessly rewarding listening experience.

What's perhaps most impressive about Cyrus' career, however, is the way she has consistently subverted the public's expectations of what someone in her position "owes" the world. From her rebellious turn as a young pop star to her embrace of more daring musical styles in recent years, Cyrus has never been content to simply rest on her laurels or play it safe. Endless Summer Vacation is just the latest example of her willingness to take creative risks and push herself in new directions, and it's sure to delight longtime fans and newcomers alike.

Miley Cyrus' list of collaborators over the years has been both lengthy and varied, and her latest album, Endless Summer Vacation, is no exception. The album features contributions from Brandi Carlile and Mike WiLL Made-It on the psych-country-pop cut "Thousand Miles," which is one of the album's standout tracks. The restlessness in the song's lyrics is matched by the clamor surrounding Cyrus' and Carlile's voices, and the harmonica outro implies that Cyrus is driving her "beat-up old Mercedes" towards an unknown destination.

Sia also makes an appearance on the vicious "Muddy Feet," a spiteful rebuke to a straying partner. Her vocals are mostly in the background, but the sing-song pre-chorus points to her involvement. Cyrus summons her raspiest bellow for the chorus, adding to the feeling that this particular track was more pointed catharsis than a candidate for the pop charts. However, in the TikTok age, stranger things have happened.

The woozy "Handstand" is a psych-pop-sex-jam-freakout that could easily spin off into its own album. The song has writing and production credits that include provocateur Harmony Korine, and Cyrus' voice bleeds into the maelstrom surrounding it as she brags about her physics-defying carnality.

What's clear from Endless Summer Vacation is that Cyrus is not content to stay within the boundaries of any one genre or style. Instead, she continues to experiment and collaborate with a wide range of musicians, producers, and writers. The result is an album that is both surprising and rewarding, showcasing Cyrus' impressive range as a vocalist and her willingness to take creative risks. Whether she's working with Brandi Carlile or Harmony Korine, Cyrus proves time and time again that she is a force to be reckoned with in the music industry.

One of the standout moments on Endless Summer Vacation comes when Cyrus unleashes her powerful voice on the album's big ballads. "You" is a prime example of this, a soaring love song that showcases Cyrus' vocal range and emotional depth. It's the kind of track that could easily become a signature song for Cyrus in the years to come.

Another standout ballad on the album is "Wonder Woman," which tells the story of a woman whose strength masks the hardships she's faced in life. Cyrus wrote the song in the aftermath of her grandmother's passing in 2020, and some of the lyrics hit close to home for the singer. Lines like "She's a million moments/Lived a thousand lives/Never know she's hopeless/Only when she cries" suggest that Cyrus sees herself in the song's protagonist, a woman who has lived through tough times but remains resilient in the face of adversity. It's a fitting tribute to Cyrus' own journey as a pop star and a person, and it's a reminder that even the strongest among us have vulnerabilities that we must confront.