Miley Cyrus Unveils an Ominous Aesthetic for Something Beautiful With the First Two Tracks

Pop icon Miley Cyrus has dropped Prelude and Something Beautiful, beckoning in a dark and dramatic image for her next era.

In case you missed it, last week Cyrus officially announced her ninth studio album, Something Great, will be joining her wide discography on May 30th 2025. The album was teased back in November 2024, when she revealed the title in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar.

With a film also coming in June, Something Beautiful is set to be a visual concept album, inspired by Pink Floyd’s The Wall, which was also a concept album, and later adapted into a 95-minute surrealist feature film. Cyrus said she wanted to emulate The Wall, “but with a better wardrobe and more glamorous and filled with pop culture”. From the get-go, it is abundantly clear that fashion will play a huge role in this album’s visuals with her official announcement highlighting her outfit on the album’s artwork as being an archival 1997 Thierry Mugler, claiming to be a ‘striking nod to the album’s bold aesthetic and visual storytelling’.

On Monday, she gave fans their first proper look at this new world of hers when she unexpectedly dropped the album’s opening track, Prelude, and its accompanying visual. Prelude is exactly what it says on the tin. It is a quintessential intro track, with Cyrus’ choice of spoken word over a moody, cinematic instrumental resembling an advert or a trailer for the album. In her soliloquy, Cyrus speaks of finding beauty in fleeting moments, which appears to be a metaphor for something larger. What that exactly is though, is not yet disclosed, leaving listeners questioning the meaning.

The full video for the track, available on her YouTube, flicks between up-close shots of flowers to those of Cyrus in her album cover ensemble, being careful not to show her face, interlaced with text transcribing her spoken word. When we finally see her full face, it is lit up for less than 10 seconds as she speaks the line, ‘But the beauty one finds alone / Is a prayer that longs to be shared’, before being plunged back into darkness. A large screen then flickers with black and white text reading ‘Miley Cyrus’ and ‘Something Beautiful’. More shots of flowers and her outfit follow before one final shot of Cyrus shows her swooping her arms over her head and gazing off camera, the lighting making her glow in a dream-like, ethereal way.

After barely any time had passed to dissect and digest this track, Cyrus surprised fans again when she released Something Beautiful, once again, alongside its video visual. As the title track of the album, it is an experimental pop-rock number, wherein the narrator lets her guard down to be consumed with a powerful and possibly destructive love.

Beginning with a jazz sound through instruments such as a piano and saxophone dancing together in a relaxing way, listeners are lured into thinking it is a chilled track. This doesn’t last long as the chorus comes crashing in with intense drums and electric guitars. The entire rhythm of the song and her vocals switch completely, taking the track into a more experimental rock zone and may reflect the lyrics and the idea of giving in to an all encompassing love.

The video for the track also emulates this progression, starting off with close-up shots of Cyrus, the makeup and lighting making her look like a old-school hollywood film star, before changing directions. A light fixture explodes above her as the chorus comes in, and the video becomes more fast paced, as sparks appear to fall around her, giving it a dangerous quality.

The excitement didn’t stop there as she also released a teaser video for the next single, End of the World, due to be released on April 3rd. The video appears to move away slightly from the darker theme, opting for a glamorous, 80s rock style that seems to also be present in the snippet of the track that can be heard.

Is Cyrus, along with Lady Gaga’s recent MAYHEM album, bringing back the dark-pop aesthetic? It seems to be the case so far. Whether this will continue through the rest of Cyrus’ album is yet to be determined but, fortunately for her fans, we will not have to wait long to find out as the release of End of the World is only a few days away.