Miley Cyrus premiered her Something Beautiful visual album for a packed audience at New York’s Beacon Theatre as part of the 2025 Tribeca Festival.
But Cyrus, who just released her Something Beautiful audio recording last week, with the visual album set to come out next week, is already looking to the future.
At an album release party last week at the Chateau Marmont, Cyrus teased that Something Beautiful is merely “the appetizer” for a “an extremely experimental” upcoming album.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter before the Something Beautiful visual album premiere, Cyrus shared a little more about what to expect from this future release, which she said would likely be 12 tracks.
“And I think I know what those at least feel like and that’s what I started out with this album too where it wasn’t necessarily about the sound first or even the look or the vision — it’s what it makes you feel like,” Cyrus told THR of those dozen songs. “So I feel that I somewhat know what that is.”
And she teased that this future album would hopefully come with less “pressure” and be more “about the music.”
“For me, personally, it would just be the fulfillment of always making the thing that’s real and right in that moment but I think it’ll also come without the pressure that I’ve put on myself for almost the past two decades of my career,” she said. “I really want to do something that doesn’t have that sort of power over me and is just really about the music.”
Inside the Beacon Theatre, Something Beautiful played on the big screen to a mostly enthusiastic audience (there were a handful of people who were under the impression that the event was a concert, including one vocal audience member who interrupted the Q&A to ask if Cyrus was going to sing, after she’d already delivered an impromptu a capella version of “The Climb”) that frequently cheered and even sang along at times to the visual representation of the 13 tracks on the album.
Cyrus has already debuted Act 1, consisting of the prelude, title track, “End of the World,” “More to Lose” and “Easy Lover.” The performance-heavy visual album plays out somewhat like a series of music videos, with each song getting a distinct visual representation and the singer sporting a number of dramatic outfits like the Thierry Mugler ensemble she wears in “Prelude.”
Mostly performing on soundstages, Cyrus ventures outside for part of “Easy Lover,” where she’s seen walking around a studio lot and winking to an onlooker, and for “Walk of Fame,” which she filmed on the eponymous Hollywood sidewalk in the middle of the night, walking away with a “brutal” knee infection, as she previously explained.
The visual album ends with Cyrus singing in the rain to “Reborn” (“Give Me Love” plays over the credits) and features a cameo from Something Beautiful guest Naomi Campbell on “Every Girl You’ve Ever Loved,” which has echoes of George Michael’s “Freedom,” which Campbell similarly was part of. The two runway walk alongside each other in an abandoned warehouse and strike multiple “pose”s as Campbell sings.
Speaking in a post-screening Q&A with co-directors Jacob Bixenman and Brendan Walter and producer Panos Cosmatos, moderated by Derek Blasberg, Cyrus opened up about getting Campbell to join her for Something Beautiful.
“When Naomi wants to do something, just like myself or any artist, they make it happen. They do it,” Cyrus said. “And there was never a time that there was any difficulties for us getting together in the same room, cutting these vocals. It was always something that felt effortless and easy. And when those things start happening, that’s when I know that there was no reality in which it was never written in the stars. I think it was always, from the very beginning, going to be something that her and I shared together, and it was just a matter of time, and there was no better time than now, and she’s actually wearing my [Thierry] Mugler [clothes] in that video. I said, ‘I don’t share fashion with my friends unless they’re Naomi.’”
Cyrus said she and Michael Pollack, who wrote the album with her, wrote the verse on “Every Girl” for Campbell, essentially “channeling” her.
“And she had no notes,” Cyrus said of Campbell, something that surprised Blasberg as well. “I did not believe them when they said she’s already cut her verse, and it was better than I ever could imagine. … We were really trying to embody her essence, which is just the ultimate grace, power and beauty and legacy. Truly, she really is one of our living legends. And so to get to spend talking to her and talking to her about fashion in the ’90s and where she is now as a mother and watching that evolution has been extremely inspiring for me.”
Despite Campbell’s influence, Cyrus said generally for Something Beautiful, she “was actually very protective of not having many references, because I wanted to be the reference, something that no one’s ever done before … I completely worship and idolize the Tina Turners, the Donna Summers, Diana Ross, so many ladies before me paved this path that I’m on. This is my journey, but they’ve made it so much easier because they’ve already broken down all the doors for me.”
Something Beautiful the visual album will play in theaters across North America on June 12 for one night only before getting an international release on June 27.