Miley Cyrus released the single entitled “Flowers,” and overnight the song grew extremely popular, with over 120 million streams on Spotify and 800,000 videos on TikTok in the first 10 days. Coming out as a new and different type of breakup anthem, the song reflects on singer/songwriter Cyrus’s relationship with her ex-husband Liam Hemsworth. The on-again-off-again relationship started way back in 2010. After a series of breakups, engagements, a marriage, a house burning down and cheating allegations, the couple finally ended things in 2020. Even though this relationship was tumultuous and messy, Cyrus doesn’t put any emphasis on her pain and sadness post-breakup but instead delivers a great song with even better imagery and an easter-egg packed music video.

This song is definitely stuck in my head, and I don’t think it is because it is viral on TikTok (which means I hear it somewhere around 10 times a day). 

The genre is dance-pop, which is the perfect description. This song makes me want to be like Cyrus in her video and dance around my house. She infects her listeners with her confidence and rejects any feeling of sadness, anger or frustration one usually feels after a breakup. “Flowers” invites the listener into Cyrus’s world and makes us feel at home with her positive, self-love attitude.  

In her music video, which has accumulated over 56 million views, she is depicted doing high-intensity workouts, yoga and seemingly posing for the camera. This sequence feels like she is saying that she is still strong and confident despite not having a man in her life. 

It is rumored that Cyrus is wearing her ex-husband’s suit in the scene where she is dancing around. It is also rumored that this was the suit he was wearing while on the red carpet for the movie premiere of “Avengers: Endgame”, where it is alleged that Hemsworth told Cyrus to “behave yourself.” In this scene, she is most definitely not “behaving” herself. She is dancing erratically and letting her music move her in any way she wants. The imagery in the music video is so powerful and blatant, which makes the video so fun to watch. It is entertaining and even empowering to watch a woman not be emotionally destroyed after a breakup.

However, the upbeat instrumental is not met with the best display of Cyrus’s voice. “Flowers” is a powerful anthem for anyone who has had their heart broken and needs a boost of confidence, and the sound of her vocals should reflect that. Over her career, Cyrus has demonstrated her unique, dynamic, and professionally-trained voice in songs like “Wrecking Ball,” “Midnight Sky” and even “The Climb” from her early years. In these pieces, she uses and pushes the extent of her voice to create songs you want to sing-scream to. “Flowers” should be on that list, but sadly, it’s not. Perhaps Cyrus wanted to perform differently. In “Flowers,” we get a sneak peek back to those golden years when she lets her Southern twang peek through in the lyric: “I didn’t wanna leave you/I didn’t want to fight,” which is always a nice callback. On this track, she has specific control over her voice, which could be parallel to the control she now has in her life without her ex-husband. Her vocals are by no measure bad on the song, but they leave the listener with some desire. 

I will stand by the argument that Cyrus should switch genres from pop to rock. She has released some rock covers, most prominently her cover of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass,” and the vocal performance is spectacular. The grittiness of her voice is not as well-suited for the pop genre. With that being said, her music is still fantastic, but I think she would thrive if she committed to a different, more rock and roll sound.

This album, “Endless Summer Vacation,” will be released on March 10 and will be her eighth studio album. It only feels like yesterday that she was singing “The Best of Both Worlds” as her Disney character, Hannah Montana. Essentially, Cyrus, though her sound, message and overall look have changed in the past 17 years, continues to create catchy and popular music.