Miley Cyrus has all the time adopted her muse. Since at the least her 2013 reinvention “Bangerz,” she’s tried on a number of personas and kinds, traipsing from du jour hip-hop to glam rock and glitter-smeared psychedelia, oftentimes falling someplace in between. If something, one might by no means accuse Cyrus of ambivalence; her artistic imaginative and prescient is all the time entire, even when it defies tangibility.

It’s one motive why Cyrus’ albums have continued to attract intrigue. Some hit, others don’t. That a lot turned clear with 2023’s “Countless Summer season Trip,” one in all her most instant and of-the-moment albums, the place enjoying it straight paid off. Lead single “Flowers” was a ubiquitous smash, a Grammy report of the yr winner, a reminder that when Cyrus desires The Single, she is aware of methods to bake it.

“One thing Lovely,” her ninth album, isn’t that, at the least not within the sense that she’s making an attempt to enchantment to as large an viewers. The sprawling report, with its elaborate preparations and prolonged songs, isn’t a return to type, or perhaps a defiant rejection of inventive conformity like 2015’s “Miley Cyrus & Her Useless Petz.” As an alternative, “One thing Lovely” is an elevated experiment — one with out an apparent single — and a mission bursting with concepts stretched to their extremes whereas exploring the textures and sounds of the artists that impressed her.

A lot of the web discourse in pop circles has centered on the album’s hit potential, or lack thereof. Cyrus herself acknowledged this throughout a non-public preview of “One thing Lovely” at Los Angeles’ Chateau Marmont earlier this week: “My subsequent album is about to be extraordinarily experimental, so have enjoyable with that,” she mentioned. It’s a mission that just about encourages a polarizing response, a rejection of expectation within the face of later profession success that pop stars can solely hope to attain.

In impact, “One thing Lovely” is equal elements thrilling and difficult. Cyrus crafts songs that linger with out dropping their approach, deconstructing and rebuilding the thought of how pop songs must be formed. The closest approximations to standard pop motifs — the strongest ones on the report — err on bombast and balladry. “Extra to Lose,” as an example, is truest to type, an immediate tally on Cyrus’ wall of heartbreak, whereas the title monitor saunters from a soul-speckled strut to a confronting, discordant explosion.

A lot of the remainder of the album trades within the sticky hooks of “Countless Summer season Trip” for style case research. It’s simple to play spot-the-reference (Fleetwood Mac on “Simple Lover,” Giorgio Moroder on “Stroll of Fame,” even Woman Gaga on “Reborn”), but Cyrus manages to keep up as a grounding pressure. Above all, the one commonality throughout these songs is that they’re all particularly her, as diversified and distinct as they might be, threading a story the place there usually doesn’t look like one.

Cyrus herself teed this up through the album rollout, likening it to Pink Floyd’s epic opus “The Wall” and describing its accompanying movie as a “pop opera.” These lofty designations don’t precisely maintain — the movie itself is a collection of beautiful, high-fashion music movies — though they do converse to her ambition. “One thing Lovely” invitations the listener to float throughout the touchpoints of her artistic compass with out it feeling pressured. She seamlessly mashes up Donna Summer season glam with New Order synths on the wonderful “Stroll of Fame” as visitor vocalist Brittany Howard seems as a haunting specter; enlists Naomi Campbell to again her as she performs catwalk murderer on the pulsating “Each Woman You’ve Ever Beloved”; and effortlessly evokes the Swedish-pop gleam of ABBA on “Finish of the World.”

For the informal listener, discovering a approach into the album could also be its best impediment. The ’70s-evoking people fare that dots the entrance half of the report tremendously contrasts with the dance ground throb of the latter, and few of the hooks hit as laborious as a few of her earlier work. However what it lacks in accessibility, it makes up for in scope. “One thing Lovely” is a report that makes an attempt to point out that Cyrus can do all of it in ways in which you wouldn’t anticipate, or perhaps even need. That she does it so convincingly and confidently doesn’t appear a lot a rebuking of her previous success because it does an evolution of it.

Cyrus is the uncommon minted pop star whose experimentalism can usually be secondary to her star energy. Audiences return to Cyrus as a result of she doesn’t comply with a template or play the sport like it is best to. Due to that, she’s one of many few predominant pop women whose information will seize the zeitgeist even after they don’t have broad enchantment. “One thing Lovely” will not be for everybody; on the Chateau, she described it as “simply an appetizer.” In actuality, it’s a report for Cyrus, a posh and confronting snapshot of who she is and the place she’s heading.