Best of Both Worlds: The Many Sides of Miley Cyrus

In and out of a blonde wig throughout her time portraying a pop star with a double life on Disney Channel, Miley Cyrus’ constant reinvention of herself is nothing new in the context of her career beginnings.

Written by Myah Taylor

During the Best of Both Worlds Tour in 2007, Miley Cyrus ascended through an opening in the stage, her wavy brunette hair swirling beneath the spotlight as she broke out into a performance of her pop-rock track “Start All Over.” Moments before that, she sported a sequin dress and the blonde wig with bangs that propelled her to superstardom in 2006.

The white boots, black pants, and metallic vest Cyrus wore as she emerged from the glass box to sing one of the most edgy songs of her catalogue at the time said it all: Hannah Montana had clocked out, and it was time for the girl under the wig to shine.

This was exactly the goal of the tour: to promote the double-disc album Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus, a fusion of the “Hannah Montana” season 2 soundtrack and Cyrus’ debut record performing as herself. Cyrus, who turned 15 while on the road, would re-introduce herself to fans about 70 times at venues across North America from October 2007 to January 2008.

Flash forward to 2020, and Cyrus is far removed from her obligations to dawn the iconic blonde wig, but she has still taken on another persona. Correction — a few personas. These days, her look changes rapidly, as if she has a closet full of identities that revolves like the one in Miley Stewart’s bedroom on “Hannah Montana.”

Cyrus currently wears her hair in a blonde mullet, no doubt in order to complement the vintage aesthetic she has recently embraced. In August, the pop star joined The Weeknd, Dua Lipa, and several other acts on the ‘80s train when she released “Midnight Sky,” a glitzy, disco-inspired song with pulsating synths, as the lead single for her latest album Plastic Hearts released on Nov. 27.

By September, Cyrus had teleported to the ‘70s. Clad in a sleek, black one-piece suit and diamonds galore, the singer debuted her raspy cover of Blondie’s new wave hit “Heart of Glass” under the lights of a disco ball at the 2020 iHeartRadio Music Festival.

She returned to the ‘80s in November when she released “Edge of Midnight (Midnight Sky Remix)” in collaboration with Fleetwood Mac alum Stevie Nicks. Still riding the wave of the collaboration with Nicks and rocking the Joan Jett haircut, Cyrus told Interview Magazine in October that a Metallica cover album is on the way.

She dove into heavy metal last summer when she covered the band’s “Nothing Else Matters” at Glastonbury Festival. And in addition to the Blondie cover, she’s released new takes on The Cranberries’ “Zombie,” Britney Spears’ “Gimme More,” and Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” over the last several months.

The last time Cyrus went through this much metamorphosis was 2009. That April, “Hannah Montana: The Movie” released, rehashing the theme of Miley Stewart’s, and effectively Cyrus’, double identity. After her character is whisked away to Tennessee because her dad (played by Cyrus’ father Billy Ray) feels she needs to return to her roots, Cyrus is seen constantly phasing between the two personas, sometimes in a quite literal way.

At the beginning of the film, Cyrus performs songs like “Let’s Get Crazy” in flashy outfits as Hannah Montana and fights with Tyra Banks over shoes in an upscale Los Angeles boutique. Not too long after she arrives in the fictional town of Crowley Corners, Tennessee, the singer, as Miley Stewart, leads a dance hall full of people in the “Hoedown Throwdown.” Other songs on the movie’s soundtrack have a country twang, while songs like Cyrus’ uplifting power ballad “The Climb” utilize organic violins and pianos, a contrast to the synths and bass of a Hannah Montana track

Hannah Montana 3, the album for the third season of the show, came out that July. Cyrus put the wig back on and returned to her pop inclinations in tracks such as “He Could be the One” and “Let’s Do This.”

Cyrus became herself again that August on her EP The Time of Our Lives, home to the classic “Party In The U.S.A.” and ballad “When I Look At You.” Only super fans would know that the short collection of songs opened with a track that saw Cyrus dabble in rock music. “Kicking And Screaming” features screeching vocals, climbing dirty guitars, and pounding drums.

But it’s Cyrus’ Bangerz era that marked the major turning point in her career. Thanks to her jaw-dropping “Wrecking Ball” music video and her suggestive performance of “Blurred Lines” with Robin Thicke at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, that year will forever go down as the year Cyrus ‘changed’ and became the chameleon she is today. It was Meet Miley Cyrus part two.

But to assert that Cyrus’ evolving identity and sound began circa 2013 would be ignorant to the fact that her time as Hannah Montana was an era of eras, 2009 being a prime example.

Even before that eventful year, Cyrus changed like the seasons. When she got her start as Hannah Montana in 2006, she was a typical pop star. By the time of the Best of Both Worlds Tour in 2007, when fans got to ‘meet’ her, Cyrus began to embrace the pop-rock and pop-punk aesthetics dominating at the time due to hits from artists such as Avril Lavigne and Paramore. She dyed her hair dark, almost black, and at one point got highlights that would rival Lindsay Lohan’s hair in “Freaky Friday.” Her eyeliner got darker, and she wore skinny jeans, as she sang songs like the aforementioned “Start All Over” and sleeper hit “See You Again.”

This sound and look continued into 2008 when she released Breakout, her second studio album as herself and first without any “Hannah Montana” connection. The LP features punchy pop rock, such as the title track “Breakout,” emotive break up anthem “7 Things,” and “Fly On The Wall,” a song once described as a “G-rated ‘Toxic’.”

Breakout also features Cyrus’ first of many covers. Her guitar-driven interpretation of Cyndi Lauper’s ‘80s hit “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” predated her current obsession with the decade and inclination to pay homage to her inspirations.

Britney Spears-esque dance pop was the perfect sound for the then-17-year-old to adopt for her 2010 album Can’t Be Tamed, a more adult record covering themes of sexual liberation and self-expression. It marked the beginning of the end for the ‘old Miley,’ who released her final “Hannah Montana” album that October (talk about confusing the kiddies). In addition to wearing yet another new blonde wig, Cyrus dipped her toes into reggae fusion (“Gonna Get This” feat. Iyaz) and R&B influences (“Ordinary Girl”) on Hannah Montana Forever.

Maybe Cyrus is changing so frequently today because, on her own accord or not, that is all she’s known how to do since she came into the business. It’s not so far-fetched to think the songstress had little control over her style, the sound of the Hannah Montana albums, or even the direction of her early solo records under her own name.

All this, coupled with Cyrus playing a character with a dual identity during her teenage years — a time marked by constant change — could be the reason why she’s so unpredictable today. Or maybe it’s because she’s been surrounded by various musical influences her entire life. Her dad, Billy Ray, is a two-hit wonder country star (thanks to “Old Town Road”) and her godmother is country legend Dolly Parton. Cyrus’ older brother Trace is the backing vocalist and guitarist of the pop rock band Metro Station, also a one-hit wonder (“Shake It”).

Regardless of whether Cyrus’ behavior is a result of spending her adolescence in the spotlight, the music she frequently performed reminded her that she could be multiple people all at once.

In the Hannah Montana track “Who Says,” she sings, “I can be glamorous, just like you see in all the magazines / I can be cool as ice or anything I wanna be,” before musing about her aspirations to be Superman, the president, and to “have it all.”

Cyrus tells the world just how versatile she is on “Rockstar,” another Hannah Montana track about extinguishing limitations: “I’m unusual / Not so typical / Way too smart to be waiting around / Tai chi practicing / Snowboard champion / I could fix the flat on your car / I might even be a rockstar.”

As it turns out, the singer can live the best of both worlds — or several. That’s what Cyrus is doing now, but no one really knows who she is. Maybe, just like Hannah Montana on the show, her real identity is a secret, and she’s waiting for the right time to take off the metaphorical wig for the big reveal.

Afterglow ATXNovember 30, 2020myah taylor, miley cyrus