Next week Miley Cyrus will release Something Beautiful, her ambitious new visual album. She took inspiration for the project from films such as Pink Floyd's The Wall and the Nicolas Cage movie Mandy, and she recruited contributions from members of indie bands such as the War On Drugs, Alvvays, and Model/Actriz. The singles have been decently interesting so far.
Apple Music published a new interview with Cyrus today, in which she and Zane Lowe discuss Something Beautiful, sobriety, her big Grammy win for "Flowers," and more. One interesting tidbit involves Harrison Ford, who has his own ties to Apple as one of the stars of the great AppleTV+ series Shrinking. Cyrus and Ford were both honored at the Disney Legends Awards last summer. That may be where he offered her a critique of her original concept for the new album, which was to be called Somewhere Beautiful and involved lots of on-location shoots. Here's how she explains it:
I've known Harrison Ford for quite a while just growing up in Disney and been in the same circles. And he goes, "So what are you up to? Are you in the studio making an album or what are you doing?" I said, "Well, I have an idea." I said, "Actually, I made something. I have a PDF on my phone I could show you."
So I show him and I show him my idea of Somewhere Beautiful, which is performing in all the forests and at the pyramids and all these things. He goes, "You really want to go and set up in a forest and do what?" He's like, "You going to bring a crew? You got to..." He's like, "Looks expensive." And I came back to the trailer, I was like, "Guys, we're not performing in the forest anymore. Harrison Ford made a lot of sense." That's why I want to create this film, is the film is my way of touring. That's why I'm putting it into theaters because it's something you can watch night after night after night and you get to discover and you get to feel like you're a part of a performance but I don't have to tax myself in that way.
Speaking of not touring anymore, she said it is related to the physical toll touring takes on her body, including effects from a vocal polyp that fries her voice when she sings extensively:
All the things that I just described of the physicality of what I'm doing, the athleticism, the chemicals in your body that are being produced when you're at that level of, again, we talked about stress, it's not bad, but there just is a level of... the high stress. And so working from the inside out, there would have to be, I have certain protocols that keep me... Again, we talked about the sobriety. That's super important to me. So part of that is keeping myself mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally well, and I want to emphasize the physically because of how taxing a physical live performance is. And something I wanted to mention to you, so I had the Reinke's Edema, which is something that is called, it's abuse of the vocal cords. And being 21 and staying up and drinking and smoking and partying after every show does not help. But also in my case, it does not cause it. So my voice always sounded like this.
It's a part of my unique anatomy, this is what I look like. So I have this very large polyp on my vocal cord, which has given me a lot of the tone and the texture that has made me who I am, but it's extremely difficult to perform with because it's like running a marathon with ankle weights on. So even when I'm talking sometimes, at the end of the day I'll call my mom and she'll go, "Oh, you sound like you're talking through a radio." And that's how you know I'm really tired because it creates that ultimate vocal fry.
And so I do have this blessing of a condition that I live with that's given me this really... When I walk, during COVID, all these famous people were like, "Isn't COVID so awesome because you wear the mask and no one knows who you are?" I can't talk. The minute I'm in a grocery store, someone goes, "Your mask isn't working. I know that it's you." I could wear a hat and sunglasses and, "I know that it's you." So my voice is super unique because of it, but I do have this Reinke's Edema and I have this large polyp on my cords and I'm not willing to sever it because the chance of waking up from a surgery and not sounding like myself is a probability.
And on the subject of live singing, Cyrus also shared some compliments for Chappell Roan:
I can't believe how she sounds live. And that is the testament, that is like can you stand the test of time? And there is so much pressure on live performance and that's what blew my mind. I thought Sabrina and Chappell both at the Grammys this year, it was over the top pro singing. And I'm not the judge of... I don't even care about pitch. They could have been off-key and I wouldn't have cared if it was from the heart. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about, I don't know what that was. If it was a unicorn, she was up there riding a unicorn and she was pitch perfect. And I just applaud that because I know the courage that it takes and I know that the nerves get in the way. And I know that both of them were probably choking on their heart because it's so much pressure. And they just nailed it. And Sabrina at SNL50 blew my mind. And I'm just big fans and I just support those girls all the way.
Here's Cyrus on sobriety, too: