Miley Cyrus has released the first taste of her new album, Something Beautiful, but it’s not exactly a song.
Instead, “Prelude” features Miley speaking over an orchestral piece of music that’s a bit reminiscent of the Stranger Things theme. “Like when following an image from a train, your eyes can’t keep the passing landscapes from being swallowed into endless distance,” she intones. “Like when holding a fistful of ashes, your hands can’t save the things that have already been dissolved into air.”
“Like when facing the sun through a window, your skin feels warmth, but it can’t be in the world that its warmth has made alive,” she continues. “Like walking alone through a lucid dream, like saying your name aloud in an empty room, like witnessing my body standing in a mirror, aching to be seen, aching to become real. But the beauty one finds alone is a prayer that longs to be shared.”
The official video includes the text of those words, along with a series of disjointed images of flowers and glimpses of Miley wearing an intricate, web-like outfit of crystals.
When she gets to the final line, we see her face, circled by the feathery, beaded headdress on the album cover artwork. Then the music crescendos, and we get a better look at Miley in the outfit, which is an archival 1997 Thierry Mugler couture piece.
Something Beautiful, described as a “visual album,” is coming May 30, with an accompanying film due in June.
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