Miley Cyrus shares her third single, “End of the World,” from her forthcoming album, which will be released by May 30 via Columbia Records. This pushes the entire idea to epic, perhaps cinematic, heights. This is the next step inside a much larger narrative, an operatic unspooling of emotion, fate, and human fragility. And, in quintessential Miley fashion, she makes each moment seem like a break before a storm you can’t look away from.
From its very first dark notes, “End of the World” draws listeners into a slow-burning reckoning, one that builds with each successive verse as if the weight of the universe were bearing down against each line. Written by Cyrus with Jonathan Rado, Michael Pollack, Gregory Aldae Hein, Shawn Everett, Molly Rankin, and Alec O’Hanley, the track elevates vulnerability to grandeur. The layered production, credited to Cyrus, Maxx Morando, Michael Pollack, Everett, Jonathan Rado, Molly Rankin, O’Hanley, and Max Taylor-Sheppard, serves as a gentle but grand backdrop that echoes the song’s themes of love, loss, and inevitability.
It’s an intentionally constructed soundscape, much like the project itself. However, “End of the World” is part of a chapter the artist is writing, with an album being in sequence alongside a companion film due in June. It’s a puzzle piece, a precursor to whatever Miley’s taking us into next.
She also drives the message home visually. Its accompanying music video, directed by Cyrus, Jacob Bixenman, and Brendan Walter, maintains the same thematic cohesion as her previous videos for “Prelude” and “Something Beautiful.” It’s a safe bet that every frame, note, and decision is part of a carefully sculpted work of art that feels fully realized and unabashedly personal.
For longtime fans of Miley, this song is just another reminder that she’s an artist who will not be contained in one space for too long. And for everyone else who’s tuning in, “End of the World” is the kind of song that makes you stop, listen, and wonder what’s next. If this is the beginning of the end, Miley Cyrus will ensure it’s beautiful.
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