Miley Cyrus is a queen when it comes to music. Since debuting her incredible vocal range and talents on Hannah Montana in 2006, Miley has proven she can do it all. Whether it's pop, country, rock, or more, she's one of the most versatile singers in the music industry, IMO.
Her latest album Endless Summer Vacation was praised by critics for her ability to "[breeze] through genres with the ease of a well-seasoned tourist," as Rolling Stone put it. And now, more than ever before, Miley is looking toward her future music career, but also embracing her past.
Her latest single "Used to Be Young" allows her to dive into her "controversial past" as an artist who was stuck in the confines of her Disney Channel kid persona and managed to break out, much to the criticism of some people.
Alongside the rollout of this very personal song, Miley launched the "Used to Be Young" series on her TikTok where she's been re-watching moments from her past and reflecting on them.
In several of the first episodes, Miley has talked about how much music impacted her life from an early age, starting with her dad Billy Ray Cyrus having the No. 1 country song the year she was born and how she and her dad have "wildly different" relationships with fame and success.
In Part 6 of the "Used to Be Young" series, Miley opens up about touring — something she's always been part of, whether it was joining Billy Ray on the road when she was a child or touring her own music as she got older — and how she's realized it "isn't healthy" for her.
"That's what people really don't understand about touring, is the show is only 90 minutes, but that's your life," Miley began. "If you're performing at a certain level of intensity and excellence, there should be an equal amount of recovery and rest."
She continued, saying, "There's a level of ego that has to play a part that, I feel, gets overused when I'm on tour, and once that switches on, it's hard to turn it off."
"I think when you're training your ego every single night to be active, that's the hardest switch, for me, to turn off. Having every day the relationship between you and other humans be subject and observer isn't healthy for me because it erases my humanity and my connection."
Miley concluded, saying, "And without my humanity, my connection, I can't be a songwriter, which is my priority."
Over the course of her career, Miley has headlined several tours, starting with the Best of Both Worlds Tour in 2007. Recently, she's elected to play festivals or limited-run tours.
This also isn't the first time Miley has opened up about how difficult touring is. In an interview with British Vogue earlier this year, Miley explained her relationship with touring and how she now prefers to play in more intimate settings, saying, "Like, singing for hundreds of thousands of people isn’t really the thing that I love. There’s no connection. There’s no safety.”
After Miley posted the video, fans flocked to the comments to praise her self-reflection and how incredible it is that she's realized her unhealthy relationship with touring:
Other artists probably feel the same way as Miley. Notably, Grimes chimed in agreeing with her, saying that she doesn't even know how she would approach touring again, and she feels guilty about it, most likely because it's the main chance for an artist to connect with fans:
While Miley doesn't say that touring will never happen again, I do love that she's finding other ways to connect with her fans, like with this TikTok series, as well as her recent Endless Summer Vacation (Backyard Sessions) documentaries.
