Liam Hemsworth/RCA RecordsMiley Cyrus is back — and she’s more clothed than ever.
The woman who gave us the twerk-heard-’round-the-world has changed her sound and her image with “Malibu,” her brand-new single and video. The track is a romantic, country-tinged mid-tempo song about how her fiance Liam Hemsworth has changed her life.
“I never came to the beach or stood by the ocean/I never sat by the shore under the sun with my feet in the sand but you brought me here,” she sings. “And I’m happy that you did/’Cause now I’m as free as birds catching the wind.”
The chorus goes, “Here I am/next to you/the sky is more blue in Malibu.”
The video, co-directed by Miley and Diane Martel, shows Miley smiling, holding balloons, and frolicking on the beach, near a waterfall, and in a field with a dog. She’s wearing a series of white outfits, and her hair is alternately loose or in childlike pigtails.
Miley told Billboard that she wrote the song in the back of an Uber while on the way to tape The Voice. Regarding her new image, she explained that it’s part of her plan to get her message across to as many people as possible.
“I like talking to people that don’t agree with me, but I don’t think I can do that in an aggressive way,” she says. “I don’t think those people are going to listen to me when I’m sitting there in nipple pasties, you know?”
Mailbu is the first single from Miley’s upcoming album, which is due later this year. She’ll be performing the track on the 2017 Billboard Music Awards May 21, and on NBC’s Today show May 26.
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