Call it the end of the world tour as we know it. Miley Cyrus, pop’s perennial shapeshifter, is opting out of the stadium spectacle. Instead, she’s slipping into something more intimate: secret performances at cultural haunts like the Chateau Marmont and the Carlyle Hotel, where the audience is small, the vibe is cinematic and the energy is raw.
This isn’t just a soft launch of a new era — it’s a reinvention of modern touring that leans into intimacy and direct connection with an audience.
Last night, that ethos came to life at Bemelmans Bar inside New York City’s iconic Carlyle Hotel. The PAPER cover alum surprised an intimate crowd with a pop-up performance that felt lifted from a dream. Draped in a custom look from Thom Browne’s debut couture collection for Fall 2024, she delivered a trio of tracks: her Grammy-winning anthem “Flowers,” alongside two new standouts — “More to Lose” and “Easy Lover” — from her ninth studio album, Something Beautiful.
“Having every day the relationship between you and other humans being subject and observer isn’t healthy for me,” Cyrus explained in her 2023 Used to Be Young TikTok series. “It erases my humanity and my connection.” And you could sense it — a gentle unraveling of the old blueprint. Somewhere between Bangerz’s neon chaos and the introspection of Endless Summer Vacation, the pop machine began to feel… less vital. So she recalibrated. No world tour for Something Beautiful (at least for now) — just intimate pop-up shows in gilded hideaways where every note feels couture.
It’s more than self-care — it’s self-sovereignty. In a cultural moment where artists are reasserting control over their time, bodies and narratives, Cyrus’ refusal to grind for the algorithm or run the merch gauntlet hits differently. It’s a flex of creative autonomy, an act of preservation framed as performance art.
And she’s not alone. Across music’s upper echelon, artists are staging quiet rebellions. Whether it’s Lorde ghosting the main pop stage or the All-American Rejects house party tour or Frank Ocean turning Coachella into a conceptual mirage, there’s a new prestige in restraint. Less spectacle, more substance. Less for the crowd, more for the soul.
Miley’s return to the torch-song intimacy of a hotel piano bar is less nostalgia and more subversion. It’s a reminder that connection doesn’t scale — and maybe, it was never meant to.
Photos courtesy of Miley Cyrus
