American singer/songwriter Miley Cyrus has been actively speaking in interviews like Call Her Daddy and The Joe Rogan Experience about her adventures into new areas of music. She has for years performed with a more traditional pop sound, but in recent months Cyrus has been diving deeper into alternative sounds.
While Miley’s recorder version Midnight Sky still holds a more traditional pop sound, her performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon presents the song in a classic rock style. The performance begins with the original introduction to Midnight Sky but quickly fades into a live beat featuring an emphasis on the drums and keyboard. Miley also performs the song with a much raspier deeper vocal range than we are used to hearing. Cyrus also adds a conversational tone to her voice adding a bit of aggression, but ultimately making the performance more entertaining.
In the same episode of The Tonight Show, Cyrus also performs a cover of Maneater by Daryl Hall & John Oates. The original song begins with and finishes with an upbeat pop style tempo. However, Cyrus begins with a slow acoustic version of the song, and after the first chorus, the tempo completely shifts into upbeat rock placing emphasis on some really great guitar chords. Miley also utilizes her vocal range to hit some insane notes similar to what we would hear from Ozzy Osbourne. This new bold sound we are hearing from Miley is much better fitted to Miley's personality than what we are used to hearing, and her performance is much more authentic and entertaining as a result.
These two performances hint that we will be getting a new sound further away from the pop tradition on her next album. Cyrus also stated in a few interviews that she got permission from Stevie Nicks to sample “Edge of Seventeen” for “Midnight Sky”, so we can definitely expect to hear more rock-centered songs from Cyrus in the future. Miley has also spoken about her new style of utilizing the raspiness of her voice to her advantage so we can expect to see many more live performances enhancing the rock tones in her sound.