• Miley Cyrus' new album, "Bass Persuades," is not selling well compared to her industry peers.
• Although Cyrus' music has struggled to capture the zeitgeist, she has remained firmly A-list.
• Her career more closely resembles that of a legacy act, like Cher or Madonna, thanks to her longevity.

Miley Cyrus is oozing star power.

Sporting an electric guitar and the perfect smoky eye in a recent promo video, she strums in the stance of a rock star, putting one leg up on a step and whipping her hair to the music. The clip is black-and-white, with the backdrop completely blank, suggesting Cyrus — who now goes mononymously by Miley — is magnetic all on her own.

The 33-second video, simply titled "MILEY," was designed to tease her big comeback shows at the Hollywood Bowl in October. It worked: Cyrus' two-night run sold out in minutes after 1.5 million hopefuls joined the presale ticket queue. Clearly, people were itching to see Cyrus in the flesh.

That demand, however, lately hasn't translated to people purchasing her music. Cyrus' new album, "Bass Persuades," sold only 61,000 units in its first week. For comparison, Taylor Swift's "The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore," the deluxe version of a year-old album, sold 173,000 units the very next week. Earlier this year, Ariana Grande's new album "Petal" sold 295,000 units in the same timeframe. Aside from Cyrus' titular lead single, which peaked at No. 35, only one more song from "Bass Persuades" cracked the Billboard Hot 100: "Let's Get Married" sneaked in at No. 99.

While Cyrus did sell enough to secure a No. 1 chart debut in a non-competitive release week, "Bass Persuades" also earned a less-flattering distinction when it plummeted to No. 157 on the Billboard 200 the following week: the biggest single-week drop for an album ever recorded.

Yet, somehow, when Cyrus appeared onstage at the Hollywood Bowl, numbers and technicalities melted away. Clad in understated, monochromatic looks with no backup dancers or flashy set pieces to speak of, she proved that her name alone is still a powerful draw.

In the last decade or so, Cyrus has become a celebrity whose creative output is tangential to her status, like a vestigial organ she's evolved to no longer need. Sure, Cyrus still makes and releases music, but she rarely engages with the typical cycle of promotion and performance. She hasn't staged an arena tour since 2014, and, with the sole exception of her Grammy-winning song "Flowers," her music over the past decade has struggled to capture the zeitgeist. (Perhaps if her 2020 rock opus "Plastic Hearts" hadn't been released during the pandemic, it could've broken that curse, but I digress.)

But as her sold-out Hollywood Bowl stint proves, Cyrus has a legion of supporters at her fingertips, whether her recent music is resonating or not. Even when Cyrus drew criticism for not singing every word of some of her songs — especially nostalgic hits like "Party in the USA," "The Climb," "We Can't Stop," and "Wrecking Ball" — the backlash underlined just how little she needs to do to keep her A-list position secure.

"I've learned now through the queue that my calculations are correct and people will come to me," she previously told Apple Music's Zane Lowe of the mini-residency. "I don't need to drive to you."

Miley Cyrus is a pop diva without the pop

Even as Cyrus' music since her last No. 1 album, 2013's "Bangerz," has failed to achieve widespread relevance and popularity, as a name, she remains as relevant and popular as ever.

Part of this is thanks to her longevity. Cyrus has been famous since she was the tween star of "Hannah Montana," a role that led to her being named the youngest-ever Disney Legend in 2024. Earlier this year, Cyrus celebrated the show's 20th anniversary with a Disney+ special, in which Chappell Roan told her, "You literally walked so I could run."

Cyrus and her blonde alter ego have also been cited as major influences by artists like Sabrina Carpenter and this year's breakout star Adéla, whose viral hits like "Ain't in LA" and "Nicole Kidman" have drawn comparisons to "Bangerz."

"Watching 'Hannah Montana' was my introduction to pop stardom," Adéla told Dazed.

As members of pop's new guard look to Cyrus' early work for inspiration, Cyrus remains positioned as a tastemaker and a reference point. The success of her newer albums is a secondary concern.

In recent years, Cyrus has deliberately been out of touch — both figuratively, from trends, and literally, from her audience. Despite fans clamoring for more live performances, Cyrus has declined to satisfy the demand, telling British Vogue that she doesn't want to live her life for "anyone else's pleasure or fulfillment." Cyrus has also been open about her "unhealthy" relationship to touring; she experienced job burnout at a young age and never quite recovered. As a result, she seems wholly unconcerned with chart positions or sales figures. She is more interested in building a legacy that will endure than in instant gratification.

"My life is so beautiful. It never feels like I'm swimming upstream anymore," Cyrus told Variety in March. "I like the way people see me. And when I first left 'Hannah' and put out 'Bangerz,' I did not feel that way." 

Cyrus is acting like a legacy artist, not a modern star

Videos from the Hollywood Bowl show the crowd singing every word to Cyrus' decade-old favorites. For newer songs like "Orbit" and "Something Beautiful," Cyrus did most of the singing herself.

The gap between her past and present impact has never been more glaring. Cyrus may not have liked her public image as a teenager and young adult, but fans were gratified — and future phenoms were taking notes.

At 33, Cyrus has become a premature legacy act. The way she's navigating her career today resembles that of long-established divas like Cher, who remains a cultural touchstone but hasn't scored a hit in decades, or Madonna, whose most recent album is a callback to her earlier career heights. "Confessions II," the sequel to 2005's dance-pop blockbuster "Confessions on a Dance Floor," has thus far failed to spawn a top-40 hit. Still, Madonna's devoted fan base is ready to swarm a concert venue at a moment's notice.

Leaning on legacy and nostalgia is not necessarily a sign of failure. In fact, for Cyrus, it may be the goal.

With "Bass Persuades," her 10th studio album, Cyrus has dropped her surname in marketing materials. As her dad pointed out, this is a time-honored tradition in the music industry.

"I told @miley yesterday I felt good about her going with her first name," Billy Ray Cyrus wrote on X. "I mentioned Dolly and Cher. Thinkin about it more and more … Elvis .. Prince …and so on. It's a natural progression for an iconic superstar legend."

Like her forebears, Miley is in a league of her own — neither in the lower nor upper echelons of the music industry, but a secret third space, detached from standard markers of success.

In the end, a mononym is less a branding choice than a vote of confidence: the audience already knows exactly who you are.

Ha cumplido ya 74 años y ha encontrado la paz en su nueva casa de Carolina del Sur, después de haber vivido en Nueva Orleans durante décadas, y también tras haber perdido su casa en los incendios de California del año pasado. John Goodman es uno de los grandes actores de la meca del cine, y como gran estrella que es, tiene también su cara B: ha vivido los éxitos que le han proporcionado sus más de 90 películas, pero también ha bajado a los infiernos que llegaron en forma de alcoholismo, y se tradujeron después en una obesidad y en trastornos alimenticios graves que también tuvo que aprender a controlar.

Ahora, el protagonista de "Los Picapiedra" (Pedro, para más señas) o "El Gran Lebowski" confiesa en una íntima entrevista a The New Yorker que pasó décadas de su vida enganchado al consumo de alcohol, llegando incluso a beber en el trabajo de forma incontrolada. En paralelo a su último gran éxito, "Digger" de Alejandro González Iñárritu, que protagoniza junto con Tom Cruise, el actor estadounidense ha encontrado el momento oportuno para sincerarse sobre los momentos más oscuros de su vida, ya superados.

Suficiente dinero como para empezar a beber, y muchos miedos

Goodman explica que su bajada a los infiernos comenzó en 1978, cuando había ganado dinero haciendo publicidad, y se lo gastaba en las barras de los bares como un lobo solitario. "Empecé a ir a bares de Broadway, simplemente me sentaba en un taburete y bebía". Hasta que aquello se convirtió en una costumbre, según confiesa. Y una cosa, le llevó a otra: "Empecé a engordar a un ritmo alarmante. Comencé a ir a un lugar llamado Café Central, y el camarero era un tipo muy carismático llamado Bruce Willis. El lugar estaba lleno de actores, y yo lo convertí en mi hogar. Allí me acostumbré a beber como norma".

Debido a su ganancia de peso, el actor asegura que "era el gordo que se caía mucho. Después de un musical de Broadway conseguí tres buenas películas seguidas". Estaba instalado en el éxito, pero sus miedos crecían, la fama le agobiaba, y él solo quería "alejarse del estrés, lo que acrecentó el problema de estar sumido en mi propia miseria con el alcohol. Mi personalidad había cambiado, bebía por diversión y comía en exceso porque eso me reconfortaba. Solo intentaba llenar el vacío".

Según él mismo explica, se había convertido en un "alcohólico depresivo de 38 años. Quizá me creía demasiado importante". Después de acudir a terapia, recuerda que llegó un punto de inflexión: "Lo malo de la gratificación inmediata es que no importa lo que pase después, lo que siempre me llevaba a resacas más fuertes, a padecer temblores, y a tener que beber para quitármelos". Por fin, en 2007, con 55 años, dejó de beber. "Era un niño grande, inmaduro. Perdía 27 kilos en verano y luego recuperaba eso y más. Después de dejar de beber comía compulsivamente". Para poner freno a esa espiral autodestructiva, además de acudir a terapia, John Goodman cuenta que se operó del estómago y consiguió alcanzar el peso de hoy en día.