Miley Cyrus Releases “Younger Now” Music Video

Miley Cyrus is younger now — not because of some twisted Benjamin Button-esque deal she made, but because her upcoming album title says so. And in the brand new music video for the album’s title track, Cyrus explains exactly what it means to age backwards.

The video, which debuted at midnight on Thursday, begins with the singer-actress, clad in a chaste white nightgown, waking up in a twin bed while singing about a more metaphorical type of awakening. It’s a serene image, similar to that of the idyllic beach romp shown in Cyrus’ last video, for “Malibu,” but it’s the only one of its kind in the “Younger Now” clip. Once she’s awake, she’s free to embrace her newfound youth: She channels Elvis in a red silk romper and elaborate pompadour, sports a brown button-down shirt and yellow tie to dance with a puppet, and wears a bedazzled denim jumpsuit while tiny children dressed as mimes run amok. She also rides a huge “Younger Now” float in a parade, rides what looks to be a Gravitron amusement park ride without a seatbelt and leads a group of men and women in an organized dance — à la her 2009 line dance entitled the “Hoedown Throwdown” — at what looks like a 1950s sock hop. In between these striking scenes are videos of Cyrus falling from the sky and an old woman expertly twirling around a pole as “No one stays the same” is printed across the screen.

Along with the video, Cyrus also released the cover art and track list for her Younger Now album, which will be available in full on September 29 and is already available for preorder. The cover image shows a pompadour-topped Cyrus from the back — the better to see her bedazzled “Younger Now”-emblazoned leather jacket and matching pants — standing in front of a rainbow-colored background that calls to mind album covers from the 1960s. Other tracks on the album include longing titles like “Week Without You,” “Miss You So Much” and “I Would Die For You,” as well as a song called “Rainbowland” that features Cyrus’s godmother, Dolly Parton.

The 24-year-old has already released “Malibu” and “Inspired” from her latest album, which is the follow-up to 2013’s Bangerz and 2015’s Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz, an experimental album that confused critics and was released for free on Soundcloud. Younger Now, so far, appears to be a more folk- and country-tinged divergence from Cyrus’s previous work, with the three singles so far all eschewing current pop music trends and showcasing her return to her small-town, pre-grinding-on-Robin-Thicke roots.

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