A decade and a half after she started making records — first as her Disney Channel alter ego, Hannah Montana, then as herself (or maybe "herself") — Miley Cyrus on her eighth studio album sounds like a woman looking back at everywhere she's been, both musically and emotionally, and assessing where all her travels have put her now, newly divorced and having just entered her 30s.
The LP is called "Endless Summer Vacation," which gets at the coolly euphoric country-disco vibe of a song like "Flowers," the smash lead single that spent six weeks atop Billboard's Hot 100 on its way to racking up more than a billion streams. But the true subject of these dozen tunes (plus a bonus-track demo of "Flowers") is the hard work of introspection and the even harder work of self-reliance.
"I love when you hold me / But loving you is never enough," she sings in "Wildcard," the sting of acceptance still fresh in her voice, "Don't wait for me / 'Cause forever may never come."
