Miley Cyrus is ushering in a new era of her music career, signing with Atlantic Records, label home to Bruno Mars, Charli XCX, Cardi B, Kehlani, and many others, Rolling Stone has confirmed. It marks Cyrus’ exit from Columbia Records, the label she joined in 2021, with whom she released a string of hit singles including “Jaded” and “Flowers,” which won Cyrus her first Grammy Award in 2024.
Cyrus has never quite operated the way a typical pop star might be expected to, and this label switch is the latest example. Cyrus started out as a Disney artist, where her character Hannah Montana doubled as a springboard for her own pop stardom. The Disney chapter yielded one of her most iconic songs, 2009’s “Party in the U.S.A.,” whose popularity has seen several resurgences in the decade-plus since its release.
In 2013, Cyrus made the musical equivalent of an about-face, moving to RCA Records and the Sony Music umbrella for a three-album deal that included her statement-making Bangerz and its breakout hit “We Can’t Stop.” The accompanying Bangerz tour featured Cyrus at her unconventional peak. In 2024, Cyrus revealed that she funded most of the creative pieces for the show. “The Bangerz tour was an investment in myself,” she said at the time. “A lot of these ideas were kind of so outlandish that no one really wanted to support me in making these pieces.”
Not to be outdone, Cyrus released the glam-rock Plastic Hearts in 2020 before shifting labels internally to Columbia Records, where her run included 2023’s Endless Summer Vacation, and Something Beautiful in 2025. The global success of “Flowers” could have supported an equally supersized tour, but Cyrus hasn’t headlined her own outing since Bangerz and hasn’t been out on the road much at all since an 11-date festival run in 2021 and 2022. “I wish I had the desire, but I don’t,” she said last year of touring.
So what will this next chapter of Miley sound like? The pop star recently spoke with Wonderland magazine for a special issue she guest-edited in close collaboration with Chief Creative Officer Alastair McKimm. The magazine features members of Cyrus’ community, family, and influences, including Dolly Parton, Noah Cyrus, Kelela, Lykke Li, Sky Ferreira, 070 Shake, Towa Bird, and Suzanne Vega.
“I love feeling aligned with my purpose, my power, and my gifts,” Cyrus said. “I feel closest to something bigger than myself when records flow through me. It’s almost impossible to describe. It’s like waking up from a dream you can still feel in your body even though you can’t fully explain it logically. Songwriting feels like crossing over to another side sometimes.”
Cyrus’ move to Atlantic follows the departure of on the label’s biggest hitmakers, Ed Sheeran, who inked a new deal with Interscope Records earlier this year. Pop stars have been doing plenty of shuffling around between labels, as of late.
