Single Review: Bass Persuades by Miley Cyrus

Miley Cyrus said, ‘the kids don’t want to dance’ but they have no choice but to run to the dancefloor after the release of her latest single ‘Bass Persuades.’ 

Cyrus, now going by the mononym Miley, teased her latest project with a cryptic black and white Instagram post and revealed her tenth studio album would be called ‘Bass Persuades.’ She said that “Music takes hold of all of us. We feel it, sing it, sometimes dance to it, let it out and carry on” and this sentiment of losing yourself in the beat is reflected in her new electro-dance pop single. 

The announcement of this latest era follows a busy year for the pop star celebrating the 20^th anniversary of the hit Disney Channel show Hannah Montana where Miley first found her fame. Miley is famous for her dramatic reinventions- from swinging on a wrecking ball on Bangerz to her smash hit heartbreak anthem ‘Flowers’ which earned her Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance at the 2024 Grammys. 

Miley’s last full-length project Something Beautiful, released in June 2025, was met with muted response and instead of chart success was focused on genre experimentation and executing an ambitious if confused concept album. ‘Bass Persuades’ suggests that Miley is toning down some of the more experimental, rock-inspired elements of Something Beautiful. Instead, harnessing some of the dance-pop energy from the latter half of that project to channel her inner Madonna and Britney Spears and comment on the state of pop culture in 2026. 

The influence of Britney’s 2007 album Blackout is clear from the get-go as Miley opens the track with a distorted ‘let’s go’, reminiscent of Spears’ drawl of ‘It’s Britney, bitch’ on ‘Gimme More.’ 

The first verse’s funk-pop bassline immediately creates the atmosphere of a dark, underground club and Miley cuts through with a low, raspy tone, directly addressing the people standing in the corner unwilling to dance, asking if ‘we ain’t here to move/ why are we here?’ The pre-chorus speeds up the 80s, synth-pop inspired beat and Miley recalls the power of music, claiming the music will ensure that people flood to the dancefloor. 

The chorus drops into a gritty, dark-pop rhythm which suggests influences of Lady Gaga’s The Fame Monster and Mayhem as Miley remarks ‘the kids don’t wanna dance/ we can’t stay like this forever’. Miley calls out young people who are too afraid to express themselves and let go, beckoning them back to party. 

The singer reminisces about the analogue days of the 2000s, telling younger listeners to ditch their phones and tells them of the age of MTV and cinema. One of my favourite parts of the song is the line ‘new fit is a monster/ love it so much go and hang it on a poster’, the dry, tongue-in-cheek delivery summing up the rejection of the social media age and a return to the Y2K aesthetic. The bridge builds the disco, funk soundscape to a climax as Miley tempts listeners to escape into an exciting world of dance and pleasure before closing with another energetic rendition of the chorus. 

Miley has delivered an up-tempo, vibrant lead single for ‘Bass Persuades’ which returns the singer into a more commercial, crowd-pleasing space. The influences of Madonna, Britney and Lady Gaga are strong, sometimes overpoweringly so; I hope Miley’s latest iteration avoids too much imitation in the full-length project. This bass has persuaded me so I am going to go and dance. 

Written by, Eve Hutchinson