Miley Cyrus has released the music video for her latest single, “Prisoner,” featuring Dua Lipa. The song will be on her upcoming album, Plastic Hearts, which is set to be released on Nov. 27.
Cyrus and Alana O’Herlihy directed the 80’s rock-inspired music video, which opens with Cyrus’ lips in Rocky Horror Picture Show fashion singing along to the lyrics while her and Lipa drive recklessly in a tour bus. They quickly hand the wheel off and head to the back of the bus for a small party before appearing in a club to perform the song.
The end of the video flashes the message “In loving memory of all my exes, eat shit,” before showing a clip of drag legend Divine in the 1974 film “Female Trouble.” In the clip, Divine says “I’m a free woman now and my life is just ready to begin.”
“Prisoner” is an ’80s inspired hit, closely following her previous single, Midnight Sky, which she recently remixed with Stevie Nicks as “Edge of Midnight (Midnight Sky Remix),” combining it with Nicks’ 1981 classic “Edge of Seventeen” from her album Bella Donna. The chorus of “Prisoner” is reminiscent of Olivia Newton John’s 1981 hit “Physical.” Lipa also has a song with the same name that was inspired by Newton John’s hit. “Prisoner” seems to be about feeling stuck in a relationship, as Cyrus sings lines such as “You keep making it harder to stay / But I still can’t run away / I gotta know why can’t you, why can’t you just let me go?”
Cyrus announced Plastic Hearts in October. Other artists that will be featured on the upcoming album include Billy Idol and Joan Jett. It will be Cyrus’ seventh studio album, her first since 2017’s Younger Now. She said in October that she’s also working on a Metallica cover album.
In early November, shortly after it was announced that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, Cyrus’ 2009 hit “Party in the USA” shot to No. 36 on the iTunes charts. Cyrus recently covered The Cranberries’ “Zombie” at the Whisky a Go Go venue in Los Angeles for the Save Our Stages festival, which was created to raise funds for the National Independent Venue Association’s need-based grant program to provide relief to members of the independent music, comedy, and arts community. She also recently covered The Beatles’ “Help!” at an empty Rose Bowl Stadium and Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” for Saturday Night Live.
Earlier this month, Lipa and Angèle released the music video for their bilingual dance-pop song “Fever,” filmed in an East London takeaway restaurant. In October, Lipa released the official music video for her single “Levitating” featuring Charlotte, North Carolina-based rapper, DaBaby. She released her sophomore album Future Nostalgia in March, which mxdwn called “an example of well-balanced pop with songs that make you want to dance and songs that make you want to feel.” In August, she released a remix album of Future Nostalgia with The Blessed Madonna.