Miley Cyrus hits back at claims her low voice “sounds like a man”
“My whole life, whether in vocal training or just continuing to hone my craft, it’s always been about, ‘Why do you sound like a man?’”
Miley Cyrus has responded to claims that she sings in a low voice, making her “sound like a man”.
Speaking to Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich in a recent piece for Interview Magazine, the pop singer spoke about being criticised for not being able to hit higher notes in her songs.
Discussing her cover of Metallica’s track ‘Nothing Else Matters’ from the tribute album, and first covered in her 2019 Glastonbury set, the ‘Plastic Hearts’ singer spoke about singing in a lower voice for the track.
“I even went down to some of those octaves, because singing those super-low lead vocals is so satisfying,” she said.
“My whole life, whether in vocal training or just continuing to hone my craft, it’s always been about, ‘Why do you sound like a man? Where’s your fucking falsetto, bitch? Why can’t you sing the high octave of ‘Party in the U.S.A.’ anymore?’ In this song, I get to sing in that low register, and I get to live in that authentic, genuine sound.”
She continued: “My voice is how I represent myself. It’s how I express myself.” She added that she was “honoured” by the fact that she didn’t have to sing the song “in the way females are ‘supposed’ to sing”.
Cyrus also spoke about what it meant to her to be able to cover ‘Nothing Else Matters’. “It feels like it was written for me, and it was something that I was able to make my own. And now, my fans have that connection to it as well,” she said.
When the singer appeared on the ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ podcast in September 2020, she spoke about how her singing abilities changed after her Malibu home with ex husband Liam Hemsworth was destroyed in the 2018 California wildfires.
“I honestly feel like my voice changed a lot after the fire,” she said. “I could sing better after the fire in some way, it’s almost like it unleashed something, maybe I earned it, because I noticed that my voice got better as I had trauma.”
She also spoke about how vocal surgery allowed her to “understand my instrument more”.
“I don’t smoke anymore and I’m sober,” she added. “The vocal surgery kind of did it for me, because I just learned so much about the effects.”