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Miley Cyrus Channeled Her Inner Stevie Nicks During Her Kick-Ass "Edge of Midnight" Set
Miley Cyrus got Stevie Nicks' permission for (and help with) her "Edge of Seventeen"-"Midnight Sky" medley.
Having dipped her hand in country, rock, hip-hop, and pop, Miley Cyrus has covered a wide range of genres in her multi-decade career.
Still, no one could forget her Plastics Hearts glam-rock era, during which she graced fans with the spellbinding single "Edge of Midnight" — her rocking mash-up of Stevie Nicks' "Edge of Seventeen" with her own 2020 single "Midnight Sky."
The song is a testament to the former Coach of The Voice's fondness for the '80s icons who came before her, making her a bona fide cover queen who has flexed her chameleonic talent on several reimagined classics, "Edge of Midnight" included.
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But it all began with Cyrus calling the Fleetwood Mac front woman for a favor, and the rest is history.
Cyrus was excited to give listeners a taste of her energizing "Edge of Midnight" remix in a December 2020 episode of The Howard Stern Show, delivering a bewitching set from beginning to end.
Miley Cyrus' "Edge of Midnight" on Howard Stern
Cyrus' performance of "Edge of Midnight" on Howard Stern was a riveting taste of everything her Plastic Hearts album represented. She arrived wearing dramatic eye shadow and her '80s rock-inspired merch, excited to perform the Stevie Nicks-inspired remix of her single "Midnight Sky."
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When the first notes of "Edge of Midnight" began, Cyrus mesmerized listeners with her haunting vocals. Nicks and Cyrus share a trademark rasp to their voice, providing the perfect synergy between the two tracks. Through each passing verse, the melody of "Edge of Seventeen" guided Cyrus' passionate delivery as she took listeners on a whirlwind journey through the emotional ballad.
Cyrus' reimagining of the two tracks together allowed her to inject raw energy and grit into the soulful set, perfectly capturing the free-loving spirit of both "Midnight Sky" and "Edge of Seventeen." As she belted the iconic line "just like a white-winged dove," Cyrus clearly had a palpable reverence for the 1981 original, but infused the performance with her distinct style, creating a seamless blend that transformed the two power ballads into a reimagined masterpiece.
What to know about "Edge of Midnight"
Released in 2020, "Edge of Midnight" is a mashup of Stevie Nicks' 1981 Bella Donna hit "Edge of Seventeen" and Miley Cyrus' "Midnight Sky." The single appears on the deluxe versions of Cyrus' seventh studio album, Plastic Hearts. Inspired by Nicks as a longtime idol, Cyrus initially reached out to the Fleetwood Mac icon to sample "Edge of Seventeen" within the original melody of "Midnight Sky," a request Nicks was happy to oblige.
Before kicking off her Howard Stern performance, Cyrus shed some light on the production process of "Edge of Midnight."
"I had sampled 'Edge of Seventeen' and reached out to Stevie and asked her to bless it, and she said, 'You can borrow from me anytime,'" Cyrus recalled to Stern. "And so, I'm like, 'Sh*t, if you're feeling that way, can I just borrow, like, you and your time?' And it was such a trip because I'm so used to singing Stevie Nicks lyrics, and when she started singing [my lyrics], she said, 'I gotta say that part, it will be very controversial...'"
Cyrus explained that she was blown away by watching her lifelong idol explore the song's storytelling after decades of adoring Nicks' discography. "That was one of the trippier experiences of my life — having my words come out of Stevie Nicks' mouth — because her words have come out of mine a billion times."
Plastic Hearts was created as a love letter to '80s icons like Nicks, Joan Jett, and Debbie Harry, and featured several live covers including Blondie's "Heart of Glass" and The Cranberries' "Zombie." Cyrus' team-up with Nicks, however, remains a dazzling cross-generational highlight. The free-spirited songstresses wanted to do the passion project justice, and during the track's production, Nicks and Cyrus discovered they had a lot in common.
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"I didn't really know Miley until we went into the 'Edge of Midnight,' 'Edge of Seventeen' thing. And then, we had so many phone conversations," Nicks recalled in an interview on The Zane Lowe Interview Series podcast. "And we're both so loud and so talkative that we just went a million miles during our first phone conversation. And we just hit it off."
Their chemistry led Nicks to join Cyrus in the studio to lend her own vocals on the rocking remix. In the deluxe recording, Cyrus and Nicks take turns singing each other's iconic verses, breathing new life into each song and transforming it into an infectious remix. The release was a smash obsession for fans of Cyrus and Nicks alike.
Watch the Season 26 premiere of The Voice on Monday, September 23, at 8/7c on NBC and the next day on Peacock.
