Miley Cyrus has gone out of her way to distance herself from teen idol Hannah Montana over the years, but when adult Miley brought back her early hit “The Climb,” it was an emotional moment! Fourteen million fans loved the nostalgic hit of hearing the Hannah Montana favorite on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. But what they loved even more was seeing how much Miley had grown and matured as an artist.
Miley brought more gravitas to her vocals here compared to the original and brought a bit more of a bittersweet vibe to the delivery. You can really feel her emotions coming through in this version. It’s clear what she wanted to say with this, as an adult artist coming back to her teenage hit. The way she delivers the vocal makes it total goosebumps territory. The Music Man has to say Miley dropped a masterclass here, and we can’t get enough!
A number of viewers said hearing “The Climb” live again brought back so many childhood memories. Other fans added comments such as “Damn, her vocal control has improved so much since she first recorded this song” and “I really liked how she changed up the arrangement. It’s much more somber and really beautiful, but still true to the original sound of the song.”
Miley always delivers the goods when she performs “The Climb.” She gave another memorable rendition of the song on The Howard Stern Show in 2017. Even though she’s performed it many times over the years, somehow Miley manages to make each performance unique and brings powerful emotions with her vocals each time. It’s a song that shows Miley is the real deal as a live vocalist.
“The Climb” was written by Jessi Alexander and Jon Mabe, while John Shanks handled production. Miley recorded the song for her 2009 blockbuster Hannah Montana: The Movie. The Music Man readers may recall that Miley scored a major international hit with “The Climb,” with the song hitting numbers 4 and 11 in the US and UK respectively. It also placed in the top five in Canada, Australia, and Norway. The ballad, which was Miley’s sixth single release, helped establish her megastar status. This is because it hit a massive seven-times Platinum in the US, becoming by far her biggest hit at that point in her career. “The Climb” has remained a fan-favorite Miley ballad over the years. It is currently her sixth-most popular song on Spotify, with 868 million streams.