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Miley Cyrus Inspired by Motown for Upcoming Album

'I listened to a lot of Irma Thomas and tried to get that old soul into it'

September 24, 2012 12:30 PM ET
Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus
Steven Lawton/Getty Images

Miley Cyrus was on hand in Las Vegas over the weekend for iHeart Radio, as a presenter. Maybe next year she'll be back as a performer: after a two-year break from music, the singer is ready for a return.

"I'm thinking hopefully November for a single," she tells Rolling Stone. "It's just whenever we feel we've got that [song] we feel really confident in being the first single. I've got songs right now I feel like could potentially be singles, [but] it's been two years that I haven't said anything, and I want that to be the right thing we say."

She's getting some help in finding that statement from producers and writers. "I worked with Pharrell on a bunch of things, and Pop & Oak, and I've just been writing, mostly, focusing on what I want to say, rather than turning it into a label later and not knowing what my sound is going to be."

Much of the music was influenced by the time she spent in New Orleans with fiancé Liam Hemsworth. "My boyfriend was filming a movie in New Orleans, so I got into the older Motown Sound vibe, which is really fun to mix with this country pop sound. I listened to a lot of Irma Thomas and tried to get that old soul into it, too," she says. "When you're making a record you never think of what weird direction you're going to go, but that was something that popped up in a few of the sessions we've been working on, and it's been really fun."

While Cyrus is conscious of focusing the first single, she's more concerned with the overall album. "Now, being a little more independent, it's not like, 'What's going to be the single? Make sure you write the single first,'" she says. "I now am thinking about the full record rather than just that one hit. It's really about the overall quality of the record."

Earlier this year she experimented with dubstep, teaming with Borgore on his "Decisions."

The night before she made her way to Vegas, they filmed a video for the track. "That shit was crazy," Cyrus says. "He walked into his hotel room, and it was people in the weirdest clothes you've ever seen. My fiancé was dressed as a unicorn – we make out in the video, which is very funny. It's just the most random group. We walk in and we're like, 'This feels like a party,' so it's dope."

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