Miley Cyrus Drops Collaborative Album With the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne

The 2015 MTV VMAs were a spectacle, as they are wont to be. And last night’s (Aug. 30) spectacle is sure to fuel this week’s fair share of thinkpieces, and that’s in large part thanks to the award show’s host and resident shock artist Miley Cyrus, who ended the whole shindig by dropping a new collaborative album with the Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne.

Cyrus concluded the evening with a performance of a new song, “Dooo It!”, backed by Coyne and a troupe of drag queens (see above). The song appears as the lead-off track of Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz, which was released for free immediately following the VMAs. You can stream the album in full and watch the newly minted music video for "Dooo It!" at the bottom of the page.

In addition to Coyne, who has more than a few songwriting credits on the album, the 23-track Dead Petz also features contributions from Ariel Pink ("Tiger Dreams"), Phantogram’s Sarah Barthel ("Milky Milky Milk," "Slab of Butter (Scorpion)"), Big Sean ("Tangerine") and more. The album, which was self-released and completely funded by Cyrus, follows the singer's 2013 full-length, Bangerz.

Cyrus spoke to the New York Times about the new album, saying it was largely inspired by the passing of her dog, Floyd, whose spirit she believes now resides in Coyne:

[I]t wasn’t until she returned home [following her 2014 hospitalization] to pursue natural healing that things got “really trippy,” she said. “This is going to sound crazy,” but a Chinese healer “sent me into a state where my dog was lifted out of my lungs and placed on my shoulder,” she explained. “I pet my dog for like three hours,” and after finally telling Floyd she had to “let go and put his energy out,” Ms. Cyrus continued, “I really think, in a way, his energy went into Wayne’s energy. What he was to me, Wayne has become.”

“He’s everything in the world — you can’t even define us,” Cyrus added. “I am 100 percent in love with Wayne, and Wayne is in love with me, but it’s nothing sexual in any way. That would be the grossest.”

Likewise, Coyne said, “Her life, to her, is art. If she wants to look this way and say these things, she does it.”