Getting Your Hands on Miles To Go by Miley Cyrus
Miles To Go is the closing track on Miley Cyrus's 2020 album Plastic Hearts. It's a mid-tempo rock-pop song about longing and distance, written with help from Greg Wells and Tyler Johnson. If you're looking to download or stream it, you have a few real options, but there's a catch most people run into. The simplest path is streaming. Add it to Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, or YouTube Music. The album came out November 27, 2020 on RCA Records, so it's been available everywhere for a while now. If you want an actual file you own, your choices narrow down pretty quickly. You can buy the digital album from iTunes or Amazon Music, which gives you an MP3 or AAC file depending on the store. Bandcamp doesn't carry it since it's a major-label release. If you prefer lossless, Tidal and Apple Music both offer the track at their respective hi-res tiers, though Tidal's mastering on this particular album is a little muddy compared to the Apple Music version. I noticed the difference when I was A/B testing during a late-night edit session. The lows get a bit washed out on Tidal here, probably just the mastering choice for the format.
For a proper WAV or FLAC download, your cleanest option is HDtracks or Qobuz. Both sell the album in 16-bit/44.1kHz and up to 24-bit/96kHz. You're looking at about $12 to $15 for the full album, or around $1.30 per track if they let you buy singles. Qobuz sometimes runs promotions where the whole album drops to $8.99.
The Practical Problems People Hit
Here's where it gets annoying. If you're trying to rip this from a streaming service using something like AudFree or NoteBurner, you'll run into DRM protection. The files come back as encrypted caches you can't actually move to a USB drive or play on a standalone player. I spent about forty minutes figuring out why my portable music player wouldn't recognize the files I'd "downloaded," and it turned out they were still locked behind the app's sandbox. The workaround is straightforward: just buy the album from HDtracks instead of trying to bypass the DRM. It takes five minutes and you get clean files that work on everything. Another edge case: the instrumental version isn't officially released anywhere. Some sites claim to have "Miles To Go karaoke" or "acappella" files, but they're usually AI-generated stem splits that sound like garbage. The vocal isolation on this track is particularly tough because the guitar and vocals occupy the same midrange frequency band. I tried using iZotope RX's music split module and got the vocals out, but there was still a significant guitar bleed. It's passable for a home project but nothing usable professionally.
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What to Know Before You Download
Keep in mind that Plastic Hearts as a full album has inconsistent mastering across platforms. The vinyl pressing sounds notably warmer than the digital versions, which is pretty rare these days. If you care about audio quality, the vinyl is genuinely worth seeking out. Discogs has copies ranging from $18 to $40 depending on condition and pressing variant. The song itself runs about 3 minutes and 42 seconds. It features prominent electric guitar work and was one of the first tracks recorded for the album, which is unusual for a closer. Miley wrote the core melody while driving through Malibu, according to studio notes. The title comes from Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," which she referenced in several interviews around the release window. One thing nobody really talks about: the string arrangement on this track was done by a session player who double-tracked the part, meaning if you're sampling it or creating a remix, the stereo width is narrower than you'd expect from a full orchestral recording. I learned this the hard way when my remix came out too narrow on the stems. Just fold the stereo signal or widen it manually in your DAW before bouncing.
Alternatives if You Can't Find What You Need
If you're in a region where streaming or purchasing Plastic Hearts is restricted, your best bet is a friend's library or a physical copy. Digital distribution rights for RCA Records are handled differently in certain territories, and the track can disappear from stores without much warning. I had this happen with a different album last year — one day it was there, the next it was gone. No explanation from the label. If you just want to hear the song before committing to a purchase, YouTube has the official audio uploaded by RCA Records. SoundCloud sometimes has unofficial uploads from fans, but the quality is compressed and unreliable. Spotify's free tier also lets you preview it, though you'll be stuck with ads and shuffle-only playback. The metadata on most download sites is also a mess. Tracks sometimes appear under the wrong album name or with incorrect feat. credits. Before you spend money on a single track download, double-check that it's actually from Plastic Hearts and not a standalone single or demo version. I've seen a few instances where the track duration was shorter because it was a radio edit rather than the full album version.
