Miley Cyrus has been back at it with the covers, this time taking on Janis Joplin’s mighty 1969 hit ‘Maybe’ at the BottleRock festival.

After taking a year off due to COVID-19, the BottleRock festival returned to California’s Napa Valley last weekend. The lineup was packed with talent, chief among them Miley Cyrus, who delivered a blistering set on Saturday, September 4th.

As per NME, she made sure to include a cover in her setlist, putting her inimitable spin on Janis Joplin’s ‘Maybe’, itself a cover of seminal African-American pop girl group The Chantels, who scored a number 15 hit with the song in 1958.

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Before beginning her cover, Cyrus made a speech centred around embracing change. “This song, to me, relates to the changes that I’ve been experiencing in my life, and the things that I’ve lost have come back in what I never knew I wanted or needed to gain.

Even though sometimes it feels like we have to start from nothing, like with the house fire, and completely rebuild…That fire was almost three years ago and I’m just feeling like I’m starting to find my stability now. And so I want everyone to be patient – nothing worth anything happens overnight, it takes a lot of fucking effort and resilience.”

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Covers and Cyrus have become a match made in heaven recently. The digital and vinyl editions of her seventh studio album, 2020’s Plastic Hearts, contained a pair of thunderous covers of alternative rock classics, ‘Heart of Glass’ by Blondie and ‘Zombie’ by The Cranberries. She’s covered artists as varied as Mazzy Star, Cher, Queen, The Cocteau Twins, and Dolly Parton. She’s also planning a full record of Metallica covers. I blame the mullet look.

For more on this topic, follow the Classic Rock Observer.

Watch Miley Cyrus cover ‘Maybe’:

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Listen to the original version by The Chantels:

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