Miley Cyrus’ “We Can’t Stop” Joins YouTube’s Billion-View Club: Why This 2013 Smash Still Hits

Miley Cyrus’ Wild House Party Video For ‘We Can’t Stop’ Hits One Billion Views on YouTube

Twelve years after it detonated across pop culture, Miley Cyrus’ “We Can’t Stop” has crossed one billion views on YouTube—an eye-popping milestone that says as much about the song’s forever-viral DNA as it does about Miley’s staying power. The news arrived August 13, 2025, marking a full-circle moment for an era that redefined her image and rewired the pop conversation.

A New Entry in Miley’s Billion-View Club

With “We Can’t Stop” making the leap, Miley now counts five billion-view videos as a lead or featured artist. Alongside “Wrecking Ball,” “Party in the U.S.A.,” “Flowers,” and the Mike WiLL Made-It posse cut “23,” the house-party anthem completes a neat snapshot of Miley’s range—from post-teenage pop star to full-on culture driver and, most recently, Grammy-winning adult-contemporary powerhouse. (As of this week, public counters show each of those clips clearing the mark.

Remember the First Shockwave?

When “We Can’t Stop” dropped, the headlines weren’t subtle. Released as the lead single from Bangerz on June 3, 2013, and followed by a Diane Martel-directed video on June 19, the track became an instant talking point—and a data story. The clip notched what was then the most views in a Vevo 24-hour window (10.7M) and sped to 100M in just 37 days, a record that stood until “Wrecking Ball” smashed through later that year. The recipe was precise: sticky mid-tempo groove, quotable rebellion, surrealist visuals, and a star visibly shedding an old skin.

The Chart Story That Got Away (Barely)

On the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, “We Can’t Stop” peaked at No. 2, famously stonewalled at the summit by Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines.” In the U.K. and New Zealand, it went all the way to No. 1, underscoring how the single translated across markets despite (or maybe because of) its provocative image pivot. Those placements, plus heavy rotation on radio and streaming, helped tilt the runway for Bangerz to become a commercial turning point.

Why This Video Endures

1) Visuals that feel like memes before memes. Long before TikTok codified “sound + moment = trend,” the “We Can’t Stop” video was engineered for shareability: loaf-mountains, surreal cuts, a glitched-out digital face, and a party that looks equal parts DIY and dystopia. Every freeze-frame is a conversation starter; every odd prop feels like a dare to screenshot.

2) A hook that doesn’t age. The chanty, almost spoken cadence of the verses, the chant-back chorus, and those sly lyrical buttons (“Only God can judge ya”) make it perfect for collective listening. The groove is minimal but elastic—exactly the kind of beat that keeps resurfacing in playlists a decade later.

3) The myth of the image change. Pop is built on transformation narratives, and 2013 was Miley’s thesis on reinvention. “We Can’t Stop” planted the flag, “Wrecking Ball” defended the territory, and the Bangerz cycle wrote the first draft of the legacy. Seen from 2025, the video isn’t just a party; it’s a document of risk, agency, and a young artist calling her own creative shots.

From Controversy to Canon

At the time, think pieces zeroed in on shock value. But history tends to sand down the noise and leave the shape. In hindsight, the clip’s staying power comes from intent and craft: Martel’s kinetic sense of scene, the playful menace of the props, and Miley’s camera-magnet presence that toggles between smirk and snarl. The “raucous house party” framing let her lampoon and celebrate pop excess at once—something subsequent visuals across the 2010s would imitate, but rarely with this much confidence.

It also captured a crucial internet aesthetic: lo-fi textures meeting glossy color pops, jump cuts that feel like swipes, and a sense that the viewer is always in on the joke. That visual grammar now dominates short-form video; in 2013 it felt like a message from the near future.

The Sonic Blueprint

Musically, “We Can’t Stop” was a pivot toward in-the-pocket, bass-forward pop-R&B. The tempo sits low enough to feel rebellious in summer-radio rotation, the vocal lines lean conversational, and the chorus lands like a mission statement. In an era defined by maximalist EDM drops, the restraint was radical—and it still sounds fresh. That choice helped the track age better than many of its hyper-compressed peers, making the recent view-count surge feel less like nostalgia and more like recognition.

Billion Views in 2025: What It Signals

Hitting a billion now is more than a retro victory lap; it maps how audiences re-engage with catalog in the streaming age:

Algorithmic rediscovery. New spikes in one Miley era often lift the rest. When “Flowers” exploded in 2023, it ushered a wave of long-tail curiosity, pulling younger listeners back to the Bangerz chapter and older fans into rewatch mode. Billion-view thresholds increasingly arrive as ripples, not isolated waves.
Short-form culture as gateway. Snippets from the video—dance loops, reaction clips, aesthetic edits—have a second life on TikTok and Reels, funneling fresh views to the original upload.
Digital canonization. Once a clip crosses nine digits, it accrues a “classic” sheen online, surfacing in YouTube recommendations and fan-curated mixes with outsized frequency.

The Bangerz Legacy, Reframed

Bangerz is now widely acknowledged as a hinge in Miley’s career—the point where she broke from the last shadows of her teen-idol past and organized her adult artistry around bold visual statements and muscular pop songwriting. The longevity of “We Can’t Stop” (and the continued relevance of its iconography) helps explain why that era reads as essential rather than merely controversial. It wasn’t just shock; it was strategy, taste, and timing.

What New Fans Notice First

If you’re circling back to the video in 2025, a few details jump out:

The camera loves the contradictions. Tough and tender, chaotic and controlled—Miley’s performance threads a line between satire and sincerity that keeps the clip rewatchable.
Design with Easter eggs. From prop choices to cameos, the mise-en-scène invites pause-and-zoom behavior that rewards repeat views.
The chorus is a thesis. It’s not just a party song; it’s a statement about autonomy. In 2025, those lines read like early drafts of the resilient, boundary-setting stance she’d embody on later hits.

What It Means for Miley’s Visual Era Going Forward

Crossing the billion-view mark right now dovetails with a broader re-centering of Miley’s visual storytelling—Flowers and its cinematic follow-ups reasserted her as one of the medium’s most reliable narrators. “We Can’t Stop” hitting the milestone essentially certifies the entire arc: the transformation wasn’t a phase; it was a foundation. Expect future videos to keep mining that balance—smart, striking concepts that feel risky but inevitable.

Practical Takeaways for Music and Media Nerds

Catalogs are alive. For artists with deep repertoires, billion-view milestones will increasingly arrive years (or decades) after release, fueled by cross-platform currents and anniversary cycles. “We Can’t Stop” is a textbook case study.
Visual identity compounds. Every era’s look teaches audiences how to see the artist. Bridging 2013’s shock art to 2025’s sleek confidence, Miley’s videos prove that imagery, as much as melody, builds cultural memory.
Data needs context. A billion isn’t just a number; it’s the sum of creative choice, cultural timing, and internet behavior. Here, it certifies a pop experiment that worked—and kept working.

Final Word

“We Can’t Stop” reaching a billion views feels inevitable in hindsight, but that inevitability was earned. The song and video captured a precise inflection point—when a former teen star seized her authorship and made the world watch. Twelve years later, we’re still watching, singing along, and arguing about it… which is exactly the kind of pop legacy most artists dream about. Here’s to the house party that never really ended.

Key facts at a glance:
• Milestone announced: Aug. 13, 2025 • Director: Diane Martel • Video premiere: June 19, 2013 • Hot 100 peak: No. 2 (blocked by “Blurred Lines”) • Other Miley videos ≥1B: “Wrecking Ball,” “Party in the U.S.A.,” “Flowers,” “23.”