Enter the half-joke, half-serious concept of “silver springing” someone. It’s the idea that you and all the love you bring with you are unforgettable — like a ghost that will eternally haunt them.

On Sept. 1, I received an email from the Boston Globe opinion section. I have the bad habit of allowing these emails to build up like dust in my inbox, unread and unnoticed, but the headline — which addressed a nameless subject — caught my attention. It read: “We can’t miss you if you won’t go away.” 

“Plastic Hearts,” released Friday, represents a return to form for Miley Cyrus. For the past decade, she had cycled genres between albums — from the hip-hop stylings on 2013’s “Bangerz”...