Claim: Miley Cyrus has at least five singles.

`` Wrecking Ball '' is a song recorded by American singer Miley Cyrus for her fourth studio album Bangerz -LRB- 2013 -RRB- . It was released on August 25 , 2013 , by RCA Records as the album 's second single . The song was written by MoZella , Stephan Moccio , Sacha Skarbek , Kiyanu Kim , Lukasz Gottwald , and Henry Russell Walter ; production was helmed by the last two . `` Wrecking Ball '' is a pop ballad which lyrically discusses the deterioration of a relationship .   `` Wrecking Ball '' debuted on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 at number 50 , and later became Cyrus ' first number-one single in the United States after the release of its controversial music video ; it retained the peak position during the following week . Nine weeks later , the track returned to number one , and consequently had the largest gap between number-one sittings in Billboard Hot 100 history . As of January 2014 , `` Wrecking Ball '' has sold three million copies in the United States . Internationally , the song charted strongly ; it topped the charts in Canada , Spain and the United Kingdom , and charted in the top ten throughout much of Europe and Oceania .   An accompanying music video for `` Wrecking Ball '' was released on September 9 , 2013 . It featured close-up scenes of Cyrus tearfully singing , reminiscent of the clip for `` Nothing Compares 2 U '' by Sinéad O'Connor , interspersed with footage of a nude Cyrus swinging on a wrecking ball . Critics were divided in their opinions of the music video , feeling that it was more provocative than the clip for her previous single `` We Ca n't Stop '' . `` Wrecking Ball '' previously held the Vevo record for the most views in the first 24 hours after its release with 19.3 million views . At the 2013 MTV Europe Music Awards , Cyrus took home the award for Best Video and the award for Video of the Year at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards . Adding to the video 's success , Cyrus won the award for World 's Best Video at the 2014 World Music Awards in Monte Carlo . Cyrus has performed `` Wrecking Ball '' during several live performances , including the iHeartRadio Music Festival and an episode of Saturday Night Live .