It’s time for everyone to give Hilary Duff’s music career the props it deserves – and by ‘everyone’, I do include Hilary herself.
Before Miley, Demi and Selena, back in the early-2000s she was the underrated pioneer of Disney Channel pop-rock.
When not sending straight-faced ‘LOL’ texts to Chad Michael Murray, chastising people in shops for saying ‘that’s so gay’, or being responsible for cinema’s greatest ever scripted line in ‘sing to me, Paolo!’; the multi-hyphenate was delivering bop after bop after bop.
And yet, in a recent interview that’s been doing the rounds on social media, she appeared to throw a teeny-weeny bit of shade at her own discography.
Asked during Vanity Fair’s Lie Detector Test if she even likes all of her old music, she said with a certain degree of vehemence: ‘Definitely not!’
‘Hilary treating her pop career like a regretful haircut is my new obsession,’ reacted one person on Twitter; while another said simply: ‘GASP.’
OK, sure, let’s be fair: every artist will have songs and albums that they look back on more fondly than others, especially when lots of it was made when they were so young. But this isn’t the first time Duffers has appeared to cringe a little at her own repertoire.
Just last month, she looked decidedly embarrassed by the thought of ‘my old… [deep sigh]… teeny-bopper music’ when appearing on The Late Late Show with James Corden, and she’s even gone as far as to call The Math – a Led Zepplin-defeating rock juggernaut from 2003 – ‘terrible’.
Well as someone who had a Hilary Duff poster on my wall as a teen (and somehow still had to come out to my parents?!), I cannot stand by and let this slander continue unchallenged.
Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson and even Ashlee Simpson may have had more of a mature edge, but there was a valid space for Hilary’s lighter, warmer energy
It was 20 years ago when Hilary, then 15, released her first album; a fairly unsuccessful Christmas collection called Santa Clause Lane – but it was the following year, with 2003’s ‘proper’ debut Metamorphosis, when she really went Full Popstar. And the world was never the same again.
The record went triple-platinum in the US; and while it didn’t crack the Top 40 in the UK, it did spawn two Top 20 singles in So Yesterday and Come Clean, both of which remain her musical calling cards to this day. The former is an endearingly of-its-time Avril-lite guitar-pop bop (‘if the light is off then it isn’t on’ – facts only); while Come Clean remains a bona-fide classic, complete with a wistful look-out-the-window-at-the-pouring-rain music video.
Her self-titled follow-up in 2004 was another million-selling smash, and in 2005 – at the grand old age of 17 – she released her first chart-topping Greatest Hits package in the form of Most Wanted, which came with its own slew of new songs including the party-starter Wake Up, self-penned alongside Good Charlotte’s Madden brothers. ‘Wake up, wake up on a Saturday night’, she commanded – and I continue to spend my entire existence waiting to hear it in a club.
Does much of it sound a bit dated now? Sure! Would any of us realistically stan the likes of Why Not (‘why not do a crazy chance / why not do a crazy dance’) as a grown-ass adult if it was to come out in 2022? Probably not!
But back in the early 2000s, it was sweet and effervescent tween-friendly boppery made by a teenager, for teenagers.
Those albums are time capsules back to a more innocent time in our lives; a time when mobile phones were becoming more widespread but social media (MSN Messenger aside, RIP) hadn’t quite arrived to take over the planet.
Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson and even Ashlee Simpson may have had more of a mature edge, but there was a valid space for Hilary’s lighter, warmer energy, too.
That said, while Metamorphosis may sound especially young, the under-rated follow up album, Hilary Duff, has more of an angsty undercurrent than you might remember (Underneath This Smile? The Getaway? I Am? Relatable anthems!) – and by the time she ditched pop-rock altogether and went down a more Britney-esque electronic route on 2007’s ‘grown-up’ Dignity, she was evolving quite spectacularly.
While much of her earlier work may have dated, that era still sounds fresh as anything.
Don’t even get me started on her 2015 comeback album Breathe In Breathe Out; a total banger-infested triumph with co-writes from Tove Lo and Ed Sheeran.
The now 34-year-old has spoken recently about being tempted to return to the studio; and given that she’s married to Matthew Koma (who produced many of Breathe In Breathe Out’s best songs), that’s frankly too exciting a prospect for me to even think about.
But whether she returns or not, we must continue to hold her early works in the high regard they deserve.
For those of us who grew up with her, they feel like integral parts of our adolescence – even if some of them are, all jokes aside, a bit naff in retrospect. They brought happiness and light to teens the world over, and for that reason alone they must not be under-appreciated.
And Hilary, if you need any more convincing as to how much your songs – even your earlier songs – are still adored, sign up to play any Pride concert in the Western world and watch us all come running; still able to recite every last word.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.
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