Hilary Duff's album is hit or miss

At it's best, Dignity is fun; at it's worst, it's preachy.

By Jordan Sargent

Published April 20, 2007

For what it's worth, it took me around 20 minutes to decide what the most redeeming part of Hilary Duff's career is. I was basically torn between how her song "Come Clean" turned the opening credits of "Laguna Beach" into — depending on the status of the LC/Stephen/Kristen love triangle — either the saddest or most uplifting 30 seconds on television, or, on the other hand, nearly all of "Lizzie McGuire" (R.I.P.).

As inconsequential as all this sounds, you can't really say as much for Duff's paparazzi-baiting brethren. Britney Spears peaked at her first single.

For Mischa Barton, it's the whole second season of "The O.C." For Lindsay Lohan, um, "Herbie: Fully Loaded"? And for Paris Hilton, it's when that dude drove her Benz into the back of a truck.

The thing is, I'm not exactly sure who, if anyone, actually cares about Duff these days, or whom her second record, Dignity, is actually being marketed to. The "Lizzie McGuire" diehards are now high-schoolers —which means they've undoubtedly moved on to Akon, or at the very worst, Fergie — and actual middle-schoolers are still swooning over "High School Musical."

And for Duff, that's kind of sad, because Dignity is a fairly good, rather obvious, sleek, electro-pop record. It's pretty much Hilton's album, Paris, from last year except cleaned up a little for kids who don't know what night-vision looks like.

Much like Hilton's record, Dignity is carried by its production, and Duff, who is a devastatingly average singer, is buried deep in the mix. A lot of this shit will blow the minds of 12-year-olds: bongos, Diwali rhythms, muted power chords, squiggly basses, synths straight from Berlin, etc. I still haven't decided if this Duff-from-the-club idea was the right move (I mean, have you heard "Come Clean"?), but at the very least, it's a step "out there" for her audience, and that's a commendable move on her part. Does it always sound great? No. But, like Duff, I'm not going to dwell on the negative.

For starters, there's a bunch of murderously good, mindless pop here. Single "With Love" takes the two-note synths from Cassie's "Me & U" and plays them on fast-forward behind crunching guitar chords and glitchy drums as Duff begs a dude to do things (like being tough) "with love." Joel Madden be damned, she sounds alluring and elusive, and the little melody she tacks on to the chorus here is quite the earworm. It's between 15 and 20 times better than "Fergalicious," which means it's one of the better Top 40 singles of the year and a sign that Duff's commercial prospects are still alive.

Then there's "Outside of You." Forget for a second that it makes absolutely no sense. The chorus is weightless, airy, anthemic, Kelly Clarkson-baiting stuff, and if this isn't the second single, my heart will honestly be broken. This is a song made for one of those triumphant/sad (aren't they the same?) moments on "The Hills," — an absolute no verse, one bridge and all hook behemoth.

The problem with Dignity, though, is hinted at in its title. It's Duff's serious album; the one in which she grows up and bemoans Hollywood, the paparazzi and crotch-flashing starlets. This turn is inevitable (it makes sense for Duff to play up her good-girl image), but also regrettable.

Duff tries to sound adult and grown-up, but she ends up coming off as motherly and, at worst, preachy. Both "Dreamer" and the title track are embarrassingly bad stalker and Lohan jabs, respectively.

As a full album, Dignity defines hit or miss, but that doesn't really matter. It has three potentially monster singles, and its sales will provide for the making of three more potentially monster singles. And when it comes to Hilary Duff, what more could we really ask for?