Hilary Duff (album)

According to Duff, the album chronicles her experiences over the year before its release: "some of it's good, and some of it's bad, and a lot of it's, like, a big learning experience," she explained. She expressed an interest in recording lyrically more aggressive material than the songs on Metamorphosis (2003) and wanted the album to reflect that, according to her, she is a normal sixteen-year-old. "Well, I'm not going to be singing about lollipops because I no longer relate to lollipops," she said. "Basically, I'm not Lizzie McGuire anymore." She said the album deals with issues she would not discuss publicly and provides "some answers," Duff called the album "different [from]" Metamorphosis and "much more mature," particularly in its sound, but not to the point where it would be inappropriate for children: "I just think that other people will relate better." According to her, she was more "involved" compared to the production of her first album and "confident enough to make suggestions" about the style of the album: "If I thought it needed to be more heavy, more rock, I said so." Three songs — "Fly", "Someone's Watching over Me", and "Jericho" — were used in Raise Your Voice, a film released shortly after the album in which Duff starred as an aspiring singer who attends a prestigious performing arts summer school. Her character performs "Someone's Watching Over Me" during the film's climax and "Jericho" during the end credits. Duff described "Fly" as "an uplifting song" about "how people are scared to open up and show who they are inside because they're afraid of what others are going to say." The album's release in Japan includes three bonus tracks: an acoustic version of "Who's That Girl?", a cover of The Go-Go's' "Our Lips Are Sealed" recorded with Haylie for the soundtrack to Duff's film A Cinderella Story, and a cover of The Who's "My Generation" in which the lyric "I hope I die before I get old" was changed to "I hope I don't die before I get old". Duff began performing it in concert after a suggestion from her manager, who was a fan of the song. She said that at the time she wrote it she was feeling she had to openly discuss her personal life because "people make accusations and there are lies and rumors constantly ... people are so negative. They love to read what's coming out next on Page Six [of the New York Post] and I just felt like it was appropriate." She said she felt "normal girls" could relate to the song because of the "petty stuff" that occurs in schools. == Recording and production ==

Duff recorded the first three songs for the album between the shooting dates of Raise Your Voice and The Perfect Man, two films in which she was involved. Subsequent songs were recorded on the weekends during filming of The Perfect Man and on the nights after concerts on her summer 2004 tour. The album's outro track, "The Last Song", was recorded in her dressing room. When discussion regarding her second album began, Duff said she wanted to work with the same team of producers and songwriters with whom she worked on Metamorphosis. "[They] made me feel so comfortable and so secure with myself. I loved working with them. I have a great relationship with them. I talk to them [all the time] ... They knew what was going on in my life, what I was going through ... and how I feel inside," Duff said. For songs she did not co-write, Duff discussed her experiences and feelings with the writers and asked them to write songs about them. Several producers and songwriters who did not contribute to Metamorphosis worked on the album, including Andreas Carlsson and Desmond Child ("Who's That Girl?"), British songwriter Guy Chambers ("Shine"), Julian Bunetta and James Michael ("The Getaway"), and Ty Stevens ("Rock This World"). Ron Entwistle is co-writer and co-producer of "Weird", which Duff said is "about someone that she's still obsessed with. And everything he does is like he says this, but he does this ... She's not really sure who he is or what he does, but she likes it." Kevin De Clue contributed to "The Last Song" and "Mr. James Dean" (both co-produced by Haylie), which Duff named her favorite track on the album and described as "very funny"; in the song, she tells an ex-boyfriend that he'll "never be James Dean." Duff neither confirmed nor denied whether the song was about fellow singer Aaron Carter, and she said "it was definitely an experience that I went through that was interesting and I learned a lot from that time in my life." Duff's management team considered recording the song "Since U Been Gone" for the album, which Lukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald and Max Martin had originally written for Pink. According to Gottwald, Duff's team passed on the song because some of the notes were too high for Duff's voice. "Since U Been Gone" was later recorded by Kelly Clarkson, for whom it became a major hit. == Singles ==

"Fly" was the lead single from the album. It is also the only single released in the US. The song was released as a single on October 19, 2004; it peaked outside the top twenty on the Billboard Top 40 Mainstream chart but failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video was directed by Chris Applebaum and combines black-and-white backstage footage with color shots of Duff performing the song. The video premiered on MTV's Total Request Live on August 26, 2004. The second and final single, "Someone's Watching Over Me", was released exclusively in Australia on February 21, 2005. The song was released to promote the film Raise Your Voice in which Duff plays the lead role and charted at number 22 on the ARIA Singles Chart. The music video for the song was taken from a performance scene in the film. Following the album's release, Duff mentioned that she was considering "Haters" and "Weird" as potential singles, however, only the latter was released as a promotional single in Spain in December 2004. == Promotion ==

Duff embarked on a concert tour of North America, and several of her shows in Canada sold out in minutes. Duff embarked on a two-date tour of Australia in late October, supported by Popstars winner Scott Cain. == Critical reception ==

The album received generally negative reviews. Ken Barnes of USA Today, which gave Metamorphosis a negative review, commented positively on the album and said it exemplified "a more wholesome brand of rock-flavored pop aimed at teens". Barnes praised the "unstoppably rousing choruses" in some of the songs and said "Duff avoids overextending her thin but pleasant voice, except for a bit of Avrilesque syllable stretching", while he criticised the high number of tracks and the preponderance of "hackneyed self-affirmation messages". AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine categorised Hilary Duff as "a virtual companion to Ashlee Simpson's Autobiography, from its rock/dance-pop fusion to its earnest demeanor" and "a varied, ambitious album ... it feels like the soundtrack to the life of a smart, ambitious, popular teenager trying to sort things out". A review of Hilary Duff in The Village Voice was far less praising; it said "Duff's role in the tween-rock firmament is playing pious Lisa Loeb opposite Simpson's post-diluvian Courtney Love ... despite liberal amounts of gold-dust guitar glitter, blow-dried backing vocals, and even the post-crash-Skynyrd 'Rock This World', Hilary Duff is too often the vanilla-bean fantasia AOR chauvinists take all girl-pop for." == Commercial performance ==

The album debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 with 192,000 copies sold in its first week of release, which was 11,000 copies less than the first week sales of Metamorphosis. IGN Music said that partly because of the album's high debut, "at this very moment Hilary Duff is perhaps the reigning queen of bubblegum pop theatrics"; it also said that Duff's image was "undergoing an overhaul" through photo shoots in magazines such as Blender, possibly making her less "squeaky clean" like her predecessors Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. In its second week, the album slipped to number six with 95,500 copies sold, down 51% over the first week of release; the following week the album stayed at six, selling 84,000 copies and falling 12% over the past week. Unlike Metamorphosis, Hilary Duff went no higher on the Billboard 200, and the RIAA certified it platinum a month after its release. Hilary Duff was number 112 on Billboard magazine's year-end top albums chart in December 2004 and number sixty-five on Billboard magazine's year-end top albums chart in November 2005. The album debuted at number one on the Nielsen SoundScan chart in Canada, as Metamorphosis had done, and it was released in Australia in October. It debuted in the top ten on the ARIA album chart, surpassing the top twenty peak of Metamorphosis and rising to its number six peak position in November. "Fly" was released as a single in the same month and did not perform as well, reaching just outside the top twenty. In Canada, the CRIA certified the album three times platinum for 300,000 copies. == Track listing ==

{{Track listing Notes: • signifies an executive producer • Later releases of Hilary Duff, including most international editions, include non-listed alternate mixes of "Do You Want Me?" (3:30), "Weird" (2:56), "I Am" (3:43), "Haters" (2:58), "Rock This World" (3:46), "Jericho" (3:55), and "Cry" (4:02). • The North American digital and 2021 LP versions of Hilary Duff include the alternate mix of "Cry" alongside the initial versions of the other tracks. == Charts ==

Weekly charts Year-end charts == Certifications ==