Hilary Duff was at her peak as her show Lizzie McGuire came to a close on Disney back in 2003. She then put out a couple of albums did some movies and then went off to live for a while. 11 years later, 8 years since her last album, she has released a new album and so it's interesting to see where this 28 year old divorced single mom is coming from.
At least that's how I was thinking when I first put on the album. From the opening track it is pretty clear this is not going to be a deep dive into the mind of a woman who has been through a divorce, lost her fame, and is a single mom. No it's going to pretty much be a match to the music she made 8 years before. In fact it sounds like it was made 8 years before.
Truth is the songs are strong and good pop songs. Problem is they just don't resonate. Her first album in 2003 sold over 3 million copies. Her second album over 1 million, her third over 400 thousand, the latest less than 50,000 so far. The problem is she's been away for a long enough time and so her name will only appeal to people who were her fans back in 2003. Those fans have grown up and in order to interest them she needed to put out an album that is more than 12 tracks of dance pop. She didn't.
If you just look at the album as an album it works for what it is doing. It is a solid pop album that you could easily throw on when you want to go run or for some fun tracks for the summer. Lyrically the songs are more mature than what she would have put out at 20, but still there is just something missing in all of this.
Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 2 out 5 stars for Not Bad.
This is a good review.
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