Hilary Duff

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A reassuring pop icon for the Millennial generation, Hilary Erhard Duff (Houston, September 28, 1987) wasn't just a “Disney Star”, but the prototype of the teen idol capable of building a multimedia empire while maintaining a clean, approachable image. Unlike many of her contemporaries, her career has been marked by a mature, steady transition, free of media excess. Success arrives in 2001 with the Disney Channel series Lizzie McGuire, in which Hilary gives face and voice to an ordinary, awkward, dreamy teenager that millions of girls recognized themselves in. The series becomes a cultural phenomenon, culminating in Lizzie McGuire – Da liceale a popstar (2003), a film that grosses over 55 million dollars.

While dominating TV, Duff launches a hugely commercially successful recording career, bringing "teen pop-rock" into the charts worldwide. "Metamorphosis" (2003), her debut album, enters at number one on the Billboard 200, selling millions of copies. After "Hilary Duff" (2004), it's with "Dignity" in 2007 that the American singer marks her shift from lightweight pop to more electronic, mature sounds.

Alongside her music, Hilary cements her presence on the big screen with cult teen comedies. She also becomes one of the first young stars of the new millennium to launch her own fashion lines and perfumes.

After releasing "Breathe In. Breathe Out" (2015), Duff decides to take a break to focus on her family. She returns in 2026 with "Luck... Or Something", four kids and 38 beautifully worn years later. During the more than ten years away from recording, Hilary divorced her first husband and remarried Matthew Koma, a successful musician and producer in the pop world (among other things, he produced Zedd's "Clarity", which won a Grammy Award in 2014 for "Best Dance Recording"). Koma also took the production reins for "Luck... Or Something", contributing to the writing of many of the songs. The final result portrays the dynamics of a family portrait, with all the joys and struggles that come with married life.

We're talking melancholy, stripped-back, confessional Adult Contemporary Pop, danceable in places, largely driven by synths, perfect for anyone who adored Hilary Duff fifteen years ago and who now finds themselves, having grown up alongside her, grappling with the same problems and the same questions. Music for parents approaching forty who are raising kids, songs about the everyday reality of being an adult within a relationship. The problem is that these eleven tracks manage to evaporate just as quickly as they appeared, with a lack of personality so pronounced that the most successful song, the one that sticks in your head the most — so much so that it has rapidly become Hilary Duff's most-streamed track ever on Spotify — is essentially an imitation of Taylor Swift. That track is "Roommates", essentially a fairly successful synthesis of "Anti-Hero" and "Blank Space".

There's no shortage of compositional flaws: another of the catchiest tracks, "You, From The Honeymoon", is a knock-off of Sabrina Carpenter, with a mood that winks at the Sixties. Things fare a little better with the welcome change of pace offered by "The Optimist", an indie-folk track recounting Hilary's tense relationship with her father; "We Don't Talk", meanwhile, portrays another family rift, the one with her sister Haylie, also a singer and actress. Somewhere between an emotional diary and self-aware therapy-session introspection, Hilary lets slip that sense of nostalgia typical of someone living through a moment of transition, and even plays on it, nodding to Blink 182 on "Growing Up" and wrapping things up with a title that says it all, "Adult Size Medium", the closing theme for all the millennials who'll be listening to "Luck... Or Something". The production is rather cautious, careful to smooth out any rough edges, with flattened dynamics and no room for unexpected flourishes. All perfect for casual, passive, inattentive listening that conveys disengagement and calm: if you're after an innocuous background soundtrack, this fits the bill nicely. A bit thin, though, if read as the best Hilary Duff has set aside over the span of more than a decade.

Hilary Duff today represents the rare case of a star who managed to survive the "child prodigy" label without burning out. She's now seen as a reference figure for parenting and a balanced lifestyle, while still holding a place in the hearts of those who grew up with her posters on their bedroom walls.