Background and Development
According to Duff, the album chronicles her experiences over the year before its release: "some of its good, and some of its bad, and a lot of its, like, a big learning experience", she explained. She expressed an interest in recording lyrically more aggressive material ("Well, I'm not going to be singing about lollipops because I no longer relate to lollipops") than the songs on Metamorphosis (2003) and wanted the album to reflect that, according to her, she is a normal sixteen year-old. "Basically, I'm not Lizzie McGuire anymore", she said. She said the album deals with issues she would not discuss publicly and provides "some answers", but she disagreed with people who believed the album presented a different side of her, saying "I think it's just more me this time because I got to really do it how I wanted to." Duff called the album "different " 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", she said. 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". Its U.S. release date, September 28, 2004, was Duff's seventeenth birthday.
Three songs — "Fly", "Someone's Watching over Me" and "Jericho" — were used in Raise Your Voice, a drama film released shortly after the album in which Duff starred as an aspiring singer who attends a prestigious performing arts summer school. Duff has 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". Her character performs "Someone's Watching over Me" at the film's climax and "Jericho" during the end credits, with the other characters performing the instruments. 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 ("We really wanted to work together, and my label knew that, so we found this song and we're like, 'Yes! We have to do this!'", Duff said), 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.
Duff herself co-wrote three tracks on the album: "Mr. James Dean", "Haters" and "Rock This World", the first two of which, along with "The Last Song", Haylie co-wrote. Hilary said she refrained from co-writing the entire album because "I don't know if I'm secure enough with myself to do that". She has characterised "Haters" as "tongue-in-cheek" and said people would know what it is about when they heard it, and it attracted substantial publicity when rumors circulated that it was about actress Lindsay Lohan, with whom Duff was alleged to have been feuding. The Scoop, a gossip section of the website MSNBC, quoted an insider who had said, "Hilary thinks that Lindsay has been directing negativity at her for too long." Duff denied that the rumors were true, saying she did not know Lohan and would not write a song about her. 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 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.
Duff told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2005 that because she was under the control of a record label during the making of Metamorphosis and Hilary Duff, she wasn't able to incorporate the sound she wanted into her recordings. She said the production " been mastered and sounds really pretty ... If I could change it, I would, and it would sound . My name is Hilary Duff, and I don't know why I don't get to make Hilary Duff music."
Read more about this topic: Hilary Duff (album)
Famous quotes containing the words background and, background and/or development:
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“The man, or the boy, in his development is psychologically deterred from incorporating serving characteristics by an easily observable fact: there are already people around who are clearly meant to serve and they are girls and women. To perform the activities these people are doing is to risk being, and being thought of, and thinking of oneself, as a woman. This has been made a terrifying prospect and has been made to constitute a major threat to masculine identity.”
—Jean Baker Miller (20th century)