Hilary Duff (album) - Recording and Production

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. "It was so ghetto", Duff said of the experience.

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. " 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 ... 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 ask them to write songs about them. Members of the creative team behind Metamorphosis who returned for Hilary Duff include Charlie Midnight, John Shanks and Kara DioGuardi (who collaborated on the commercially released singles), Andre Recke, Marc Swersky and Duff's sister Haylie. Hilary said, "I do have a lot to say, and I have a lot going on inside that sometimes is buried and hidden because I'm working so hard, and I don't have time to think about it. But if we sit down and we talk about it and I tell her how I feel and she writes, it'll be good."

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 has 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." In "Hide Away", co-produced and co-written by Shaun Shankel, Duff discusses a relationship that isn't working because she is in a position where her life is "figuratively under the microscope". Diane Warren wrote "I Am", an empowerment song in which Duff lists positive and negative aspects about herself; she has said it is about being comfortable "with all those feelings ... being who you are".

Duff's management team considered for recording a song titled "Since U Been Gone", 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.