Hilary Duff

Disney stars are synonymous with possessing the triple threat when it comes to the performing arts: acting (check), dancing (check), singing (check) and evolving into superstars- just take a look at Britney, Justin Timberlake, Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato. Enough said. So it’s no surprise then that Lizzie Maguire’s star, Hilary Duff turned her hand to becoming a pop star. Releasing her debut album entitled “Metamorphosis” in 2003, gave Duff the chance to detach herself from the teen idol status she had acquired from The Lizzie McGuire Show and step out presenting this real side of her, Hilary Duff a rock/pop singer and songwriter. With the album reaching number one in the US and Canadian charts and achieving triple platinum, Duff had successfully made the transition from actress into singer. Subsequent album releases including the self-titled “Hilary Duff” and “Dignity” met similar success reaching 2 and 3 in the album charts and allowing her to experiment more with the dance side of pop.
Duff performs with an air of confidence as she struts across stage with her glitzy rocker outfits accompanied by a host of backing dancers. Performing tracks such as “So Yesterday”, “Wake Up” and “Stranger” through an array of coloured lights and watched by thousands of adoring fans, who scream at any given moment taken aback by the more emotive tracks like “Fly” and “Someone’s Watching Over Me”. As far as actress turned singers go, Hilary Duff definitely isn’t a one trick pony.

If Hilary Duff achieved nothing else with her reasonably brief foray into the pop world, she at least provided us with retrospective evidence that not all former Disney child stars wind up making career moves quite as dubious as Miley Cyrus has been the past couple of years. When her TV show, Lizzie Maguire, inevitably ran its course, she moved through the usual pop levels, beginning with the clean-cut fare that characterised her self-titled album - ‘Fly’, ‘Someone’s Watching Over Me’, and apparently concluding - on her most recent album, 2007’s Dignity, with what at the time probably seem liked controversial fare; the mildly-sexualised video for the surprisingly half-decent ‘With Love’, though, is positively puritanical by way of comparison to Cyrus’ recent output. Just last week, though, she re-emerged, with a new single - ‘Chasing the Sun’ - that unsurprisingly sounds about five years behind the current zeitgeist; remember that guy Jack Johnson? It sounds like a cover of one of his songs. Still, a deal with RCA Records for a new album means we should expect heavyweight promotion, and that might include international touring; she won’t be hitting the big venues - not to begin with, anyway - but it’d be daft not to expect a high-budget affair, with a full live band and complex stage show likely to come as standard.

LONG LIVE LIZZIE MCGUIRE! No matter how old my generation gets, a majority of 90s born girls, so it was no surprise that when Hilary Duff decided to break into music that she had a booming fan base right out of the gate. Her bubblegum music and previous acting career had set her up for inevitable success for her first album.
Considering I was also a sucker for Lizzie McGuire, I ended up going to a concert of hers with my other friends. At the time, it was one of the greatest things ever. Completely typical late 90s style, perfect bubblegum tween music that we all knew so well. The show was completely sold out and huge! When she took to the stage the entire place went up in a deafening scream. She performed her entire “Metamorphosis” album that she had just release including “Come Clean,” “The Math,” “Sweet Sixteen” and “Anywhere But Here.” Hilary came off as super sweet, and really was a peer of the audience. She even had her sister, Hayley Duff join her on stage for their cover of “Our Lips Our Sealed.” She closed out the show with a bang with “So Yesterday,” and had the entire crowd join in on the singing.