Хилари Дафф: Новый этап и альбом «Most Wanted»

The lead single from Hilary Duff, "Fly" premiered on August 26, 2004, on MTV's Total Request Live. The song was officially released as a single on October 19, 2004; it peaked outside the top twenty on the Billboard Top 40 Mainstream chart but failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. "Fly" was the only single released in the United States. The second Australia only single, "Someone's Watching Over Me", was released on February 21, 2005, to promote the film Raise Your Voice, charted at number 22 on the ARIA Singles Chart.

According to Duff, the album chronicles her experiences over the year before its release: "some of it's good, and some of it's bad, and a lot of it's, like, a big learning experience," she explained. She expressed an interest in recording lyrically more aggressive material than the songs on Metamorphosis (2003) and wanted the album to reflect that, according to her, she is a normal sixteen year old. "Well, I'm not going to be singing about lollipops because I no longer relate to lollipops," she said. "Basically, I'm not Lizzie McGuire anymore." She said the album deals with issues she would not discuss publicly and provides "some answers," Duff called the album "different [from]" 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." 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." Four songs — "Fly", "Someone's Watching over Me", "Shine" and "Jericho" — were used in Raise Your Voice, a 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, 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 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 [of the New York Post] 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 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. 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. "[They] 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 [all the time] 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. 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." Duff's management team considered recording a song titled "Since U Been Gone" for the album, 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.

"Fly" was the lead and only single with a music video from the album. It is also the only single released in the US. The music video directed by Chris Applebaum, combines black and white backstage footage with color shots of Duff performing the song. The video premiered on MTV's Total Request Live on August 26, 2004. "Someone's Watching over Me" was released in Australia as a second and final single from the album. The music video was the shot from the 2004 movie "Raise Your Voice" where Duff plays the lead role.

Duff embarked on a concert tour of North America, and several of her shows in Canada sold out in minutes.

The album debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 with 192,000 copies sold in its first week of release, which was 11,000 copies less than the first week sales of Metamorphosis. IGN Music said that partly because of the album's high debut, "at this very moment Hilary Duff is perhaps the reigning queen of bubblegum pop theatrics"; it also said that Duff's image was "undergoing an overhaul" through photo shoots in magazines such as Blender, possibly making her less "squeaky clean" like her predecessors Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. In its second week, the album slipped to number six with 95,500 copies sold, down 51% over the first week of release; the following week the album stayed at six, selling 84,000 copies and falling 12% over the past week. Unlike Metamorphosis, Hilary Duff went no higher on the Billboard 200, and the RIAA certified it platinum a month after its release. Hilary Duff was number 112 on Billboard magazine's year end top albums chart in December 2004 and number sixty five on Billboard magazine's year end top albums chart in November 2005. The album debuted at number one on the Nielsen SoundScan chart in Canada, as Metamorphosis had done, and it was released in Australia in October. It debuted in the top ten on the ARIA album chart, surpassing the top twenty peak of Metamorphosis and rising to its number six peak position in November. "Fly" was released as a single in the same month and did not perform as well, reaching just outside the top twenty. Duff embarked on a two date tour of Australia in late October, supported by Popstars winner Scott Cain. In Canada, the CRIA certified the album three times platinum for 300,000 copies.

+ Release dates and formats for Hilary Duff Region Date Format Label Ref. (Reference) Japan September 15, 2004 CD Avex Trax Canada September 28, 2004 Universal United States Hollywood Australia October 18, 2004 Festival Mushroom Japan March 28, 2007 Avex Trax United States May 23, 2022 LP Hollywood Records