Every Single Album - 'luck... or something' | Every Single Album: Hilary Duff

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

For the first time in over a decade, Hilary Duff is back with new music. Nora and Nathan talk about Duff's early career on Disney and how this new album reflects the life stage she is in now (1:00), the songs that grab from other pop acts like Taylor Swift and The 1975 (22:48), and some of their favorite tracks off of this album including "Mature" and "Weather For Tennis" (39:32). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to every single album. I'm Nora Pryanti, and as always, I am joined by my friend Nathan Hubbard, though not in person this week. Hello, Nathan and your little square on Zoom. How are you doing? I'm terrified for this episode of every single album. Yeah? You want to tell everybody why that is? I really am.

Well, first of all, when we talk about doing the Hillary Duff album, which this is the first. You don't have to say it so ominously. Of the episodes that we have done together, the hundreds of episodes that we have done together. I think that's the first time I have broken the news of what we're doing today. We're doing the Hillary Duff album, everybody. And when I originally agreed to do the Hillary Duff album, before all of you like... Agreed. Ransacked us on...

Like I put a weapon to his head. Before all of you just attacked us on social being like, do the Hillary Duff album. So fine, we're doing the Hillary Duff album. But originally the idea was, and we still may come back to this idea, the idea was you give me an album that I have to listen to and we have to talk about. We get to talk about. And then I give you an album that you have to listen to and we talk about. And that half the episode is talking about what I made you listen to and the other half is about what you made me listen to.

And the idea is I would give you something that you did not understand. in the lore of or had not really spent any time with and vice versa. Somehow. I would have framed it a little bit more like. Oh, I'm surprised you would have framed it differently. Like a gift, like something that we were choosing to share a piece of ourselves culture that resonates with us with each other and letting each other in on something. You are describing it in terms that make it sound like when you need to get your dog to take a

pill and you sort of have to hold their jaw open and push it down. wrap it in like a piece of bread or a piece of meat so that they eat it. It's a little bit like, you know, the holiday gift-giving white elephant thing where you just try to get the most outrageous gift and then everybody is passing. Nobody wants the, you know, shitty, whatever the awful gift is that people wrap up. Well, you gave me Hillary Duff is the answer. Don't you dare compare this to fruit cake? I did not get to give you anything.

But we'll do an episode in the future where my... I had a whole plan. It was going to be great. Back to Hillary Duff. Yeah, let's go. I mean... Can I ask you an honest question, though? Okay.

Were you surprised by how many people reached out to you in various capacities and said, you need to do the Hillary Duff album? A lot of fucking people are like, you got to do this album. And so... Go ahead. Where I am coming from is that I am not surprised one bit.

Okay, but I need you to explain it to me because my overarching question is, why are we doing the Hillary Duff album? Okay. So, first of all, let me give, I think you know this, but let me give my own personal context. Metamorphosis by Hillary Duff was the first album that I purchased with my own money. and if you are in a particular kind of Zillennial age band there is no more powerful

nostalgia bait than the Lizzie McGuire movie It's about the movie Sort of, but the movie was about the songs Like it's about so yesterday Like so yesterday kicks ass So yesterday it kicks ass But it's it's about come clean

Why not and what dreams are made of before it's about so yesterday is what I would say I would say that it is about number one come clean and that is in part because of Laguna Beach Then I would say that it is about what dreams are made of Then I guess I would say it's kind of about like why not and so yesterday tied Okay, well, come clean's a lot more popular than what dreams are made of. And I think that's probably... So yesterday and Sparks are like tied. But they're like, that's interesting.

I would not have thought that about Sparks. Listen, in terms of regular listening that's happening now, it's definitely, you know, outside of this album, Come Clean is number one. And then so yesterday and what dreams are made of is tied. And then there's like a, I mean, there's a pretty big fall off. I mean, wake up and why not seem to be more popular than Sparks. But, okay, so Lizzie McGuire, what do I need to know about Lizzie? I did not watch the movie.

Okay. I think you need to, you, so I don't know that all of this will be backed up perfectly in data. And you just need to, you just need to go with me on this a little bit. No, no, I am going with you by virtue of having my ass in this chair and having listened this album about a whole. hundred times in preparation for this pod. Okay.

The way that people feel about Hannah Montana and the way that people feel about high school musical, I'm not saying that the fervor for Hillary Duff, for Lizzie McGuire, for some of these songs matches it in a perfect one-to-one manner. But it is more than of a piece with that era. And if you are one of the... It belongs in the same conversation that we've had several times about that sort of mid-2000s

pre-tailor surge of Disney adjacent pop music for young people. Okay. That if you cared about it when you were the age that it was initially targeted to, you're going to care about it for life. And so have you followed the trajectory of this woman from then on?

Almost not at all. Okay, so that's the thing, because what I feel is missing from, I mean, God, don't get me started on what's missing from, like, my understanding of the world. but a thing that I feel like is missing from my understanding of the world is I'm not, I don't really understand the Hillary Duff lore.

Like I feel like I understand the Miley lore. I feel like I understand most of the high school musical lore. For whatever reason, I just did not understand the Hillary Duff lore. And so when we get to categories today like peak Hillary, I'm gonna be like, I don't know, man. Well, so what is, so when you say that you understand the Miley lore or the, let's take Miley out of it because she's, it's a little different because she's just been a much more consistent presence in people's lives. But when you say you understand the high school musical lore, what do you mean?

Like tracking Zach Ephron's career after that and, you know, maybe seeing a couple of his movies and some of the other people in it and, you know, how that connected into Olivia branching out. just like sort of understand the thread of some of the characters in those movies and a little bit about the fan base around them. Like, is there a, if you were to give me the psychographic and demographic details of the Lizzie McGuire fan, does it look substantively different than those other two shows? Or is it all just young girls consuming Disney adjacent pop culture? So right now, it's me. Like, it's the people who consumed it. It's the people who consumed Lizzie McGuire.

It's just me. It's literally just me. It's the people who consumed Lizzie McGuire in its day. Because, and now, like, Hillary Duff has actually been on some, like, pretty, done some pretty popular television work that I personally just have not paid attention to or consumed. So I don't want to say that, like, she has. hasn't been in people's lives because for some people who watched that show, she absolutely has been. For me, she made music in the mid-2000s and then basically disappeared. But it was a potent enough piece of my adolescence and a lot of my peers' adolescents that, like, for instance,

if I were DJing, like, if I had the playlist at a party or like a bunch of my friends ever happens. Okay. And I needed to guarantee a song that, like, gets everybody up. There are two or three Hillary Duff songs where I'm just like, I know that it's dynamite. I know that it will work. There's no question. I have a friend who had a birthday party last November, and we had a long conversation about whether it was come clean, or what dreams are made of

that she was going to tell her DJ needed to be the last song of the night. Whoa. Yes. So can I tell you something? Yes. This album feels

like it's that group of people today talking about what it was like when they first consume the Hillary Duff album. Can you expand on that a little bit? Actually, not like talking about the nostalgia, but it feels like a... Talking about how much older they are now than they were then. Correct.

Because can I actually venture to say something that's going to reveal a little bit about how I feel about this? Yes. I disagree, because believe it or not, I actually think most of us aren't quite this anxious. Okay. Well, we're going to have a conversation about this feels, and let me tell you something, this is not bad. Agreed. But it does feel like somebody who is a relatively well-off socioeconomic class of a human being who has definite some musical talent, who, it turns out, is indeed in a, bunch of text threads with moms and who has a husband who's a music producer and who in that

text thread of supportive moms, not the unsupportive one that got kicked out, but the supportive moms and the husband were all like, hon, you got to make a record. And just be honest. I know you don't like if you don't know what to write about, just be honest. And we got this album. Yeah. I think So I think to some degree I agree with that and I think that's fair. I don't think that that's why she made this album. I think that if you go through the list of the, you know, Miley is doing the Hannah Montana reunion special for a reason. High School Musical is back in the zeitgeist or has been for a reason.

The Jonas Brothers had Jesse McCartney at their tour. Like every piece of that era's puppy. culture that was targeted to me and my peers when we were that age, all of it has circled back because we are very good. The Backstreet Boys are at this fear. Right. Totally. And so she is jumping on to that just as everybody else is. And that makes total sense to me because here is the way in which, because I'm going to nitpick this album a little bit because I have some nits to pick. But here's the way in which I will say that it is a clear and ringing success. All right. Which is that it is more than good enough as a platform for Hillary Duff to make the rounds do a bunch of interviews.

CBS Sunday morning. Totally. There she is. Like she's doing all the stuff. Okay. And more importantly than that, go on tour so that me and my friggin' friends can go listen to so yesterday and why not and come clean and what dreams are made of at Madison Square Garden. I got bad news for you.

Tell me. You're also going to have to listen to growing up. Okay. Actually, I'm so glad to hear that we're aligned. You are going to have to listen to growing up all the way through. Everybody needs a pee break, Nathan. You are going to have to listen to her say Bonivar. You are going to have to listen to her say, touching myself looking at

porn. You are going to have to listen to her beat the shit out of Leo DiCaprio like it is 2015. Okay, one of those things I'm completely seated for, by the way. And actually the BoniVar line, sometimes I can't stand it and sometimes I think it's funny. I go back and forth on that one. You were going to have to listen to her step in the same complete, just mangling bear trap that Taylor Swift did in using the phrase, I'm a bad bitch. Well, she calls somebody else the, no, she calls somebody else the bitch, but then she says

bad bitch about herself. So, all of that is true. On the other hand, you'll also get to listen to her, talk wistfully about her relationship with her sister and tell you that she wished her father loved her and say something insane like in my head you live in another life where you fuck all my friends and wish you had another wife. Yeah. Yeah. So my question is, this is a little bit like life of a showgirl to me, which is to say the subject matter and the material, I think, deeply.

resonates with a segment of women who are at a stage in their life. And it is extremely not for others. And that's okay because I think this is digestible pop music. I do think there are so many roots in other stuff through these songs that like... I agree with that. Oh, whoa. But it is a serviceable platform for reintroduction. My question to you is like, is this how women of this age talk? So this is, yeah, okay, I'm glad that you said this. Like, the answer to that is yes and no, because when you say, does this resonate or do I, because I certainly, I mean, I don't have kids. So I'm maybe not quite in her demo, but I'm close to it.

And like, everything that she's writing about and talking about, in a weird way, it's almost like too relatable. It's sort of these ideas about future tripping. and the fear of time passing too quickly. Like, they're almost so understandable that it's a bit dull. So yesterday, is that what you think this album should have been called? That's my next album appetizer. I found it to be a, like, I get what you're saying, and I think you're right in the sense that, yes, there is a...

I forget what I'm saying. Well, so there's a threat of this where, you know, there's a lot of lyrical language that feels like it comes from people who go to a lot of therapy and who spend a lot of time talking about, you know, not just their feelings, but the reasons for their feelings and the ways that their minds and their anxieties work and manifest. And then some of it is try hard. Yeah. I mean, she uses that word, that phrase. the last song, but it's, to me, it feels a little, not the whole thing, but there's times where it just feels like she's trying hard to make a moment or that somebody just pushed her just be like, so honest. Yeah, I guess I just like, it doesn't feel particularly revealing because it's so

typical. Like, there are, because this is, this is a way that people talk. And it is a way that, you know, like, Ariana Grande, five years ago, was making music that was sparking conversations about the ways in which the language of therapy have warmed their way kind of wholesale into so many elements of culture, but particularly pop music. And so it's, it's not novel. There are times when I actually found it kind of unrelatedable in the sense that, like, have you ever had the experience of I don't know if you're like out to dinner with someone or getting drinks with somebody or whatever. And maybe they have kind of like one too many. And you're you're kind of having a heart to heart.

But then all of a sudden, the other person gets like a little too dark. And you're kind of like, oh, God, what do I do now? Like do they realize? Inhibitions are gone. Yeah. That part that you mentioned from holiday party where she's like, in my head, you live another life where you fuck all my friends in which someone else could have. have been your wife.

Yeah. That's what that felt like to me. Yeah. Where like you have these chipper production packages. And like I would say that the lyrical content of this album, I like honestly don't find it that relatable. I mostly find it to be pretty depressing. Like it's a pretty huge bummer.

The optimist is a pretty big bummer. There's a lot of this that's a pretty big bummer. Like maybe my dad would tell me that he loves. So it's interesting in that way. but it, like, I see a lot of cover letters. It doesn't feel like she's packaging it in a way where she thinks it's that much of a bummer? I mean, the title of the album is luck or something.

Yeah, that's why, that's where there's a little bit, that's the little bit of cringe about it. It's like, somebody told her to be honest, but nobody, like, everybody around her just was like, yeah, sure, just go for it. Like, I see, I was going to say, I see a lot of cover letters, and right now, way too many people are just having chat GPT write their cover letters. And what ends up happening is that when you get like 100 cover letters for a job, like chat GPT writes them fairly similarly.

And so you start to like see, oh, God, this person didn't actually put in the effort or they did, you know, they used. There's some of these songs that feel like a chat GPT written. Hillary Duff song where she gave some inputs of like casual smoking in the Japanese house or Boni VAR and make song that that is like that. But I hear you, there's also this moment where it's like, oh man, the second martini was just a bad idea. Like the first one was fine, but the second one, I should have taken half of it for myself because then we'd still be having an adult conversation.

and now what we're having is a meltdown therapy conversation. I've got to get you an Uber and make sure you get home safe. Yeah. Yeah. I don't feel that way about the music. I would say that the majority of my criticisms of this album are lyrical. I feel like ChatGPT made some of the music, though. Like, roommates, if you do not hear anti-hero in that beat, I don't know what to tell you.

We don't talk. If you don't hear Gatye somebody that I used to know and that I don't know what to tell you. Well, so that felt intentional to me. I still found it kind of distracting mostly just because like we are doing this in the year after the year of Dochi's anxiety and I just sort of couldn't think about anything else. But I do think that that was an intentional interpolation

that just didn't come close enough. Tell me that won't happen. Is a 1975 song. It's girls. Yes. It does feel to me like... The optimist, I don't think, is like quite as much of a copy-paste situation, but that just screamed Casey Musgraves to me.

Sure. And, you know, they literally interpolated Blink 182 song in growing up. And so there's a lot of these songs that, again, feel like, okay, it's a small group of people. Okay, we got to be honest. Let's make a Taylor Swift song. Okay, let's make a... a 1975 song.

Let's make a, and that's okay, but it does, that's the part for me that felt the most chat GPT-esque, and then let's overlay, inadvertently overlay a little too much, a little TMI sprinkled through these songs. I think that there is a form in here somewhere that feels true to both her and her husband. husband Matthew Coma, who produced the whole album, that I hear the most on, I would say, weather for tennis. I would say, you from the honeymoon. And I would say, maybe even a little bit of adult-sized medium where, like, you do hear, so he's worked with Carly Ray Jepson a fair bit.

And I think you hear a little bit of that come through. I think you hear like some of the parts that I found interesting. And because we're talking about how at least for me, and I think most people, you don't have a, like this is someone who feels sort of etched in stone from a particular time. And then most of us have lost touch with. But there are there are these moments where like there's a part of adult size media. where, yes, like, you have that kind of Antenophian fuzziness that's very Midnight's era Taylor.

But there's also a part where the synths kind of do this thing that really feels like an old chain smoker's song. Oh, yeah, for sure. And, like, I kind of enjoyed that because I felt like she was almost, like, putting me back into some of the moments that she would have experienced, but we wouldn't have experienced together.

And so, like, I do think that there are ideas of what of like who Hillary Duff wants to be as a pop star right now, but I agree that they appear kind of sporadically and sandwiched between songs that are very much,

let's do a 1975 song, let's do a midnight song. So can I pause you there for a sec? Go. And just tell you something. I've watched a few of the TV bits that she's done. I love her.

Yeah. I think her relationship with her husband seems super cool. They were, like, so supportive of each other and, like, cute together talking about this album and the way that they work together. Like, she seems awesome. I would also say that this is, like, from what I normally, I feel like we've had this conversation with, like, Doolipa making her dad be her manager and stuff like that. If you tell me, if you tell me artist X. unless they have a track record of it, is turning, is making a mid-career turn to their partner as their production partner or like a serious co-worker.

I'm scared. I do not think it's going to go well. Does that count? Michael Gaga count? I mean, they're the exception that proves the rule. Taylor in-house team, Taylor Travis, the whole family. Yes. It depends on who's managing.

is producing the next Taylor Swift album. I'm afraid. I'm very afraid. No, but you know what? I actually feel better for Travis's career of Taylor's managing it. Maybe in that direction, but not the other way around. No, the other direction, it's a nightmare. Well, that's what I'm saying.

So I'm saying that within that context, I actually think this is sort of shockingly good. And I agree. I think they're very cute. Yeah. So the video content for me was interesting and appealing. and they felt authentic. It didn't feel like they were putting anything on. I don't know.

Maybe it's just because she's a good actress. But through these songs, I didn't feel that way. Well, so, okay, but will you talk to me about what you liked or what you liked the best? Um, yeah. I think that I like roommates the best. Oh. Even though for me, it is anti-hero. I just melodically like it a lot.

I do like the chorus on adult-sized medium quite a bit. Yep. And a lot of the rest of it, I liked okay. Like, it was fine. I just found myself hearing other stuff in it. And yes, to your point, occasionally aligned being like, Oh God, oh God, we got to get in her an Uber. We got to get her home.

Like before too many people hear this, like we got to get her home. So I do have, this isn't quite in that category. And I agree with you. I like the melody of roommates. I like especially the melody of that little post-chorus hook. When she says,

but life is lifing. Yeah. But life is lifeing and pressure is pressure in me. Isn't there a moment like that in every song? That's what I'm trying. Like, that's what I'm like, do people really talk this way? Or was this like, did ChatGPT just fuck up with 30-ish women say? Or the context that they say?

I think that there are, I think some people talk like this. I find it unbecoming. And I do think that that's a little bit of a difference. That's a different thing from the, like when she's, suddenly she's talking about touching herself looking at porn. Like, yeah. That's a kind of,

there are moments that feel like overshares. Right. That hit me a little funny. That's not, like life is lifing is not one of those. One, I just think that if you're using the written word, we got to get a little further than using the same word to describe an earlier instance

of that word. And also, it has the same ring of like a particular genre of millennial who talks about quote adulting yeah and I do think that that's something that hopefully culture has moved beyond yeah there's just there is a lot of 38 year old four kid wine mom in this album and that's cool but that once a song I'm like we're in a group chat now we're in a fucking group chat I like this more than it's coming across as though I do. So do I.

I have a little bit of reluctance to sort of hand-wave it all as this is what wine moms are like. Because knowing several mothers who drink wine, they don't all talk like this. Okay. Like, this is what I'm asking you. Who talks like this? It's a, it's like a caricature. It's a caricature. caricature of something that exists, but she doesn't mean it as a caricature.

Right. And that's what kind of, that's what I'm having trouble with. Like, there's an- She's cooler than this. That's my point from the video stuff. Yeah. She seems cooler than this in real life. I agree.

So the caricature of somebody being honest comes through. And again, ironically, I guess it's trying hard is what I'd say. But I, I think, she's cooler than this. I wonder if it's a little bit of like, you know how many times we've talked about the post-Disney kind of cycle where quite often there's a moment

when someone is trying to prove someone who's been a child star and been in that machine tries to prove that they can't be told what to do and they're, to borrow a word, mature and grown up. And that's not something that she ever really did, right? like because she mostly had this big moment and then at least musically.

Managed her shit, yeah. Receited and had a sort of normal-ish life and focused on TV work. And I guess sometimes I wonder if she is almost like fast cycling that whole process of rebelling against the kitty stuff and then sort of coming to terms with it. and accepting it. And it's almost like she put it all into one and she was able to bypass the kind of performative edginess. But the way that it came out is let me really turn the dial up on the kind of like not adult subject matter

in terms of it being particularly X-rated, certainly. but like in terms of talking about relationships that feel like something that happens at a later point in life and all of that stuff. And like maybe maybe this is kind of like in a weird way, maybe this is her way of doing the Miley Cyrus Wrecking Ball performance. Like this is Hillary Duff with the with the little buns on her head swinging naked on the wrecking ball. Right. That's a little bit of my theory of what. happened here. I also will say that like, and actually there's some lyrical moments that I like. She was never a songwriter. Like she wasn't a songwriter and now she exists in a pop moment

where not everybody is expected to be a songwriter, but it's a difference. It's more of an open question of how people are going to respond to somebody who isn't. So, you know, we are we are talking about someone who doesn't have much of a track record in this area. Well, so what's your favorite song? Okay. I think mature is the best song. Yeah. I think they absolutely chose the right single.

I like mature. I also will say that like, yeah, sure, like, we're slapping Leo around a little bit. I'm fine with that. It's kind of the least depressing. Like, it's one. where the perspective has some of the benefits of growing up incorporated into it, where she can look back on this thing that happened and kind of understand it in a different way. And there are really nice things about that, even if she's talking about realizing that certain

things were all effed up at the time. I appreciate that there is something positive to be taken from that as opposed to growing up equals being really scared about all of these things and not being as fulfilled in your relationships as you thought you might be, which is honestly what I get from most of the rest of it. Yeah, the lyrical thing for me, it's just like, it's sort of like the oldest meme on the internet at this point is like making a joke about anytime anything turns 25 that Leo won't date it anymore. Yeah. Well, yeah. I I had a conversation with a friend about the song when just the single was out.

And like, I would say that she said something that struck me as very true, at least as I hear it, which is that it feels to me a little bit less like this is a song about Leonardo DiCaprio and more like this is a song about a thing that happens. Like, I hear it much more generally than that, even though, of course, there are those details. I mean, there are a lot of details, Carbon Beach. Yeah. His art. Yeah. There's a lot. It's not like the Easter egging is particularly subtle.

But I think because, again, this is a thing that happens. It comes across as something that's more worth talking about with the specificity lending its impotency as opposed to, let me just take a whack at this guy that the internet takes plenty of wax at. Also, like, I don't know. I guess I am not all that worried about that. I think Leo seems fine. Have you ever heard the song Strawberry Letter 23 by the Brothers Johnson? I have, and in fact, I was listening to it this afternoon because of this lyric, which I do, I really like that moment. I think that is, that is a moment when there's, when detail enhances a song on this record as opposed to detracting from it. You think Leo's big into that? song? Well, the only other song that I've ever heard about Leo having alleged particular affection for is,

God, it's like the M83 song that there are rumors that he listens to while fornicating. So I don't know. That's really all I got for you in terms of whether or not I think Leo's particularly we into that song. I really know you're not going to believe me. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Can I tell you about the other songs that I quite like? Bring it. Okay. I like weather for tennis a lot. Okay. I can tell. I like the melody a lot. I know that we're going to get there.

It sounds like you and I have some problem songs in common here. but there is a middle part of this album where some of the melodies get very like they're made up of two or three notes. Yeah. And that was tough for me. I think that weather for tennis is a really good example of a song that moves melodically in a way that I think is great.

Does it, did it all like harken back to the Lily Allen tennis song? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Intr... That's what got me. I was like, oh, shit. I think musically, I get it. Like, there's a little bit of... I got more Carly Ray from this,

but I think that there is some Lily Allen on this album as well. I don't think that Lily Allen owns tennis as a concept. She doesn't. It just, like, that's a real... I mean, of the country... Of the songs about country club sports, Golf on TV by Lenin Stella, I love. Lily Allen tennis, I love. I don't know.

It's hard to put tennis in a song title and have it actually work. Well, and I didn't quite, I get like, the idea is that, okay, so these people like tennis. God, I am fucking on one today. You are a little bit on one. I'm kind of enjoying it.

Sorry, everybody. Because they like tennis, but they can't play tennis, so instead they're going to fight, is I guess what's going on. There are some moments in the storytelling that I don't understand. Like, I really like the melody

and the production of the bridge. Okay. But it's where she goes into that part about, like, going over to the neighbors to have cocktails with your pinky out. And I was just like, what? What's happening?

Who are it? Yeah. Well, I say it, the weather for tennis, it feels like we're going back and forth. I say something, you say something. Ding, don't, think, don't. Yeah. Like, that's, it feels like a metaphor for the debate that's happening. And yeah, no, that part I'm on board with, but I don't understand the neighbor thing. You calling me bad shits and bump our heads.

Oh, surprise, surprise, drink some wine. Yeah. That line, you calling me bat shits, the fastest antibiotic to thinking it's different this time. I kind of like that. I'm with you. I thought that was cool. Yes. In. You calling me bad shit. Yeah. No, there are a lot of words in this album as a whole, and I would say that it clunks too often. But that one, which I've seen called out some places as an example of that. I don't agree with that. I think that's fun. One of the things that's abundantly clear that men should really understand about their partners is that you don't call them crazy. It doesn't go well, ever. And saying, you're calling me bat shit. Is that the thing that.

the fastest antibiotic. Yeah. It's like, come on. Yeah. You don't do that. That's a good, it's a good lesson for us all. It's a very suboptimal way of interacting with someone. I also like you from the honeymoon. Okay, let's talk about that. This is another one where I really like the melody. Okay, I like the melody too. I get thrown a little bit by lines like casual smokers, spiritual feathers. I get thrown by let's drink too much. put on the Japanese house,

it'll help us forget what we were bitching about. Oh, I, so, okay, there are things in this that I'm thrown by, but it's not those. I actually, like, the Japanese house reference for me

felt true in a way that sometimes she's bringing up things like orange wine, and it just sort of, it felt a little, those are moments where it felt like

trying too hard for me. This one actually didn't. Do you think, and I have to ask you, about most of the people that... Do you think she smokes? Probably.

I think she's a casual smoker. But she used to be. Yeah. I think... I also, I couldn't... I assumed that this was a reference to cigarettes, but it could go either way. No, no, no, I did too. I did too. Okay.

The moments on this song that take me out of it a little bit are your kind of freak matched my kind of freak. 100%. What are we doing? And then also the lyric about the slap in the face. Oh, yeah. Where again, I'm like, okay, now are we suddenly having a conversation about domestic violence? Like, because that's-

Domestic Violence? Yeah. Yeah, that was, that's weird for me. I will be honest, she doesn't enunciate all that well on that line. So I can kind of squint and pretend it's not there and get back to what I do really like about this, which is there's a sweetness to the overall sound of the song that I think matches her voice really well. Again, I really like the melody.

There are vignettes, like the Japanese house part of it, that I actually respond well to. But I do kind of have to pretend that there isn't a line about hitting your partner on the song. But you didn't think it was like a sexual reference? Slipping out a dress like our wedding day. But it's not quite in, like it's not in that, stanza. That's not how I took it. I guess it's, I guess maybe that's possible. And that's,

that's the kind of freak that is being matched. I would, I would certainly, you know what? That's my new way of listening to this song. Because it's going to help me. That's how you should roll with it. Yeah. Totally. Thank you. I think it's better if you think about it that way. Totally. And then let's see. Those are definitely my two favorites. I actually, I like, We don't talk. I like roommates okay. I don't love roommates. But it is mostly because of but life is lifing.

I just like I really struggle with life is lifing. You could handle the sex act in the back of the dive bar, but life is lifeing is what turned you off? Yes. That's just, I'm not saying that's the right answer, but I am saying that it's the right answer for me. You could handle the porn part. I can handle.

I'm not sure that there's a line on this album, which includes repeated, father never loved her, everybody's leaving, you know, slap in the face. I'm not sure that there is a lyrical moment on this album that I have a tougher time with than, but life is lifing. Okay. So is there any lore around the Haley Duff situation? Because you said you like, we don't talk. I always end up saying is how we don't talk. I mean, just that I know that they're not friends, that they're not. Well, we do too from this song.

Right. There's, I don't know any specifics. There's not Easter egg stuff. And even in this song, she kind of intimates that she doesn't even really know what happened or where their tension began. So other than it being. a situation that, I mean, it's also not something that she

think she's pretty honest about the fact that they don't really have much a relationship. And the bridge is basically an invitation to talk it out, which I thought was actually kind of cool. Yeah. Like, let's have it out. I'll hear you out. You hear me out on the couch,

get back to how we were as kids. Like, great. Yeah. I hope it works for her. Yeah. And I didn't mind the Gatier interpolation because, again, to me, that was one of those other little touch points.

kind of in the time between the Lizzie McGuire years and now where it's, it just sort of makes me feel like, oh, yeah, she experienced that. And so did I. And it just establishes a little bit more of a shared record. So I like that one. I'll tell you the ones that I really struggle with. And it is the three songs that come after. we don't talk, the middle of this album between future tripping growing up and the optimist.

And that is my fire into the sun section. Okay. What is it about future tripping that you struggle with? It's the fact that the majority of the melody is three notes. It's the da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Like, it sounds like an insect in my ear. That's how I feel about growing up. Yeah.

I also like, I just really didn't need Alana Masterson to be invoked on this album. Like, that's crazy. Okay. That's a crazy choice. Yeah, they just lost a little bit of its melodic ambition, I suppose. Yes, I think that's a good way of putting it.

I just like, yeah. Weaponizing Blink 182, damn it for... If I had to choose one, it would be growing up. Yeah, that's where I am. We agree on that. We will shoot that one into the sun. The optimist, I learned the most about her from the optimist. That's true.

That's true. And I think it's, you know, but it's like you get into a chorus, I wish I could sleep on planes. Oh, okay. And that my father would really love me. What? Yeah, it's too, like, again, I don't want to fault anyone for sharing, but it's too startling. Yeah. Yeah, it's just, it's, it's, oh.

And you don't get the sense that she thinks she's pulling the rug out from underneath you on purpose. Like, you don't get the sense that she's like, oh, they're never going to see this coming. And that's where I'm really, I'm really in the bar with the person who shouldn't have finished the and martini going, oh boy. We can't have a two martini lunch, Hillary. How many times have I told you? Just one. Usually they say that three is that, you know, because the martinis are like boobs.

One's not enough. Two is perfect. Three's too many. Oh, thank God. I learned something today. Yes, you want to say it. No. No.

I mean, I think that there's a lot of, honest discussion of her sex life or sort of sexual fantasy stuff sprinkled across this record in a bunch of places. Yeah. Tell me that, which is kind of brave. You know, tell me that won't happen. She says, I'm not complaining the sex could be hotter, but I want to know that's the wave you're on.

I sort of receive that as like a coin with two sides. on the one hand, there were times where I felt like it was part of the tryhard I'm trying to make a moment. I'm trying to get somebody to talk about the fact that Hillary Duff dot, dot, dot. But on the other hand, I was like, you know, there's an honesty. Yeah, that's not something you hear every day. No. And she does it in a different way than would from Showgirl, right? I agree.

In that it's much more directed. there's a vulnerability to it when you think about the fact that her husband is producing this album. Yeah. And that was the thing that I caught onto, not because of the sex part of it,

but because of the actual believable honesty and the bravery that it would take with those people or that person in the room. And then, by the way, others who were involved in this album to just say that out loud and have them deal with that and process that. that's a thing, unless it's an entire act.

Like, I found that interesting. That's all. I'll be really curious to see if this is a bridge anywhere in particular. Yeah. Where do you think, is there a next album after, like, what happens here? Is this just all gearing towards, you know, when we were young type festival for this kind of sort of pop star, where Carly Ray and Hillary and others come back and play and do all this stuff in the aggregate. What do you think?

Carly is doing big things on Broadway right now. Carly is like having chapter after chapter. I think the answer to that, honestly, to me is yes. And I think that is more than fine. I want to be truthful about the fact that I felt mostly disappointed by this album, but also that I look at it as. pretty successful in doing what it needed to do because I'm thrilled to be going to this tour. I am thrilled to just like have a moment in culture where we're talking about Hillary Duff.

That feels like something that I have really wanted for a long time and probably would have wanted as a kid without being able to put words to it. And I really do think that there are some fun sounding pop songs on this album. I think mature is very good, and I think that it is more than effective at what it needs to do, which is be the foundation for all of that remembering Hillary Duff to happen, which to me is great. We are always going to be honest about how we feel about the album. So, like, I'm sorry if anyone feels like this is yucking a particular yum, just know that I am with you in the Hillary Duff trenches, and I think it's okay.

But there was quite a bit on here that I bumped up against. And I do think that it's hard for me to listen to this and say, oh, well, here are all the doors that this opens up for her beyond servicing nostalgia. Did you give it a grade? I got to hear yours first. I got a B. I kind of gave it a B for Bmer, but I still gave it a B. Wow

What a generous This is our first Is this our first grade of 26? Don't ask me when the years started I think it might be I think you're yes I think that's correct Do you think you're coming out generous Because you love Hillary?

No, I actually think I'm being ungenerous because I love Hillary I think that the like I think if you listen to this episode It's gonna make it sound like these songs are kind of Unlistenable and they're really not You should listen to the record. Yeah, listen to the album, definitely. I think that I, no, I actually think that I'm being harsher on it because I care.

But I do think that it matters that I, that it's doing what it needs to do, I think. Like, I do think that it matters that it is enough to make the tour feel bigger. And by the way, like, you know, I don't know if she'll change the set list, but in these, in the shows that she's done, so far, she did a little mini residency in Las Vegas and blah, blah, blah, and she's done a few smaller shows. She has really, she's played these songs, but she has centered the back catalog. And in that sense, it kind of seems to me like she knows. Yeah, I saw some social post that said something like, it's crazy that like a C by any other

normal evaluation is a a minus for Hillary. Because it's exactly what it needed to be, which is kind of what I think you're saying. Like, mission accomplished, got it out, has some songs that are streaming a little bit, and not going to set the world on fire,

but will easily bring people back into the live show, which is inevitably going to happen from here. I imagine. I mean, I don't know. It's it's not easy when you're trying to do that and raise a family and all of the normal things. But she is touring. Superhero women have to do. I know, but like it's just it's super hard, right?

Yeah. So, yeah, that's, I think yeah. So I'm with the person on the internet. But I don't think it's, I don't think it's. You're with a person on the internet that simultaneously gave it a C and an A minus. Yes.

That's cheating. Yes. A minus for what it's trying to accomplish in terms of like whether this will become I hope this does not like affect the playlisting, the algorithmic feed that I get from Spotify, which is already completely fucked up because of what we have to listen to. So yeah, that's where I am.

I will land the plane. Here's what I'll do. I'll land the plane on a C plus. Okay. And that's me being like as directly honest as I can be, but I would not, if I walk into your house and you're playing this, I'm not asking to turn it off.

If you're playing the last Katie Perry album, I'm walking out. Like this is a perfectly acceptable album to listen to. It's fine if this is your thing. But not what if I'm playing Peacock? by Katie Perry. Are you walking out? The comedic value says I have to stay for that. Okay. Well, I'll keep that in mind.

It depends on how many martinis we had at lunch. Well, I'm glad that if nothing else, Nathan, we can say that you learned something from this episode. I'm feeling so much smarter. This has been every single album. As always, I'm Nora Pinciotti. He's Nathan Hubbard. Thank you to Kai and McMullen for producing this episode and to you for listening. We'll talk to you next week. Thank you.