Millennial icon Hilary Duff has released her first album in over a decade, and for an artist whose music career always felt more like an inevitable dabble following her success as a Disney teen than it did anything serious, her transition into the current pop landscape is incredibly smooth. That’s not to say a handful of her previous hits haven’t stood the test of time, there’s just an air of irony and nostalgia to them that it seems it would be impossible to separate her from. Luck…or something, and Duff’s comeback as a whole, tackles that with subtle self-depreciation alongside genuinely enjoyable tracks. She commands respect with her approach and it’s clear that the album is authentic in both its themes and its efforts.
Singles “Mature” and “Roommates” reintroduced the familiar all American pop rock sound that Duff is so deeply associated with, but both with clear modern influences and slightly more vulnerable themes. From the first verse of opening track “Weather For Tennis”, it’s obvious that this continues. Her pretty, light falsetto and mellifluous pronunciation of some of the most basic words complements the bright, clean production and catchy melodies in a familiar way, but the album’s lyrics and stylistic choices keep it very much in the modern day.
Musical influences are weaved through every track, “Tell Me That Won’t Happen” could easily have been written by The 1975, “You, From the Honeymoon” has shades of both Lily Allen and Chappell Roan, “Roommates” carries an instrumental that feels strikingly similar to Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero”, the album as a whole heavily recalls Swift’s 1989 era, and there’s even a reinterpretation of blink-182’s "Dammit" with “Growing Up”. However, there’s an authenticity and uniqueness to the sound that means these similarities feel celebratory rather than like an artist out of their depth scrambling to reproduce a magic formula.
Luck…or something caters to the millennial penchant for nostalgia and validation, the same generation who grew up singing along to sassy empowering tracks like “So Yesterday” and “Why Not” can now, sadly, relate to Duff on a much more human level, and her delivery is excellent.
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