From the soft-focused, impeccably styled, tasteful cover photo -- better suited for Harper's Bazaar than a pop album -- to the haughty implications of the title,
Hilary Duff's third album,
Dignity, appears to be the teen star's self-styled, self-conscious adult album. Almost too adult, actually, since the packaging makes it seem like
Hilary skipped over her wild, restless years and headed straight toward polished adult contemporary blandness. But, as
Bo Diddley once sang, you can't judge a book by looking at its cover, and
Dignity isn't quite what it seems. To be sure, it's an adult album, but it's a young adult album, driven almost entirely by gleaming electronic beats, consisting almost entirely of dance songs, and never once seeming as stuffy as that ill-conceived cover. While it is never as stylish and brittle as the cold, robotic funk of
FutureSex/LoveSounds,
Dignity surely strives to be a happier, friendlier spin on that electro-pop sound -- dance-pop for people who never set foot in clubs, which also means that even if the rhythms are pushed to the forefront, the tracks are built upon a strong songwriting foundation that, thanks to teen pop impresario
Kara DioGuardi, are sturdy, hooky, and memorable. It's the kind of music made be somebody who knows what's fashionable but isn't by any means a trend-setter, but that, in a nutshell, is who
Hilary Duff is: she's not the coolest kid around, but she's the popular girl who's still friendly to the misfits, nerds, and burnouts, so everybody still likes her even if it's at times begrudging.