Hilary Duff "Reach Out"

[a Nick O!]

Holy f***ing s***.

Much in the vein that Rihanna's "S.O.S." shamelessly sampled "Tainted Love" for its beat, Hilary's song does likewise with Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus." Only it sees "S.O.S."'s beat and raises it an interpolated hook: "Reach out and touch me."

And with this song, we have Hilary's entry into the saturated market of female singers and slickly produced electro songs a la Britney Spears, Rihanna, Pink, Katy Perry, and Miley Cyrus. Hell, let's go ahead and throw Chris Brown, Ne-Yo, Jesse McCartney, Metro Station and Fall Out Boy under the bus while we're at it.

I'm sure DM purists (if they ever get the opportunity to hear this) will be crying blasphemy, and Kirk I'm curious for your opinion in particular, but based on the one listen, 100% due to the instant familiarity of it all, I think I love this.

www.zshare.net/audio/1995442094569f17/

[sparta]

I listened to almost all of it once and wouldn't mind never hearing it again.

[halo19]

I checked out to see if YouTube had it and sure enough it does. "Reach Out" is indeed very comparable to "S.O.S.," but the thing that disappoints me is she basically used the entire soundtrack of "PJ"'s music, offering nothing else (I think Rihanna interpolated "I toss and turn, I can't sleep at night", as well). It's alright but I think that at the same time the vocals of a more teen pop song stop it from sounding like something free of identity. So it's kind of a mixed-reaction thing so far.

My favorite rendition so far has been Johnny Cash's from 2002. And I was aware of that one at the time.

[Pipa]

This, "I Don't Care", and "Keeps Gettin' Better" all remind me of "Personal Jesus". Seriously, can't we use something else?

[friday]

Give Joel Madden the credit for turning her on to old-school alternative rock. I remember reading somewhere he got her into Morrissey, which kinda shocked me at the time. But really, there's nothing wrong with discovering good music.

I can't hold out much hope that this'll be good, but I definitely won't be automatically switching the station if I should come across it.

[a Nick O!]

Oct 6, 2008 1:36:21 GMT -4 friday said:

I can't hold out much hope that this'll be good, but I definitely won't be automatically switching the station if I should come across it.

I'm not sure if Pop radio will be willing to give Hilary's music a chance anymore. They sure didn't to Ashlee Simpson, a peer with similarly diminishing returns.

[friday]

That's true. She barely got her foot in the door to begin with. "So Yesterday," which is probably her signature song, went to #15, then "Come Clean" hit #9, and after that she's never even sniffed the top 20. "With Love" was supposed to be her musical foray into "adulthood," as I understood it, and that was not rewarded kindly.

Hard to think you can peak at age 16 (I'm looking at you, Miley Montana).

[crash46]

It's interesting in the sense that every band to have ever tried remaking "Personal Jesus" is more or less exactly the same, making it exponentially more lame with each attempt. This is different than that, coming from a singer known for her pre-teeny efforts, making a statement that she's past the days of the Disney Channel puppet strings around each limb. I bet Britney Spears wishes she had come up with this. Hilary is doing her best replication, and if it wasn't a complete replication, I'd probably like it more.

I'd be interested to see if she shoots a video with this, just to see where she'd go. From what I've seen lately, she's a lot less unfetching than she was when she was just a TV star.

[Mega248]

I'll give this a solid C for now. I wish it hadn't sampled "Personal Jesus" quite so heavily.

[mtm4319]

Oct 9, 2008 1:46:43 GMT -4 crash46 said:

I'd be interested to see if she shoots a video with this, just to see where she'd go. From what I've seen lately, she's a lot less unfetching than she was when she was just a TV star.

And I agree with your assessment as quoted above. Dare I say, Madonna-ish at times.