Hilary Duff proves to be the anti-Lindsay Lohan

BY ROSS RAIHALA
Pop Music Critic

Article Last Updated: 08/23/2007 11:36:04 PM CDT

Watching Hilary Duff sing - or, perhaps at times, pretend to sing - in front of a meager crowd of 3,523 Thursday night at the Target Center, one couldn't help but think: "Lindsay Lohan, this could have been your life."

After all, both Duff and Lohan shot to fame thanks to the relentless Disney machine - the former through the "Lizzie McGuire" TV show, the latter via the "The Parent Trap" big-screen remake. And both have pursued music in addition to acting, with Lohan releasing two discs to Duff's three.

But where Lohan is busy pleading no contest to drug and DUI charges, Duff seems to be running out the clock on her tween-pop career. As canny as Disney may be at launching careers, said careers tend to have as much longevity as a training bra. To wit, Miley "Hannah Montana" Cyrus is the flavor of this month, and her Oct. 21 gig in the same Minneapolis venue will likely attract a crowd three or four times larger than Duff's.

Duff is out in support of her latest album, "Dignity," which sees her chasing a more grown-up dance floor sound, similar to the stuff Kylie Minogue was doing back in her post-"I Should Be So Lucky" days. And some of it is pretty terrific, at least considering the source.

"Danger" props Duff up with a sexy, throbbing beat that nearly lives up to the song's title, while "Dignity" takes aim at vacuous celebutants including, one assumes, Nicole Richie, who is now pregnant with the child of Duff's ex, Joel Madden. Parents in the house surely appreciated the cover of Pat Benatar's "Love Is a Battlefield" (complete with the original video's absurd dance routines) and Duff's remade/remodeled take on Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" (now dubbed "Reach Out and Touch Me").

Unfortunately, the sleeker and darker new material doesn't exactly mesh well with Duff's bright-eyed, star-making tween hits ("Beat of My Heart," "Why Not"), which gave the briskly paced 95-minute show plenty of unexpected mood swings, even when she was occasionally able to bridge the two eras, like in the endearingly campy "Never Stop."

While she may not be the strongest singer - a significant portion of her vocals sounded pre-recorded - Duff proved to be a bubbly, likable presence on stage, giving the night far more of an actual concert feel than, say, that awful Cheetah Girls show last year at the X. And while the crowd was modest in size, it was monstrous in enthusiasm, adorably chanting "Hil-a-ry, Hil-a-ry" and doing the wave while waiting for the show to start. Duff not only returned that love, she actually pushed her audience, ever so gently, into new territory. And that's far more than La Lohan can say, right?

Pop Music Critic Ross Raihala can be reached at rraihala@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5553. Read more about the local music scene on his blog, "The Ross Who Knew Too Much," at blogs.twincities.com/ross.

PS: ROSS Raihala is not related to Hilary Duff Encyclopedia.
Courtesy: twincities.com