I remember once getting into a conversation with some friends of mine about who had the most embarrassing things in their collection o’ music. They volunteered some examples, and I can’t even remember what they were, because at that point I opened my mouth and said:

“I have all three Ace of Base albums.”

That was the end of the discussion. “OK, dude, you win,” they said, and the topic was never broached again.

For the purposes of this discussion, the point of this story is that I’ve got no shame at all when it comes to my love of pure pop. As such, I’ll happily admit to having actually quite enjoyed Hilary Duff’s albums so far. Something about their plastic chirpiness, their giddy disposability, appeals to me. I think of them as the aural equivalent of marshmallow peeps. (Incidentally, I really like those too.)

At any rate, it’s hard to even try to maintain a straight face and look at the cover of the Dignity Remix EP at the same time. Not only does it have the same kind of perfume-ad picture of Ms. Duff as the proper Dignity album, but it’s also got a blue rectangle in the corner that proudly proclaims: “Wal-Mart Exclusive!” I find that fitting somehow. There’s a level on which Hilary and Wal-Mart fit perfectly with each other; you might, if you were a pretentious English major, or a librarian, or, heaven forbid, both, think of them as synomorphs. Synomorphs, incidentally, is very high on the list of names I’d use if I were going to start drawing manga. But I digress. As usual.

The Dignity Remix EP starts with three mixes by ex-Movement DJ Richard Vission, who, much to my chagrin, declines to use the Richard “Humpty” Vission name. He takes on “With Love,” “Play With Fire,” and “Dignity,” but he’s only got one trick to spread between them. It seems to involve mugging the Neptunes for the synth they used on No Doubt’s “Hella Good,” and then putting it on repeat. Seriously, these three tracks are awful; I think they would irritate me even if I were in a club. They’re also the sort of mixes that obscure the original song to the point where it’s unrecognizable — it’s pretty hard to hear Hilary underneath the sledgehammer synths.

The fourth track, the Vada Mix of “Play With Fire,” seems to be an attempt to turn Hilary into Beyonce. It’s a bad idea on at least two levels: first, because this means that we wind up with the kind of canned radio-R&B backing that could be any of six songs currently in heavy rotation at a top-40 station near you; and second, because Hilary simply doesn’t have the kind of vocal chops necessary to impose any personality on this kind of material. On her regular studio albums, she’s aware of her limitations and chooses not to expose them. If you’ve got the voice of an ingenue, you shouldn’t try a track that requires a diva. Simple as it is.

The last track, the Dance Mix of “Come Clean,” is one that I’ve always liked, with just the right addition of driving bassline and club-ready drums to complement the processed guitars and the melody. Trouble is, it’s the exact same mix that’s already on Most Wanted, so using it to pad an “exclusive” EP is somewhere between very and extremely disingenuous.

It’s exactly the same price at Wal-Mart to buy Dignity with or without the remix EP, so this isn’t a waste of money, precisely. It’s a pretty big waste of time, though.

Release Date: April 3, 2007
Label: Hollywood Records
Rating: 3/10

5 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment