I'm sure you're staring at your screen thinking this is some kind of joke, some opening bit to trick people & surprise them later with this post actually being my best list. But nope, I'm serious. As a straight white 16 year old teenage boy, I kinda unironically love Hannah Montana's music. Or, at least enough to compile a list together. Couple ground rules before we start this. 1) I will only count songs by Hannah Montana, not Miley Cyrus. Sure, I like Party In The U.S.A as much as the next insane person, and Hoedown Throwdown is basically the greatest song ever created by a human being, but those are not Hannah Montana songs, they are Miley Cyrus songs(There's a difference trust me). 2) I will count songs that came from the "Hannah Montana Movie", but, obviously, only the songs that she sang as Hannah Montana. 3) Not including any songs from the remix album or the live album. But even if I was, it doesn't matter cause they all suck ass anyways.
Fucking Christ why am I doing this. Guess I better start now. Here are the Top 10 Best Hannah Montana Songs!
Of course it's only fitting that the first song I talk about is one that isn't even very good.
No. 10: The Other Side of Me
There is a shocking amount of stuff about this song that doesn't work considering it's a Disney Pop song. Hannah's vocals break often & sometimes even get a tad screechy, most notably on the 1st verse. The hook isn't that good either, with some awkward auto tune butchering that I'm sure was done for an effect, but it just sounds straight up shitty. Dear fucking lord the vocal production. Whoever did this to the blonde alter ego queen herself needs to be pushed off a rooftop. It makes her sound so...off, y'know? Like yeah I know she was like 14 and all, but her vocals aren't THIS bad (she made 4 whole fuckin albums for a reason). And it's not like what she's saying is better either. Pretty much the entirety of her 1st album was vague female empowerment mixed with a bunch of references of how Hannah is living a double life, but this is pushing the envelope right here. Christ, it's called "The Other Side of Me". S U B T L E. But I don't know, I love it. The melody is infectious, her flow on the verses sounds kinda cool, the intro has some cool layering, annnnnnnndddd that's it. Despite how shit...everything about this song is, I really enjoy it. And I have no defenses for it. Sorry.
I knew that there were gonna be a lot of songs on this list that most of you wouldn't know, so I was hoping I could put one of the bigger, more well known tracks on here. Thankfully, it's the one that everyone knows. And it's awesome.
No.9: The Best of Both Worlds
This is just a classic really. People can say they hate it, but you know you love it. It's the theme for the show which you all secretly loved, and was the anthem for all pre-teen girls, which, when you really think about it, aren't we all just pre teen girls? There isn't much to say about this. The explosive drums & poorly mixed guitar on the intro set such a fantastic mood. It's just so anthemic, it DEMANDS you to sing along to it. Also, not to mention the adlibs are fabulous (my favourite being "Is that Orlando Bloom?" It has no context & I adore it). Although the lyrics are a bit questionable when you put some thought into it. I mean, you probably shouldn't be encouraging young girls to have double lives Hannah, that isn't very responsible or respectable. There's a lot of messages your show, persona & music puts across, some good & some bad. You probably shouldn't focus on the one where you're being a lying bitch to the public. But c'mon, don't act like lyrics to this matter. If we can give Future & Young Thug a pass by ignoring their lyrics, then we can sure as fuck do the same for Hannah Montana.
This is probably the one that most people won't connect with. Which is understandable, it's got a different sound to the most. But that doesn't mean it's not great.
No. 8: Who Said
A very cute song to listen to I'd say. Hearing Hannah on the hook boasting how she could totally be Superman or even the President in this cutesy, more lighter voice just puts a smile on my face. It's not the cutest song on this list (nor it's album), but it's certainly a contender. The hook has a fantastic groove to it, straight out of Carly Rae Jepsons album Kiss, the end of the hook has this twangy "DON DUH DON DUH DON DUH DON" kind of guitar you'd hear in some surf rock or something, and it all fits together surprisingly well. And the bridge I think works really well too.
"There's no holdin' back/Stayin' right on track/Cause you control the game/So let them know your name"
See what I said earlier? It's got some nice empowerment to it without being completely insufferable, which is a very hard medium to handle. Hell, Meghan Trainor couldn't do it in 2 fucking albums, and she's an adult. Hannah did it when she was just 14! Well...ok it was also written by 3 old dudes...and Hannah herself actually doesn't have a writing credit on this song (or on ANY song on her first album), but who cares right? Oh, and also:
"No limitations on imagination: Imagine that!"
Oh shit boi that's some straight fire right there damn Hanny Montanny bout to go triple platinum with no features. Oh wait, SHE FUCKING DID! TRIPLE PLATINUM WITH NO FEATURES BOYZ! EAT SHIT J. COLE!
*ahem* Sorry about that. Songs good. Let's move on.
Venturing away from the 1st album, her producers decided that her songs needed to be a lot more guitar driven. So for the 2nd album, that's exactly what they did, and here's the first example.
No. 7: We Got The Party
First thing that sticks out in this song is obviously the guitar. It drives the entire song and kicks ass. As the song goes on, the guitar gets more prominent & I love it. Coupled with the kicking beat that might aswell be a Hannah Montana staple, this song just sounds fantastic. I also really dig her vocal performance here. I can't pinpoint why, but there's something she's doing here that seperates from all her other vocal performances. It might be the run on sentence esque melody she got to sing, maybe the producers did some special touch to her vocals that I'm just too stupid to notice, I don't know. What I do know though is I really dig it. It reminds me of a sort of diet Avril Lavigne of some sort. There's not too much special about the song other than that, it's just a damn good pop rock song. It sticks to the formula, and was really the song that invented the formula, that Hannah will use for her next 2 albums & create her best songs. Thus, it's fitting this song would make the list to me. I mean, you wouldn't make a list of the Best Panic! At The Disco songs without mentioning I Write Sins Not Tragedies, would you?
I'll be the first person to tell you that almost every single song on Hannah Montanas first album all sounded exactly the same. I mean there were differences in all of them of course, but they all seemed to follow a simple structure & sound. The only stand out to the album was this song, and oh my god is it amazing.
No. 6: If We Were a Movie
Incoming is the 2nd most adorable song on this list. Sure you could say all the songs are in a way adorable, but this one is special in my eyes. It's just so innocent & wholesome considering it was written by half a dozen white dudes in their mid 40s. But I don't care what fuckwads wrote it, I care about how much this chorus makes me smile.
"If we were a movie/You'd be the right guy/And I'd be the best friend/You'd fall in love with/In the end we'd be laughing/Watching the sunset/Fade to black/Show the names/Play that happy song"
The way she holds the word "song" at the very end just melts my cold dead heart. But I think the best part about this song is Hannah herself. The production basically doesn't exist, and when it does it's pushed so far back into the mix you never notice it. Hannah is forced to carry the song basically on her & the melody alone, and ho boy does she deliver. Especially on the bridge, which has an incredible amount of buildup just to fizzle into this fantastic twinkling sound as it transitions back to the final chorus, but this time with some lovely violins. Then, halfway through the chorus, it fucking explodes. I love every second of this, and I wish I was better at explaining my opinions so this song could get it's proper praise. And we're only halfway through the list. Trust me, Hannah Montana truly is slept on, and I hope to change that.
Remember when I said that Hannah Montana's second album was very guitar driven? Well this is the shining example of that.
No. 5: Rockstar
There's a couple of ways you could make a case of this song sucking. The weird mixing choices, the awkward delivery on the second verse that makes the lyrics borderline incomprehensible, or maybe the fact of how short the verses are. But even if/though all of those are true, this song still kicks ass. Hannah absolutely kills this pre chours & kills the hook even more. She sounds powerful & convincing, 2 very important qualities, and all she needs to be. The song has a lot of tone switches in it suprisingly, and Hannah matches all of them as well as the production perfectly. Speaking of the production, it's of course fantastic. You got this dope as all hell guitar, those trade mark anthemic drums, claps that are more than likely fake, and an 8-bit synth on the hook that's pushed right to the back of the mix, which makes the song sound kinda clustered & compacted, but in a good way.
But the best part is after the 2nd chorus, where the song slows down a bit out of nowhere, and suddenly breaks back into the groove, then exploding into a guitar solo. That's right, a fucking guitar solo. In a Hannah Montana song. Sure, it's only 10 seconds long, but it is a fucking GOLDEN 10 seconds. Along with the screechy but totally dope solo near the end that closes the track, this song is the most rocking song of her career & is the best song off her 2nd album by a goddamn mile.
I completely forgot about this song when I was making this list, mostly because it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the discography. It's a strangle middle ground between Hannah's first & second album that I couldn't properly grasp for a while. It is phenomenal.
No. 4: Pumpin' Up The Party
This just gets me hype every time I hear it. It's an absolute jam. Some slick as hell synths, heavenly self harmonization's, and THE FUCKING HORNS JESUS CHRIST THE FUCKING HORNS ARE PERFECT! This is probably the most competently produced song on the list as well. Mixed fairly well, has an incredible amount of momentum, and the vocal production is on fucking point. It surprised me how good they made Hannah sound here. The lyrics aren't anything special, the title tells you all you need to know about the song. But they work very well, and make an incredibly catchy hook, as well as a couple of golden adlibs that I totally love. Only complaint I have is the 1 vocal crack near the bridge, not too much of a fan of that. There was no possible note she could've been going for there & it just sounds awkward. But the rest of the song? Fuck yeah I love it. Better than 98% of the club music now. By far the best song on her 1st album, & definitely deserves it's spot on this list.
The remaining 3 on this list are all from Hannah's 3rd album, appropriately titled "Hannah Montana 3". This spot & 2nd place was a toss up between these 2 songs, and one of the reasons this list took so long was me trying to decide which one of these songs should be above the other. I went with this one as 3rd for no negative reason really, It's still amazing. It was basically like choosing between children really. But, a list is a list, I don't do ties like a pussy. So I literally flipped a coin to see which one went where. Sorry "Let's Do This", maybe you shouldn't be tails next time.
No. 3: Let's Do This
This is possibly my favourite Hannah Montana performance ever. It's so fucking sassy & powerful I adore it. If you told me this was ghost written by Kesha, I'd totally buy it. Most strikingly those "na, na na na na na"s after every hook. That's straight out of Animal era Kesha. I don't know how to explain this better than I can, the vocals are just soooo good, and they sound even better on the explosive chorus. The song itself sounds awesome as well. Expertly chosen synths, those staple H.M drums I was talking about before, the chugging guitar in the back of the mix, and especially the percussion just makes a lovely, powerful sound. When Hannah says "get on your feet", you actually FEEL like getting on your feet. Which sounds simple & stupid I know, but that is a very hard thing for an artist to do in my opinion. But where I think our girl wonder over here shines the brightest is the bridge. Most of the effects on her voice are removed, and she just sounds so raw & wonderful, I love it. Fucking love it. I can listen to this song all day. And somehow, I found 2 songs that are better.
Again, it was a toss up. A LITERAL toss up. I don't really know why I picked this over the other one, but what I do know is that if I said this was better than the last pick, that must mean this song is brilliant. Sure enough, it is.
No. 2: It's All Right Here
The Hannah Montana Formula perfected. At least, in my eyes it is. The anthemic drums & striking guitars are still there, but in the verses they are underplayed so you can focus on Hannah fantastic vocals (as well some catchy as all hell backing vocals), and as the song goes, they proceed to get louder & more potent. The writing is also very strong. Sure the subject matter isn't THAT special (you can't do THAT much when it comes to talking about love when you're only like 16), but I feel what she does with it works well, and is sure as hell fun as fuck to sing along to. But the shining moment, like always, is the climax of the song. The bridge slows everything down, creates a lot of build up & suspense, and sets a settled atmosphere. That's until Hannah hits a fantastic note, where the guitars & drums explode into the chorus & just creates a lovely ball of sound. Now whether this is better than Let's Do This, I still don't know, but this is the song that represents her music the most to me. She's the less edgy Avril Lavigne that everyone wanted, but unfortunately not everyone accepted. But even then, this isn't my favourite song of hers. Want to know what is?
But before we get to the magnum opus of our blonde hero, let's go through some honorable mentions
H.M 1: He Could Be the One
I like it, it's got a solid groove, but oh my fucking what in the world is the chorus. Hannahs vocals turn into absolute shit out of nowhere. Yeah, not a fan.
H.M 2: Supergirl
Would've fit much better on Mileys album "Breakout", with stuff like 7 Things & Fly on the Wall. But on a Hannah album? Nah, doesn't really work honestly.
H.M 3: Barefoot Cinderella
The only worthwhile song on her 4th album. Seriously, that album was trash.
H.M 4: Life's What You Make It
Another classic. Would've been on the list if she didn't over enunciate every single word. Consider it my honorary No. 11.
But now, for my number 1, the best Hannah Montana song. And while I can say with confidence I love all the songs on this list, none come close to this. Make no mistake, this is by far her best song, and it is a fucking masterpiece.
No. 1: I Wanna Know You - Hannah Montana & David Archuleta
Yes, you read that title right. David Archuleta. David "I didn't win American Idol but still had a garbage top 20 hit anyways" Archuleta. You must think I'm insane right? (Well, you probably already did before this, but that's beside the point). This is a duet between a 17 year old girl who's stuck in a Disney choke hold, and an American Idol runner-up that has a voice that sounds like 2003 Adam Levine if he hit puberty twice. And it somehow sounds more passionate & charismatic than any duet that has hit the top 20 in the past 15 years. Their chemistry is unmatched, the harmonies are pleasant, the lyrics are absolutely fucking adorable. Christ, Hannah Montana got a solid performance out of DAVID FUCKING ARCHULETA. SHE IS A SAINT. And the production is wonderful. It isn't overpowering & loud like her other material. The sound is very soft, with a light beat, minimal percussion & some deep bubbly horns that sounds wonderful against the 2 voices. However, the best part about this song by far is it's replay-ability. It's a blissful 2 minutes & 47 seconds, that you plan on listening to once & end up in a trance for an hour. It is stunning how well this song works, it is definitely my favourite Hannah Montana song of all time.
Welp, that's the list. I think I've embarrassed myself enough & ruined the smallest bit of reputation I might have had. But before you judge me, at least give some of these songs a try. They helped make my 2016 less shitty, and hopefully make your 2017 a lot better.
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