#92 - True Friend: 5.88
View attachment 14052
(Found online)
Highest: 1x10 (Me) 1x9 (@Entropy)
Lowest: 1x2 (@Mirwais Ahmadzaï)
My Score: 10
Favorite Lyric: You know the secrets I could never tell. (Everyone has that one person you tell everything, no matter what. I love that.)
Trajectory
5 Voters: #63
10 Voters: #70
15 Voters: #91
19 Voters: #92
Total Points: 88.25
True Friend was recorded and used as the closing track on Hannah Montana 2. It was written by Jeannie Lurie, and produced by Marco Marinangeli, who’s an Italian songwriter and producer, and has
worked with Donna Summer, The Cheetah Girls, Hilary Duff and more, and will actually pop up again later. With this elimination, Hannah Montana 2 becomes only the second album to lose more than one song, as Hannah Montana Forever has already lost 3, and it lost “Old Blue Jeans" back at #99. I will say that the album will be safe for a while after this, so don’t worry about losing your faves. It was first used in the show in the second season two episode “Cuffs Will Keep Us Together”. At the beginning of the episode, Miley and Lilly are in gym class, and Miley’s complaining cause they’re playing flag football, and she knows she’s going to get picked last cause she stinks at sports (the relatability). She’s upset, until Lilly is named as one of the team captains, and she gets excited cause she knows Lilly will pick her for her team. This is the first episode that introduces Joannie Palumbo, a rival of theirs (but mostly Lilly’s), and she also gets picked as team captain. Miley makes a bet with Joannie that whoever’s team wins gets to give the loser’s team captain a haircut. Because of this, Lilly doesn’t pick Miley for her team, and this makes Miley mad. Lilly won the bet, but when she tries to get Miley to stop being mad at her after a concert where she performs True Friend (introducing the song as a “sweet song about a two-faced backstabber”), Miley picks people to ride in the limo, and instead of picking Lilly, Miley picks a ficus named Fern. This leads to continued fighting, and when Miley finds out that True Friend won a Silver Booty for best country-pop crossover, she rushes off to tell Oliver instead of Lilly. After telling Oliver, and being annoyed that he didn’t happy dance, she drags him off to get their nails done. After this, Miley comments on how a guy has the best eyes, and Oliver mentions how the guy’s sweater makes them pop, leading to him freaking out a little. Lilly and Miley fight over who gets to hang out with Oliver, until he puts handcuffs around their wrists, and loses the key. They’re stuck together until Miley gives a speech about winning the award for the song, after which the two of the make-up. It’s a really cute episode, and one of my favorites of season 2. There’s also a whole sub-plot where Robby stops talking to Jackson cause he never listens, and it always made me scared my dad would stop talking to me. It has since been used multiple times throughout the series, usually during episodes that have a friendship theme. Anyways, this has always been one of my favorite Hannah songs, partly cause of the emotional attachment I have to it. I actually mentioned in the
Sabrina elimination for Seamless that my closest and longest friend and I kinda made this our theme song when we were kids, considering we were basically each other’s only friend. Whenever we hung out and listen to music, we’d usually play this at least once and just sing together. Well, I’d sing. She’d whisper quietly. But we’re still really close today – she’s practically a sister to me – and we’ve been through a lot together, so this song will always be that for me. Then there’s the fact that it’s a pretty good song. Sure, it’s cheesy as fuck, but the lyrics are well-written, and I like cheese anyway. The production bops and feels very…light and subtle, but still very enjoyable. I love the strings and guitars in the song. I really wish this had done better here, but I’m not surprised you heartless haters didn’t even let it make the top 90. Although to be honest, I’m not sure I’d give it a 10 if I didn’t have that emotional attachment. But knowing me, I probably would. Critics didn’t really comment on it, which is unsurprising to me, cause I feel like unless it stands out, songs in the back-half of albums don’t get much attention. So, once again, I have to rely on what you guys said.
None of the lowest scorers gave commentary, so we’re going to start with
@DJHazey (4) who isn‘t into cheese like this:
Pure cheese and not the kind I'm interested in. Fine. More for me then.
@iheartpoptarts (5) just says:
The vocals on that middle 8… What about them? They sound fine. Remember, she was like, 14 when she recorded this.
@phily693 (6) thinks it’s a throwback:
This sounds very 1999/2000, but not quite good. It actually kinda does. Huh. But I would argue it is good.
@M24 (6) uses the “f” word:
Just as boring as the previous song in the album. As fillerish as Hannah can get, which I'd still happily listen to anyway. That last bit is a whole mood though, let me be honest. Finally, we have a couple people who get it.
@savilizabeths (8.25) struggled where I gave in:
This one was hard to score. I used to sing this with my best friend. We learnt the lyrics together over the phone day and just sang it all the time. It was cute. But it’s also a little sugary sweet? And I have never been a fan of her excessively nasal vocals on this one. But how can I ignore my emotional ties to this? Ah, the conflict! Sis, just do what I do. And once again, I turn to
@Entropy (9) for the last word:
So sickly sweet but so good. Me and my best friend at the time used to send this song to each other on MSN to remind ourselves we were bestie’s, cringe but aww. That’s not cringe, I totally get it.
How about a live music video?
And here's the episode, sped-up:
