Throwback Thursday: Hannah Montana’s ‘The Best of Both Worlds’ still a banger, 20 years later

In a past life, I worked the Speedway attraction at Disney World. I was 22, right out of college, and needing a holiday following a four-year acting intensive at West Virginia University. I didn’t know what I wanted out of life, but I knew I needed to be there. I grew up in the era of Britney Spears‘ pop breakout and the battle of the bands between Backstreet Boys and NSYNC (Team BB over here!). To the surprise of literally no one, I gravitated toward Miley Cyrus‘ double life as Hannah Montana. Well, I didn’t actually watch the show, but I was obsessed with the music.

After Cyrus’ “See You Again” became a gay-club smash, I discovered how good the music from Hannah Montana was during my seven months at Disney. “The Best of Both Worlds,” from that first album, was and is pure pop magic. There’s something so innocent yet so incredibly mature about lyrics. Sure, she’s singing about living a life as both Miley and Hannah, but dig a little deeper, and you can apply its sentiments to adulthood, too. As humans, we are inherently complicated beings. Society tells us, particularly millennials, that as you “grow up,” you must pack away your childhood, playtime, and anything fun in some attic somewhere and inhabit the boring, mundane, and totally uninspired adult world.

But millennials didn’t and don’t want to live in that kind of world. Since we were kids, we’ve been hungry for something… different from our parents. We take risks, unlike previous generations that simply went with what was socially acceptable, and we’re unwilling to uphold tired and soul-crushing systems that Boomers were more than willing to accept. We believe in getting paid what we’re worth, and we’re always deconstructing the lie we were told: that all we needed was to go to college, and we’d be set for life. Well, that’s just bullshit. Look at the world you created, Boomers!

“The Best of Worlds” beckons us back to a simpler time when we looked gleefully to the future, promises yet to be fulfilled. We’d hit the club, grab a cocktail, and live in the moment. Who knew that’d be the last time we’d feel that way. The mid-00s recession crashed down upon our heads, and nothing’s been the same ever since. “You get to be anybody who you want to be,” Miley/Hannah sings over loud pop drums. I suppose she’s still right about that. We’ve redefined identity and self-expression in extraordinary ways. So… we have that going for us.

At least we have Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana. It’s unfathomable that 20 years (!!!) have passed since “The Best of Both Worlds” came roaring out of our speakers. For now, we can clutch that feeling and remember what it meant to be the next generation. We’d get to be somebody! Perhaps, in the next life, we’ll get the chance to live the life we were robbed of.