Hilary Duff

SUNTIMES.COM: Indie/underground hipsters have the Pitchfork Music Festival. Alternative rockers turned SUV-driving soccer moms and dads have Lollapalooza. This summer, classic-rock devotees have Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival. And once again, ‘tweens, fans of bubblegum-dance music and lovers of hip-pop and modern mainstream R&B have B96’s Summerbash.

A look at Sunday’s lineup reveals not only the enduring power of WBBM 96.3-FM to book top-tier hitmakers, but a solid overview of chart-topping pop in general circa 2007. This year’s headliner: Hilary Duff, TV star (she charmed the ‘tweens with the Disney Channel’s “Lizzie McGuire”), actress (her films include “A Cinderella Story” and the “Agent Cody Banks” movies), head of a phenomenally lucrative marketing machine (her ring tones are ubiquitous) and, oh yeah, the voice behind three successful albums, including the recent “Dignity.”

When I last saw Duff perform, in between her debut “Metamorphosis” (2003) and “Most Wanted” (2005), she was moving away from the fluffy dance groove of her big hit “So Yesterday” in favor of pop-punk: She covered the Go-Go’s and, with a sly wink to the parents of the many 9- to 14-year-olds in attendance, the Who’s “My Generation.” Having split from boyfriend Joel Madden, the frontman for Good Charlotte, she’s turned away from rock as well, and “Dignity” ups the electronic dance quotient as well as finding Duff joining all the other teen-pop divas (Avril Lavigne, Pink, Ashlee Simpson) trying to mature in an effort to keep an aging fan base. (You can tell ’cause Hilary has traded the high school gym-class getup for a sophisticated evening gown in the cover art).

This may be the most difficult challenge any pop star faces, but Duff is handling it much better than most. “Dignity” is a winning piece of cotton candy for the ears, with credit due more to the well-crafted hooks and beats of producers Tim & Bob and Will.i.am than the star’s bare-basics vocals. The fun part, though, is Duff’s attempt to turn the biggest dis thrown her way — that’s she’s a meek, bland, goodie two-shoes — into a proto-feminist statement of power and self-respect.

“You’d show up to the opening of an envelope/It’s not news when you’ve got a new bag,” Duff sings in the title track, speaking for the majority of us who’ve grown sick to death of the Nicole Richies and Paris Hiltons. Then, in “Danger,” she not only rebuffs the advances of an older lothario but mercilessly mocks the guy’s shortcomings: “Were you born in ‘74?/Are you the kind of guy that I should ignore?… I can see myself falling in line/Like the hundred girls you had over time/And I want more/I am so sure that I want more.” You tell him, girl