Songfacts®:

• "The Best Of Both Worlds" was the theme song to the Disney Channel series Hannah Montana. The show starred Miley Cyrus as Miley Stewart, a schoolgirl who moves with her family from Tennessee to Malibu, California. But she has a secret: She's really a pop star named Hannah Montana - she doesn't want anyone in her school to know so she can lead a normal life.
  
  Like many good TV theme songs, this one explains the plot and the main theme of the show:
  
  In some ways, you're just like all your friends
  But on stage, you're a star
  You get the best of both worlds
• The full-length version of the song was released as a single and went Platinum thanks to the show, which was an instant hit, delivering Disney Channel its highest ratings. Miley Cyrus was the real vocalist, but the song was credited to Hannah Montana, her alter ego in the show. So you had a song by a real singer (Miley Cyrus) credited to the alter ego (Hannah Montana) that her character (Miley Stewart) plays on the show. Sounds like a Christopher Nolan movie!
  
  Oh, and Miley Cyrus' dad, Billy Ray Cyrus, also plays her dad on the show. He was famous first, landing a huge hit in 1992 with "Achy Breaky Heart."
• Disney got a lot of mileage out of this song. It was the theme all four seasons of the show and was the first track on the first Hannah Montana soundtrack album, which went to #1 when it was released midway through the first season. In 2007, during the second season, Cyrus embarked on the Best Of Both Worlds tour, where she performed half the show as Hannah Montana before transforming into Miley Cyrus for the remainder. The song "The Best Of Both Worlds" she sang during the Miley portion.
  
  In 2009, a new version of the song (the "2009 movie mix") was used in the film Hannah Montana: The Movie and included on the soundtrack, which also went to #1. The show ended after four season; Cyrus was 13 when it started, 18 when the last episode aired. During the show's run, she released music as a solo artist outside the Hannah Montana universe, starting with her 2008 album Breakout.
• The song was written by Matthew Gerrard and Robbie Nevil. Gerrard wrote a lot of the music for the Hannah Montana show; he gave "The Best Of Both Worlds" and other songs on the show a bit of country twang because the character is from Tennessee, as is Cyrus in real life.
  
  Gerrard had a track record of writing for artists spawned from TV shows, starting with Eden's Crush, a girl group assembled on the reality show Popstars in 2000. One of the songs he worked on for them, "Get Over Yourself," went to #8. Gerrard also wrote songs for the Disney concoctions The Cheetah Girls and for High School Musical, a movie franchise that launched in January 2006, preceding Hannah Montana. He also wrote Kelly Clarkson's hit "Breakaway."
  
  Robbie Nevil often co-wrote with Gerrard, including on songs for High School Musical and Camp Rock. He had a few hits as a solo artist in the '80s, including "C'est La Vie" and "Wot's It To Ya?."
• "The Best Of Both Worlds" was the first in a run of hits from Hannah Montana, all sung by Miley Cyrus. Twenty different songs from the show made the Hot 100, including "The Best Of Both Worlds" at #92. The biggest hit was "He Could Be the One," which went to #10 in 2009.
  
  It was also the start of a dazzling solo career for Miley Cyrus and a renaissance for teen TV stars as musicians. Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, The Jonas Brothers, Ariana Grande and Olivia Rodrigo all followed.