Ashlee Simpson Albums (3)
What The Critics Say
Has there ever been another pop star quite as shameless as Ashlee Simpson? Probably so, but nobody has ever quite so cravenly followed fashion's shifting tides as Ashlee, who has never seemed the slightest bit embarrassed to make herself over when styles changed. All this desperate trend-chasing has been done in public, as it damn well should be in the 21st century, so we've seen her change from the spunky younger sister of a superstar to the sad goth clown of her sophomore effort to the Gwen Stefani wannabe of her third album, Bittersweet World. Ashlee might look like a shadow of her former self on the album cover -- the years and cosmetic surgery have made her virtually unrecognizable from the awkward teen on the cover of I Am Me -- but she still sounds the same, still boasting that same thin, girlish voice that wouldn't have gotten much attention if she weren't Jessica Simpson's younger sister. Of course, the ironic thing about Ashlee's career is that she not only had bigger hits than Jessica, she made better records than her sister, too, all with a virtually nonexistent voice and a personality as aggressively shallow as Avril Lavigne. Like Avril, Ashlee has a distinct arc to her three-act career, bouncing back from a dour and dumb second album with a return to the fizzy fun of her first (unlike Avril, Simpson seems like she would at least wait for you to leave the room before she started saying mean things about you). Where Avril beat a retreat to the bratty punk-pop that brought her fame, Ashlee has pulled a red hoodie over her head, amped up the dance beats, revved up the '80s retro fetish, and created something that feels of the 2008 moment, as it should coming from the fiancée of Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz. This embrace of MTV hipsterism -- never to be confused with underground movements, this includes cameos from a guy from Plain White T's -- helps mirror the growth of her initial fans, who have grown from high school through college to immature young adults, needing this absurd new millennial go-go music for their endless parties, and while that arc is as manufactured as anything else surrounding the Simpson empire, there's none of the sad, creepy abandon of Britney Spears that makes Blackout just no fun to listen to, no matter how good it sounds. Bittersweet World is all bright neon colors and bubblegum melodies, full of naggingly insistent hooks and insipid poses, none sillier than Ashlee boasting she's a "Rule Breaker" who loves to fight over a track that sounds like diluted M.I.A. When Bittersweet World is operating at this high-energy level -- copping from bad old new wave singles ("Outta My Head [Ay Ya Ya]") and Prince (the delirious "Boys") and Gwen (pretty much everything else, but especially on the feigned social consciousness of the title track, "What I've Become," and the "Hella Good" rewrite "Hot Stuff") -- this is addictive pure pop trash that's all the more irresistible because it's delivered by such a purely trashy pop star. When things slow down -- as they do on the utterly forgettable closer "Never Dream Alone" and the quite awful "Little Miss Obsessive," where Ashlee explores the endless possibilities of the word "over" in the chorus -- it's a bit of a slog, but those moments are fortunately few and far between here because Ashlee is aggressively shallow. She's always been this way, of course, but Bittersweet World is the first time that she has made a record that lives up to her happily empty persona, something that's truly fun junk. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Ashlee Simpson's first album was an Autobiography and her second is I Am Me -- clearly, she has a burning need to express herself, to explain who she is and why she is. Or, as she puts it on the title track, "I am me and won't change for anyone," which is a little ironic since the Ashlee of her 2005 sophomore effort is quite a bit different than the Ashlee of her 2004 debut. First off, there's her look. Gone are the dark, dyed locks; back is her natural blonde hair. Gone are the bright, happy colors and cute Ashlee depicted on the cover of Autobiography. In its place is a dark, shadowy black-and-white portrait of the singer on the cover, topped off by thick, gothic lettering. All of which makes Ashlee Simpson the first person in history to go goth by going blonde. Ashlee, with her co-songwriters John Shanks and Kara DioGuardi (Shanks also produces), has had enough with the fun, deciding that the time is ripe to prove Simpson is a serious artist. But she's really a celebrity, a creature of pop culture who lives her life on MTV and in tabloids, and then writes songs about the whole ordeal -- so, if you have any passing knowledge of US Weekly, Star, VH1's Best Week Ever, or such pop culture-saturated blogs as Pinkisthenewblog, you will have a context for these songs. You'll know, for instance, that she broke up with fellow tween-pop starlet Ryan Cabrera and hooked up with That 70s Show's Wilmer Valderrama (aka Fez), prompting a feud with Lindsay Lohan. Armed with this, it's easy to hear "Boyfriend" -- as in "I didn't steal your..." -- as a retort to Lohan, to imagine the plaintive breakup ballads being sung to Cabrera, to think of Wilmer as the subject of her new love songs, and to picture her posse from MTV's Ashlee Simpson Show when she sings about her girls being total best friends forever. While some of the songs on I Am Me do skirt typical adolescent themes, Simpson no longer sounds like she's sorting things out; she sounds sullen and defiantly complacent. Avril is still a touchstone, partially because Lavigne's mall-punk is at the foundation of Ashlee's pop, but also because this is as somber as Avril's second album. Yet I Am Me is hipper, or at least plays younger, since it flirts with dance and, especially, the '80s revivalism of the new millennium. When she flirts with dance, she either references dance-pop godmother Madonna -- explicitly so, since "Burnin Up" borrows its title from Madge's first confession from the dancefloor -- or Gwen Stefani (on "L.O.V.E.," spelled out as if it were bananas). While Ashlee uncannily sounds like Courtney Love when she snarls out the title track, she's put behind the punk-pop affectations of Autobiography in favor of new new wave fetishism. And unlike the second Kelly Osbourne record -- which shared a similar retro aesthetic -- I Am Me sounds completely of its moment, particularly in how it twists recent pop culture trends into easily digestible, disposable Hot Topic lifestyle music, presented with utter seriousness, as if her garden-variety changes in emotions and fashion were great revelations instead of just being what happens in adolescence. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Give Ashlee Simpson some credit -- she (or her management) knew that the only way to break out of the shadow of her older sister, Jessica, was to be her opposite. So, she dyed her blonde hair jet-black, based her music in rock, not dance-pop, and co-wrote every song on her 2004 debut, Autobiography (Jessica only co-wrote one on her debut, Sweet Kisses). It could be argued that this makeover for the star of the square WB TV series 7th Heaven is a bit too calculated, but regardless of the intent, the end result still works far better than that of her big sister's albums. Where Jessica sounds like a throwback to the late '60s/early '70s, specifically to the variety shows of Andy Williams and Sonny & Cher, Ashlee is modern, using the glossy, punky pop of Pink and Avril Lavigne as the touchstone for her debut. It's heavy on guitars and light on dance beats, although those are bubbling under the layers and layers of six-strings, and Ashlee has adopted a growl that may come out closer to a mousey squeak, but the attitude is appreciated all the same. And that pretty much sums up Autobiography -- it's not perfect, and it's often affected, but it winds up being endearing because of her earnestness. Not only is she trying hard -- and, in the case of "Lala," trying way too hard to be sexy -- but she's succeeding in creating an album that feels like a bubblegum version of Pink's M!ssundaztood, even if it's not quite as catchy. While the album could have used a few more songs with indelible hooks, it nevertheless is an enjoyably slick, widescreen production that's a whole lot more fun than anything her sister has recorded (with the notable exception of "I Think I'm in Love With You"), plus it's varied enough to suggest that Ashlee could make a more interesting record the next time out. All in all, it's an unexpectedly strong debut from an artist who seemed destined to be a footnote to her famous older sister, but just may wind up with a more interesting career. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
