Behind all this is Joe Simpson, a former Baptist minister who gave up his calling to pimp out his daughters as pop stars.

"I told Jessica that I would try my best to be the man in her life. That I would be her support and her security, that I would encourage her and worship her and fill her up until she found the man of her dreams."--Joe Simpson

http://cache.boston.com/audio/ae/ashlee_simpson_orange_bowl.mp3

Perhaps it is a Milli Vanilli/C&C Music Factory situation, it isn't that she is a fake, it is that she has been caught being a fake.

I was at the KISS concert Renee Graham refers to, so I'm glad people are finally getting exposed to this.

I suspect the "who cares whether she's really singing?" crowd (and by "she" I don't just mean Ashlee S.) were operating in a vacuum of theory. Once faced with graphic evidence of what they were condoning (a successful singing career for someone who can't sing a lick), they recoiled in horror. Yes, as much at themselves as at Simpson. But still.

A bad performance (as in one bad performance) does not = bad artist.

But a demonstrated complete lack of ability to perform = an artist who should not perform live. Particularly in the case of Ashlee S., who doesn't have dancing skills or elaborate choreography either. Lo-tech stand-around "punk rock" stage show + inability to sing live = why should anyone plunk down money to see her show? (Keep in mind when you answer that question that I have seen her show.)

More to the point, a bad performance = the right to boo, particularly when it's an artist with no track record (thus, no good will or good-faith reason to say "wow, that sucked - poor woman, she must be sick or something"). (Keeping in mind that anyone who was so sick that they would sound like that would've canceled.)

Remember, she hasn't toured yet. This should be interesting.

people have been paying money for years to see punk and rock shows that fit this description.

i suspect the reasons why ashlee was booed are numerous, some obvious, some not so obvious, some voluntary, some not so voluntary. see the other recent ashlee threads for more in-depth discussions on that point. me, i'd place the blame above all on the NCAA and ABC, who for some reason find it necessary to have a pop music performance in the middle of a football game. if the oklahoma football team lined up and ran a couple plays onstage during intermission of a kelly clarkson concert, they'd probably get booed too.

ashlee's performance was indeed not very good that night. it was about on par with the performance of the tech people who botched the sound badly for all three performances, and the camera crew who looked they were moonlighting from their jobs on a public-access show. there was lots worth booing.

people have been paying money for years to see punk and rock shows that fit this description.

Well, there's no accounting for taste, but at least there you're getting what's on the record.

me, i'd place the blame above all on the NCAA and ABC, who for some reason find it necessary to have a pop music performance in the middle of a football game.

The blame for what? Ashlee Simpson not being able to sing?

You can debate whether a pop-music show is appropriate at halftime of a football game, but did anybody else on that show get booed? Anybody at the Super Bowl? The Thanksgiving Day game in Dallas?

Look, I'm not saying she has to wear a scarlet A for the rest of her life. But what's she accomplished to deserve the excuse-making, equivocating and defending going on here?

no, you're not. on record you're getting auto-tuned voices, sweetened guitars, maybe some extra keyboards, and all that other fun stuff. hell, take a totally "live" hit pop band like nirvana: do you think nirvana onstage sounded anything like nirvana on nevermind?

did anybody else on that show get booed? Anybody at the Super Bowl? The Thanksgiving Day game in Dallas?

ashlee was booed before she performed. yes, she was also booed when she was done, and yes, she performed rather badly. but she started by getting booed, so it really doesn't matter what the hell she did.

what's she accomplished to deserve the excuse-making, equivocating and defending going on here?

a couple of the best pop singles of 2004.

Those punkers and rockers weren't handed TV shows and large recording budgets. Ashlee vioates a collective sense of justice. I have no problem with studio concoctions -- "Tracy" by the Cuff Links is among my favorite pop tunes -- but I love my schadenfreude too.

Not that the booing matters all that much anyway -- Jimi Hendrix was booed the whole time he spent opening for the Monkees.

that's an intriguing response. and it starts getting to the heart of the matter by refuting rick's suggestion that ashlee's singing chops, or lack thereof, has anything to do with the response to her. people hate her because of who she is. which is a whole different ballgame than booing her because she's off-key.

by courtney love, i was pointing to someone who i believe actually is one of ashlee's role models, judging from her album.

Well, I can't speak for 70,000 people, but I just can't stand her records. For one thing, even with studio-sweetened vocals, her voice is stil awful in my book. Secondly, she sings lopey, non-danceable rock that only works if you bring something interesting in the lyrics, which she doesn't.
If I WERE to speak for 70,000 people, I'd speculate that the SNL thing raised the possibility that this singer couldn't sing a lick, and that the Orange Bowl confirmed it.

Actually, now that I look at it, I think

rick's suggestion that ashlee's singing chops, or lack thereof, has anything to do with the response to her. people hate her because of who she is.

is interesting. I'd agree with you as long as you acknowledge that her singing chops or lack thereof doesn't have much to do with the POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE response to her, and that people hate OR LOVE her because of who she is.

And I think that the idea is that people think they know who she is. We're supposed to think that on record she's open, spontaneous and sharing the real Ashlee Simpson. I mean, the record is called "Autobiography," after all. And she has a TV show where (if I've heard correctly) she just sort of hangs out and lives her life and, you know, IS. So to find out she's just another showbiz performer selling a catchy tune seems a betrayal not just of some distant rockist aesthetic but her own.

what's she accomplished to deserve the excuse-making, equivocating and defending going on here?

a couple of the best pop singles of 2004.

-- fact checking cuz (factcheckingcu...)

Even if I agreed with your assessment of her singles, I don't think that's sufficient. But there's that taste thing again.

Hey, I dunno. If someone likes her records, OK. If they don't care that she can't sing live, OK. But if she does try to sing live, and she's awful, it's pointless and unfair to say that telling her so is an example of prejudice or an inability to see the big picture. I could dunk a basketball if I stood on a ladder. If I go into an NBA game, go pointless and get torched on defense, are the people who would surely boo me basketballists?

ok, you've got yourself a deal.

i think people have obviously responded to her tv show in the same way they respond to a lot of reality tv shows. they like the character, maybe they identify with her in some way, and they care enough to follow the character for awhile, both on record and on tv.

and i think some people, like me, who've seen only small bits of the tv show, like the singles because they're good recordings of great songs. her voice, as recorded, works on those songs as recorded. that's all.

some people don't like her at all. that's ok too.

I have a difficult time believing she has any opinions of her own though, and that she actually has any "punk rock" role models. the singles may be good but they could have been put out under any name, since it seems that she neither wrote them nor sang them herself. I mean this girl could have been a country star if the market had looked more lucrative to her dad and I don't think she would have cared one way or the other.

Right. And people feel betrayed now that they see in a third venue, live performance, that she isn't what she claimed to be. It seems she's the one selling realness, and now she's being called to account.

and i think some people, like me, who've seen only small bits of the tv show, like the singles because they're good recordings of great songs. her voice, as recorded, works on those songs as recorded. that's all.

OK by me.

I don't care that she's not "real" (or at least I don't care any more than I did before the SNL/Orange Bowl quiniella). But like I said above, as far as I can tell she was selling a persona in the pop marketplace that was based on realness and honesty. cf. "Autobiography."

I don't look for Diana Ross to be "real". Or Barbra Streisand or Deborah Harry or the list goes on. But if we're discussing why there's a backlash against Ashlee S., maybe it has to do with a) lousy singing and b) a betrayal of her own supposed aesthetic/selling point?

but doesn't the tv show, which is the main vehicle for selling whatever persona she's selling, make it perfectly clear that she's NOT a singer/songwriter spouting her autobiography?

Chaki OTM.

i don't know what we're SUPPOSED to think of "pieces of me," for example, but it's a straight-up love song. what flavor would your hat be? ;-)

The idea that claiming to be real somehow makes it matter that she isn't is pretty specious.

Here's the deal: "lala" is a good song, and I've been told other songs on the album are pretty cool too. A good song is a good song.

As I said above, you like her records? Cool. But hearing the Orange Bowl performance and saying "Sweet Jesus, that sucked" is not rockist.

She doesn't have to sing live. She can just stick to making records. Nothing wrong with that. But she sucked at singing live, and I'm not going to pretend that she didn't, or that she should keep going out there to sing live, or make excuses that some cameramen were just as bad.

Sure, she can go ahead and lip-synch live. I'll be curious to see how that goes over when she starts touring in a couple of months. I suspect that without a balls-out, Britney-style stage show, it won't take long for the audience to look at each other and say "We spent $50 to stand around and listen to her record and look at her standing around and listening to her record?" But I could be wrong.

And I'm going out on a limb again, so I'll stop.

I just listened to her album and I don't get it. It's just so predictable - I knew exactly which chords would follow which, what key would change during the bridge, ect. It has about as many surprises as a Scooby Doo episode.

Yeah I know. I'm breaking one of the rockist commandments by coveting thy originality, but whatever.

Not yet. I rank her on the Denise Richards scale of celebrity nakedness. Inevitable, yet you'll have to wait a bit.
-- major jingleberries (still.beven...), January 12th, 2005 8:58 PM.

I'll bet her father can't wait!

-- Rick Massimo (rmassim...), January 11th, 2005.

Marry me.

-- darin (darin...), January 12th, 2005.

And she would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling rockists!!