Note to Ms. Ashlee: nepotism comes with a high price. It makes
\nit easier to get there, but you have to work twice as hard to prove
\nyourself.<\/p>\n
This album better be good.<\/p>\n
Ashlee Simpson’s marketing team managed to synergize her
\nangle-heavy background and her successful reality show (it must be
\nthe equivalent of having an infomercial every week) to produce a
\nBillboard-topping album. Older sibling Jessica Simpson is very much
\nin use here, as her squeaky-wholesome-chaste-blonde image is played
\noff against by Ashlee’s ’80s rocker-chick hair and sound, like Jem
\nand the Holograms vs. the Misfits. (“The producer wants me to sound
\nlike Hilary Duff. I don’t want to sound like Hilary Duff! I want
\nthe sound to be rock!”)<\/p>\n
It works, almost.<\/p>\n
The album sound is an energetic fusion of distorted drums,
\nvocals and guitars, borrowing much from Sheryl Crow. In songs like
\n“Surrender” and “Unreachable” Simpson’s voice has an attractive
\nrasp that blends well with the music, willing to be part of the
\nsound instead of being its egomaniacal star. And I’m surprised at
\nhow much battered maturity she reaches out with in the
\nlove-gone-wrong “Undiscovered” and the convincing “Nothing New,”
\nwhich is a fairly complex take on relationships (definitely not
\nHilary Duff). The obvious artist to bring up here for comparison is
\nAvril Lavigne, whose Matrix-polished sound also borrows heavily
\nfrom rock, but Lavigne fans would stone me to death for not
\nmentioning at this point how Lavigne performs live religiously.<\/p>\n
And yes, the songwriting is a bit repetitive as it’s the same
\nold I’m-an-independent-girl-who-deserves-respect tirade, but maybe
\nit’s a message that needs to be repeated every generation. A
\npossible “standout” in songwriting is “Shadow” which describes
\ngrowing up in the shadow of her sister, although it too quickly
\nsuccumbs to I’m-an-independent-girl-yadda-yadda.<\/p>\n
The ultimate flaw of this album is that the sound is played out
\nto death, like she found something that worked and dug herself a
\nhole. I don’t want to be Ashlee-cist here, but all the songs sound
\nthe same. I do discern potential, and will give her a C, which is a
\npretty good grade for a teeny pop album at The Daily Vault. Now
\nexcuse me while I hoe-down off the stage…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7127],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-38267","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-ashlee-simpson","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38267"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}