MUSIC
From Issue #19
Cover Story:
Ashlee Simpson Under Pressure
by Alicia Cox
Whether you love her or hate her,
no one can deny that Ashlee
Simpson is a bona fide star.
She won the 2004 Billboard Music Award
for New Female Artist of the Year, and
two Teen Choice awards. Her reality
show, The Ashlee Simpson Show, is
finishing its second season on MTV and
she just wrapped up her first headlining
tour in April, and she won her first movie
role in the upcoming film, Undiscovered.
All this in less than a year!
But it hasn’t been easy. First, Ashlee had
a hard time escaping big sister Jessica’s
success as a belt-‘em-out ballad singer
and it took some time before she found
a label that would really listen to her rock-tinged sound, “You're going from
label to label and people are saying
you're going to be like your sister, and
I’m like, ‘No, I am my own individual.’
That was hard. People wouldn't give me
a chance to be my own artist,” recalls
Ashlee before signing with Geffen and
going on to release her debut album.
“I learned a lot making the whole record.
It was a growth for me. I wrote about my
family and basically everything I was
feeling, that‘s why I called it
‘Autobiography’,” says Ashlee.
“Autobiography” has since gone
platinum.
And then came her infamous appearance
on Saturday Night Live last year, where
she was caught using a backing vocal
track. And the half-time show for the
Orange Bowl in January, when the
majority of over 70,000 people booed
Ashlee’s performance of her single “La
La.” In between all this came the media
backlash. While some say she deserved
it, others see it as a rite of passage.
“Ashlee handled the bad press like any
artist has. You just deal with it and work
to improve yourself. Sometimes it‘s the
bad press that really shows the true
intentions and motivation of an artist,”
says Kadie Corr who doesn’t consider
herself an Ashlee fan.
Ashlee maintains she wasn’t lip-synching
on SNL, but singing over a backing vocal
track to strengthen the sound and
quality of her voice — which was hoarse
due to swollen vocal cords from acid
reflux disease — according to her dad
and manager, Joe Simpson. On Ashlee’s
Web site, her drummer admits that he
pressed the wrong button and caused
the backing track for “Pieces of Me”
to play instead of the one for
“Autobiography.” Ashlee isn’t the first
performer to use back-up, and she
certainly won’t be the last, but she was
performing on live television when her vocals blew their chords. “Most artists
lip-synch and the majority of fans know
that. People get sick – it happens. We are
all human and I think if Ashlee had
(to use a backing track) to keep the
performance going, then that’s what she
had to do. I am most proud of her
because she was able to admit that it
was a mistake,” says Joanna Brancati,
an Ashlee fan.
These days, it’s no secret that sound
engineers use computers to enhance the
quality of vocals and that many
performers lip-synch or use backing
tracks while artists like Ashlee have
admitted to taking voice lessons. “I think
it’s OK for singers like Madonna and Ashlee Simpson to take voice lessons
because if they feel that in doing so, it
will improve their singing abilities, then
why not? There‘s nothing wrong with
getting more help if they really need it,”
says Nicole Bautista, a high schooler
in Toronto.
Live at the Orange Bowl, Ashlee suffered
from bad luck and poor timing again.
This time her earpiece wasn’t working,
which meant that she couldn’t hear
herself sing. On The Ashlee Simpson
Show, even Jessica worried that the
most experienced singers have trouble
when they can’t hear themselves sing.
Ashlee’s voice sounded hoarse and she
had major problems with volume, trying
to overcompensate by yelling instead of
singing. When the crown erupted into
loud boos, the camera cut quickly from
her hurt and embarrassed face.
Have you ever heard out-of-breath
panting after a particularly vigorous
dance sequence? It’s all a part of the
illusion that what you hear at home is
what you should hear live. “We all listen
to CDs or music on our computers, so
we’re used to the way it sounds. When
we go to concerts, we expect to hear
what we hear at home. There is a lot of
pressure put on performers to sound like
their albums since the quality of their
voice was what attracted their fans in
the first place,” says Nicole.
But Ashlee seems to have survived it all
once again, “My best advice would be to
stay true to yourself and do what you
want to do. Always listen to your
instincts and go with them because
they’re usually right.” And Ashlee also
thanks her sister at the end of the day,
“The most important thing I learned
from Jessica is that she hasn’t changed
at all. It’s the best example of dealing
with fame I could have.”
