Monday, October 10, 2005
The Return of Ashlee Simpson
Was it just me, or did Don Pardo’s announcement of “The Return of Ashlee Simpson” on SNL this weekend sound an awful lot like he was promoting a horror movie? Not quite as frightening, perhaps, but watching Ashlee Simpson, lip-synching or not, I feel as though our cultural life has gone to hell in a handbasket. (As you may know, going to hell via handbasket is way worse than going there any other way. I guess handbaskets are slow? I’ll let you know when I figure out exactly what a handbasket is.) I’m up for decent pop music, but this was an alarmingly and blatantly packaged, absurdly dull product, so much so that I almost feel bad for Ashlee, given that she’s, you know, a person. But watching her made me yearn for, like, The Return of Hanson. There’s nothing about Ashlee that I get, and yet, she’s selling records, to eleven-year-olds, I can only guess, still, I’m counting on my unborn future eleven-year-old to have better taste than this.
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10 comments:
Agreed. That was bad. I couldn't watch the second tune after the trainwreck of the first tune. And by trainwreck, I mean that the song was possibly the most dull song of all time and creation.
And I think Hanson is an unfairly maligned pop band.
And I really was in a band called Trainwreck once, and this time I'm not lying about that, because it was actaully a GOOD name for a band, as oppossed to Kryptonite Binky or something like that, which is when I overuse that joke, but this time it's different.
Hanson is great pop, right? They're talented kids. As opposed to the Simpsons, who are - I don't know what. Kids.
yes. the last time i heard hanson, they were great pop...because they have great influences.
i think it helps to have parents who indoctrinate their kids with great stuff. beatles, beach boys, badfinger, byrds (what is WITH all the great B's? btw, i know it's not right to have an apostrophe with letters (cds, etc.), but sometimes, it just looks right. it's the only time i feel the need to just fuck off and break the apostrophe rules that i hold so dear. i guess *every* rule is made to be broken, ey?).
and then, with any non-kid of mine (i guess i'll have to use my niece and nephew, cause i don't ever plan on having any offspring), i'd also have to add my new classics: matthew sweet and material issue; big star and jellyfish; trip shakespeare and shawn colvin.
so, i think it's what you give them that helps them.
however, all that said --- kids are still going to find their own way. they're going to like the trends of the day and some of that is inevitably going to clash with their parents' music and going to annoy them. they are going to find their own style, and some kids aren't going to like what their parents like. and hopefully, if your kid's a music fan, they're going to turn you on to stuff.
i like the kelly clarkson. i never watched american idol, so i didn't really know shit about shit. i did eventually know about clay and ruben, but that was about the extent of it. but, after i had my 10 year old nephew in town for the weekend this february (wow. that was so hard! so much silence!), and we were in the car and she was on a bunch and he knew EVERY word, EVERY note, EVERY breathy breath, i was sold. besides, that 'since you were gone' song is quite the pop song.
anyway. this is a blog entry. i apologize.
I like how they said "I like the kelly clarkson" as if ms. clarkson is a thing that gets an article. i mean, i like the rest of what they said, but that sentence was especially amusing.
I was like Smussy's nephew, in 1971. And I like the Kelly Clarkson too - she can at least sing, and she sings catchy songs. I don't know what Ashlee Simpson is doing. I just typed Asslee.
A Freudian type-slip?
I believe in those.
i TOTALLY believe in those. i think the keyboard does those to show me things sometimes. like HEY!! LOOK! see what you're REALLY thinking? yeah, asslee. that's what we're getting at here.
i don't know a thing ashley simpson sings. but then again, i didn't know what kelly clarkson sang until awhile ago, either.
sometimes, i feel really, really old. and i know i'm not, but when my youth is being nostalgized in front of my face all over the place, and i'm all grrr-faced out about the hip-hop music and clueless about who sings what, i start to feel like i should be my parents. oh, and there's that glazed over look i get from people younger than me about things that they HAVE to know about.
you know...little house on the prairie? nellie olesen? doc baker?
fantasy island? mr. roarke? tattoo?
nothing. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. glassy glassy eyes.
aaaaaaaah!!!!!!!! i'm old. i'm 31 1/2, and i'm old. what the fuck!
I know less than nothing about pop, although every now and again something catchy will come on the radio when I'm unaware and I'll go buy it. I've aquired a taste for Shakira and the Wallflowers in this way.
(All of which is painfully tortured and unnecessary backstory, but I'll be damned if I'm going to go back and delete it.)
Some cruel person emailed me a link to Asslee's disastrous performance, and I found it so painful, so embarrassing-by-proxy, that I really couldn't ever listen to another Asslee
Simpson tune.
(Congratulations. She will, evermore, be 'Asslee Simpson' to me.)
Dean, who would do such a thing?
My loving wife, I think it was. Maybe I'd been more than usually surly or something.
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