Ashlee Simpson pillages the Cultural Center this Thursday

www.zwire.com - 11/17/05

Nay say what you will about Ashlee Simpson (and way too many, many do), but you gotta admit the gal's got guts. Guts galore. And she's not afraid to rip 'em out and put 'em to the task of her own greater glory, regardless of what the naysayers may say.

And oh what great good gouge gives her greater glory: Critics rankle, snobs cackle, the no-wins sling unsweet little nothings. Patheticry, envy, jealousy, the rudes'd be obscene if they weren't so sadly funny. Ashlee this and Ashlee that and yada yada, nada nada, pooh.

If Ashlee's so bad why spend so much life talking about her?

No answer?

I didn't think so.

Ashlee doesn't mind. Just so long as you keep talkin' about her.

Loudly.

All the better to serve her cause celebrity, my dear. Ashlee is ardently determined by birth and by rite and by passage to be Ashlee, writ way big and way bold and way tres beautiful. And all that talk is all just part of the task.
She doesn't have time for tsk.

What some call relentless, others call perseverance, what a mad many few deem obsessive, is for Ashlee simply an obsession. She shall overcome. And be Number One. With a bullet. And it is just this singleness of purpose that keeps her keeping on, in your face, on your mind and atop the charts.

Dig it: I Am Me, Ashlee's latest, like her first, debuted above all others.

So there.

Bespeaking a formative-years stretch that was Saved by Malcolm in the Middle of 7th Heaven and made by and for MTV, Ashlee's about as media-gloried as a girl can get. The Ashlee Simpson Show showed that "Pieces of Me" can become the best-selling Autobiography. The rise followed by a fall followed by another rise. This last higher and brighter than the first.

"Put this under your skin," sings she. I Am Me.

And how. The Top 40 "Boyfriend" takes that sass a shoves it, into a million airplays. "Beautifully Broken" heals, reveals and regales the wounds wrought about by her own fame. "L.O.V.E." is a Pussycat Doll-like strut through the club to the dancefloor. "Catch Me When I Fall" gets all sensitive all over again.

"Eyes Wide Open" ensures she knows just what she's doing.

Produced by John Shanks (Alanis, Sheryl) and co-written by Ashlee with either Shanks or hitmaker Kara DioGuardi (Gwen, Paris, Britney, et al), I Am Me screams melodic adamancy. Will it change the world? Of course not. But it might change someone's.

Brenda and Peggy Lee, Connie's Stevens and Francis, Twiggy, Patti Page, once upon a time even Marianne Faithful was a teen pop phenom. So don't go knocking it too much. Now that Lindsey's found God, Avril's found skatecore, Kelly's hooked cute and Jessica's made a monstrosity of a Nancy classic(and deserves absolutely no forgiveness), radio requires the likes of Ashlee.

It must be a must, Ashlee is a given.

Figure it like this: If there were no place for her, she wouldn't be everywhere, and she sure wouldn't be here, tonight, onstage within the immaculate confines of the Scranton Cultural Center.

Question is: Will you be there for her?