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Pop Rock Nation

Tag: Jessica Simpson

  • New Music: Pink’s “So What?”: Pop’s Baddest Attitude Returns

    Perhaps it’s my general love of slightly salty women (Courtney Love and Amy Winehouse would certainly fall into this category), but I LOVE Pink (or P!nk, or whatever she’s called). Not only is she in possession of a truly great singing voice, but there’s a sense of authenticity in her music that’s not present in the music of most of her pop peers.

    Hard to believe, but she’s about to release her fifth album this fall. It will be the follow-up to the Platinum-plus “I’m Not Dead”, an album I got right away but it took the general public a little more time to appreciate. The first single, “So What?”. finds her a little feister than usual and being more candid than usual about her personal life, directly referencing her recent divorce from motocross star Carey Hart (no, not the “Sunglasses at Night” guy. That’s COREY Hart). Although it’s slightly reminiscent of “Dead”‘s breakthrough hit “U + Ur Hand” (with a little “Stupid Girls” thrown in…witness the sideways jab at Jessica Simpson), it’s still more awesome than the average retread. Check it out for yourself.

  • Jessica Simpson Called: She Wants You To "Come On Over"


    I’m not the world’s biggest country music fan, but I certainly don’t hate the genre. A quick poke through my CD collection will reveal not only the requisite Johnny Cash, but also Garth Brooks, Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley, Tim McGraw and a handful of others. I’m no *expert*, but there’s stuff I like.

    I’m definitely not the world’s biggest Jessica Simpson fan, but I don’t altogether dislike the woman. Despite the fact that she absolutely ruined two great pop songs (Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” and Robbie Williams’ “Angels”), I think she’s a talented singer who oversings to the point of wretched excess. I also don’t think she has much to say musically or lyrically, so I’ve been fairly comfortable ignoring her (well, not totally ignoring her…there were a handful of songs on her last album that I really liked).

    Anyhoo, speaking *of* that last album, “A Public Affair”. Just after it seemed Jess had finally established herself as a star, the album bricked. HARD. It was certified Gold, but to date has only sold about 299,000 copies. So…her handlers (including her super-skeeve of a dad) have brought out the Texas in her and her next album is going to be a country record. Does Jessica have what it takes to sit amongst the likes of Carrie Underwood on country radio? Listen for yourself.

    Aside from the fact that she borrowed the song’s title from the biggest-selling country album of all time (hi, Shania!), there’s nothing remarkable about this song to my ears. Her vocal is super dialed-down, which is a good thing, but the song itself is repetitive to the point of annoyance, the lyrics are cloying (which would be one thing coming from an actual country artist as opposed to a pop artist whose gone country because she’ll sell more records that way), and the song just has no personality. Any thoughts from the audience?

  • Personalized Pop

    This weekend’s Wall Street Journal carried an online music piece by John Jurgensen about personalized music. We’ve had mashuips and remixes, bootlegs and rarities. Now the economies of scale brought to us by the digital world are giving us personalized music.

    Like those kids license plate keychains you see hanging up in a Stuckey’s off the highway exit, these versions of the song are cut with individual names.

    “Hey, Billy.”

    Next

    “Hey, Chris”

    Next

    “Hey, Dawn.”

    and so on.

    Jurgensen reports that Jessica Simpson’s A Public Affair has 534 different copies for sale. To make matters even more cloying and disgusting, Simpsonc couldn’t be bothered to actually record the shout-out, relegating it instead to a backup singer.

    Personalized music could be like an autograph. If the shout out went something like, “Hey, Opie Taylor of Mayberry Enn Cee,” then I could maybe, somehow perhaps see spurging $1.99 extra for the song. There’s more money in shouting out to all the Billys, though, and having them or their friends pop down the extra money. And yes, the songs debuted at $1.99, although at iTunes (motto: “we’re even going to get The Beatles down to 99 cents”), they are now just a buck. That’s a third of a tall coffee at Starbucks. It hardly seems worth it.

    Spinning In The CD:
    I am really liking the new Bob Dylan album. I wrote someone that he was channeling bluesman Chris Smither, but his voice hasn’t sounded this good and his songs haven’t been this memorable in years. In fact, this is Bob’s best production since Jakob.