Ashlee Simpson: Emo or Oh no?

This starts getting to the point, but it's backwards. (Not exactly backwards. It depends which side of the fence you're on. It makes as much sense backwards, anyway.)

Critics who favor transgression, who look for love in all the wrong places, who like it when punk pops up its head in music that's nowhere near traditional punk, will grab hold of an Ashlee Simpson as a totem. Her music is *better* than punk, because it's bringing punk to a place where there are still some unconverted to preach to. Even better if the artist is reddish rather than bluish, mallish as opposed to boho.

But the desire to make Ashlee one of those totems outstrips her success at transgression. Like, not *all* red-statish mallsters who adopt punk are going to be good at it, you know? So the reverse equation may also be true -- some people just can't conceive of someone from Ashlee's social demographic making bad punk, because someone who's so ripe a transgressive symbol as Ashlee can't possibly have missed the mark. Like, it's at least possible that Alex is saying that though he's down with transgression, Ashlee just isn't doing it for him. (If it sounds like I think he's right, I do, though I like Ashlee just fine. Not that I'm against transgressive totems, either. Big$Rich work quite well for me. But to me it sure looks and sounds like punk is something Ashlee picked up at the mall. She spent too much on it too, and didn't get the right kind. She looks uncomfortable in it, unconvincing, something that could never be said of Joan Jett. Which would all be beside the point if the hooks were better. You can reward her for trying, but if you reward her too much by comparing her to name-your-favorite-artists-of-all-time it oversells the case and turns people away from a useful line of argument. Overzealousness knows no ideology. Important half-failures are still half-failures. I mean, as Bob Christgau might say in a generous mood, B+.)

The main thing, maybe, is this -- for punk to have any power as transgression, there needs to be a little place somewhere where punk traditionalism, in all its preaching-to-the-converted, bohemian, elitist, purist glory, *exists*. Otherwise there'd be nothing to transgress. So the world sure needs its Alex in NYCs just as much as its Frank Kogans. Its when they're on the same page that it's time to start worrying.

Really? I've never met such a person, not even once. Where do such mythical beasts live?

(Not that I disagree with everything else you've said, mind you.)

>Really? I've never met such a person, not even once. Where do such mythical beasts live?

Maybe I lurk around on ILM too much, so you're right, maybe these mythical beasts don't live anywhere in the real world. But whenever these discussions come up, the artists in question *always* seem to be picked out of the same pool. Ashlee, Britney, Montgomery Gentry, Brooks & Dunn, Skynard, ZZ Top, whatever. And I like all of them, which makes my argument a tougher sell, admittedly. But when red-state artists tilt toward transgression, they seem to get the big benefit of the doubt. Where's a thread on a conservative artist who crosses genres and is *bad* ad it?

Not that people start threads too often on things they don't like. Argh, it's so hard to prove a negative!

Anthony, whether you hear punk in Ashlee or not (I don't see how the statement quoted in your first post in any way DEPENDS on thinking Ashlee has any punk in her), how exactly do Alex's comments on this thread NOT suggest that he "can't conceive of someone from Ashlee's social demographic making punk, because someone like Ashlee can't possibly have the attitudes that makes one a punk, can't possibly understand"? "Ashlee Simpson is a living, breathing Mr. Potato-Head, all trussed up in conventionally 'punk' finery, but her music, her message, her aspirations for stardom are strictly teen pop to the bone AND. NOTHING. MORE"? "Just because "punk" might arguably mean many things, doesn't mean it means everything. Gloppy, cookie-cutter, glossy, sickly, candy-colored, slickly-produced teenybopper radio fodder it does NOT mean"? "Teen pop", "aspirations for stardom," "teenybopper radio fodder", "trussed up in conventionally 'punk' finery" --sorry, but that IS her social demographic. I'm not even saying I necessarily agree with Frank's statement there; I'd have to give it more thought. And like Sang Freud (and Frank) I am *glad* Alex is on this thread; he makes the discussion *better,* and he exemplifies an important point of view. Hell, he might even be *right*, for all I know. But if his dismissals on this thread aren't an example of thinking punk from Ashlee's demographic is impossible, they're certainly a pretty good imitation.

But I guess what I'm saying is that if we're so sure about the future, maybe we'll be blindsided when it doesn't turn out like that at all.

Rolling 2005 Country Thread

People write as much there about what Big & Rich, Broooks and Dunn, Montgomery Gentry etc (and countless other such acts) do wrong as about what they do right. None of those acts get a free ride, and neither does anybody else. Doesn't seem uncritical to me at all.

Well, yeah -- see what Frank said about Latin freestyle in 1987 (which he mentions above). I think that was part of his point. But hey, being blindsided might be part of the fun, you know?

Well, if the Duhks or Donna the Buffalo or Patrica Vonne or the Warsaw Village Band or Dallas Wayne or Bill Kirchen (all of whom I like, and praise on that thread) (and who, first off, are in some ways MORE conservative than the Nashville acts you've decided to rope together as "conservative" for some reason I don't quite get) made as good an album as Miranda Lambert's, they might rise farther up the pole. I'm still not sure what your point is. That people there tend to prefer pop country to alt country? Well, some do. I do! But that doesn't mean I accept the former or criticize the latter blindly, or that I don't like lots of the latter better than lots of the former. (And there are people on there who like alt-country way more than I do. Edd Hurt and Don Allred defend it quite often, it seems to me.)

and ...

>"Teen pop", "aspirations for stardom," "teenybopper radio fodder", "trussed up in conventionally 'punk' finery" --sorry, but that IS her social demographic<

So, he's being accused of bias? It's not that he just thinks that Ashlee Simpson - 'trussed up in etc.' with her 'teenybopper radio fodder' - happens to stink; it's that he couldn't possibly conceive of someone like her ever doing something good?

(And people defend Steve Earle on there too, come to think of it!)

xp

But either way, this question should really end "punk," not "good," Tim. The question is whether Alex could possibly conceive of someone like her ever doing something punk (whether it's good or not).

Passive aggressively yours,

Frank

And Alex, I think you have a lot to teach me. I just wonder how to drag your knowledge out of you.

(Back to the day gig.)

Pure projection, and wrong. NO ONE actually thinks this. come on now, we are ten years past both Dookie and Nevermind, for God's sake. It's been done, and much better.

"Hell, [Alex] might even be *right*, for all I know."

He is.

Parting comment: Ashlee Simpson's is simply not Punk Rock. If an alien from another world appeared and earnestly asked to be shown examples of Punk Rock, would you cite Ashlee?

wiDow

"not until you explain why bad things happen to good people!"

= i. i want my zimmer frame and i WANT IT NOW
= ii. haha if ilm has demonstrated ANYTHING it is that in 20 years time we will still be discussing the merits of EVERYONE

i.&ii. are nicely contradictory hence mark s = punk-as-fuck

in communion (my second favourite film EVAH) christopher walken discovers the aliens DISCO DANCING

In other words, I'm not allowed to muck around with FACTS, specifically the FACT that Ashlee Simpson in NO WAY Punk Rock.

If an alien from another world appeared and earnestly asked to be shown examples of Punk Rock, i wd point to alex's heroically changeless mr.dadrock-gets-uptight declamations down decades of ilm, and say, "punk is the OPPOSITE OF THAT"

I've never claimed to be the embodiment of Punk Rock.

In any event, this thread has been terrific and has helped me greatly in pulling my thoughts together; especially thank you to Cunga and to Phil for your descriptions of the Ashlee image.

Also, thanks to me for suckering mark s back onto ILX.

now let us never speak of it again.

I know that someone might jump on that and tell me that you can't separate your aesthetic perceptions from your background and your psychological makeup, but what would someone be trying to establish by saying something like this?

Tim, someone (i.e., me) isn't trying to "establish" anything but rather trying to cajole, incite, inspire, badger you folks into saying why you hear a particular piece of music in a particular way. And that involves (1) describing what's going on in the music when you hear glossiness or rawness of punk or whatever, and (2) what's going on in your life that makes you hear glossiness or rawness or punk (esp. when other people are hearing something else).

Maybe social categories are aesthetic categories; it doesn't really matter to me which you use to explain the other; it does matter that you make an effort to explain - that is to say that you make an effort to communicate your experience and your ideas and that you make an attempt to explore where those experiences and ideas come from and why you in particular have and hold them. Of course, you can just spend your time stating an opinion and holding it against all comers. That's what a lot of ILX threads are, basically.