But as utterly authentic as the adulation of her fans clearly is, the Simpson package seems to be one of the most corporate and contrived in music today. She sang a song that no one knew in order to plug a movie she has coming out in the summer and gabbed a little bit about her show on MTV. Vendors moved through the crowd to sell autographed photos and there wasn’t a t-shirt under $30 in sight at the merchandise booth. How much babysitting money is that these days?

With big sister Jessica leading the way, the Simpson girls have been marketed as though they grew up like Britney Spears and Avril Lavigne with a sibling rivalry – the blonde diva vs. the darkling rock chick. As photo montages from Ashlee’s childhood flashed on a video screen, one imagined the two girls having heated childhood arguments over who was cooler: Debbie Gibson or Joan Jett. The crowd sang along to “Shadow” – Ashlee’s tale of 15-year-old woe – as though every one of them had been plagued with the trauma of having a hugely successful pop star for an older sister.

~End~

A version of this story originally appeared in the Columbus Dispatch in March, 2005.

<<< Back