27 July 18–24, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Sorry, Ashlee Twenty years later, it’s time re-evaluate why the Dallas pop singer’s career was damaged by one mishap. BY CARLY MAY GRAVLEY O n Oct. 23, 2004, 19-year-old pop singer and Richardson native Ashlee Simpson per- formed on Saturday Night Live. The first song in her set was “Pieces of Me,” her breakthrough sin- gle that peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 that year, and it went off without a hitch. When she returned to the stage for the second part of her set, the audience was not treated to “Autobiography,” the title track of her debut album that she had intended to perform. The opening of “Pieces of Me” played again instead, including a pre-re- corded vocal track. The cat was out of the bag: Simpson had been lip-syncing the whole time. Mortified, she awkwardly danced to the track for a minute before exiting the stage. To this day, she is the only SNL musical guest to walk out on a live performance. The backlash to this error was both ruth- less and wildly misguided. Simpson went from a star on the rise to a national joke overnight. The debacle was mocked on late- night talk shows, spoofed by sketch comedi- ans on shows like MadTV and torn to pieces on the internet, the lawless, shiny new toy for haters at the time. The technical error was some anony- mous Studio 8H techie’s fault, but for some reason, Simpson took all of the heat. Why was this such a scandal? Many of her detractors will insist that the lip-sync- ing dealt a blow to her credibility as a per- former. Why did she need that backing track? What was she using autotune to hide? This is a standard to which all perfor- mances are held to this day. If the audience finds out the mic isn’t turned on, they’re in- stantly turned off. Simpson later went on to say that her choice to lip-sync was due to illness, but here’s the thing: She shouldn’t have needed an excuse. Prerecorded vocals on live broadcasts have been a common prac- tice for decades. Everyone has done it to some extent, including whatever pinnacle of raw talent you’re thinking of right now. None of this has anything to do with the capabilities of the performer. Live per- formances are a beast to put together. A lot can go wrong with no recourse to correct it, so the teams behind these shows want as many ducks in a row as possible ahead of time to mitigate potential blunders. In many cases, one of these ducks is the vo- cals. What can go wrong when the mic is turned on? SNL, which appears to be com- mitted to live singing post-Simpson, has countless examples. A recent victim is folk- rock trio Boygenius, who gave a memorable Beatles-inspired performance last year. It’s considered a highlight of its season, yet many viewers had the same complaint: The vocals are too low in the mix, causing some of the lyrics to sound muffled and incompre- hensible. This is a common complaint with the show in general (there are several Reddit threads named something like “Why does the music on SNL suck?”) and it begs the question: What’s the point of singing live if nobody can hear it? Ashlee Simpson’s cardinal sin wasn’t lip- syncing, It was getting caught lip-syncing and breaking the illusion TV viewers de- mand. And we can’t overemphasize the fact that the technical error wasn’t even her fault. The performance was objectively embar- rassing and would have been a low point for any artist, but the vitriol aimed at Simpson was still unique for a number of reasons. The year 2004 was a rocky time to be a pop singer, especially a female one. It was a de- cade before the concept of “poptimism” took off and made pop artists critical dar- lings. Pop stars at the dawn of the millen- nium, however, were widely viewed as lacking in substance and, more important, as inauthentic. These assumptions didn’t ruin careers on their own, though, and the early 2000s were not lacking in inescapable pop bangers. But Simpson had the added stigma of being the little nepo-sister of Jessica Simpson, who is famous for not knowing what tuna is, designing shoes, waiting until marriage and being a singer, in that order. (Jokes aside, Jessica Simpson was also sub- jected to her share of bad-faith mockery back in the day.) The younger Simpson was also intro- duced to the public not through her music, but the lowbrow, unserious medium of re- ality television. The Ashlee Simpson Show, a spin-off of Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica (her sister’s show), documented the cre- ation of Autobiography. The show played a pivotal role in the album’s success, which means it was either a brilliant marketing maneuver or blatant “industry planting,” depending on how cynical you are. Nepotism, reality TV and now lip-sync- ing? Three strikes, you’re out, Ashlee. Not really, though, of course. Her next album, I Am Me, charted at the top of the Billboard 200 and spawned two hit singles, “Boyfriend” and “L.O.V.E” She’s still mak- ing music to this day with her husband, Evan Ross, under the band name Ashlee + Evan. She’s even been on Broadway, star- ring as Roxie Hart in Chicago. And yet her legacy is a technical blunder and an awkward dance. The early 2000s re- ally were a hellscape. Did Simpson deserve better? We’ll ar- gue yes and not just because we’re biased toward North Texans. Underneath the lay- ers of tabloid nonsense, Simpson was a promising pop artist, surpassing her sister in both vocal talent and creative vision. Autobiography was a solid debut and bridged the gap between bubblegum bops and moody pop punk in a way that reso- nated with tween girls growing into their music tastes. And, yeah, it was predominantly lis- tened to by young girls. There’s no shame in that. We had to have something to listen to, after all. You don’t have to stan Ashlee Simpson like we do, but we are begging the public at large to grow up a little. Lip-syncing isn’t a crime, just like Star Wars wasn’t shot in space and magicians don’t actually saw people in half. Don’t start beef just be- cause you don’t like how the sausage is made. Or in this case, don’t start chicken just because you don’t like how the tuna is made. That’s a Simpson gaffe that’ll never get old. Wikimedia Pictured at left with her sister, Jessica Simpson is Ashlee Simpson, whose career was derailed by a technical error on Saturday Night Live. | B-SIDES | t Music SCAN HERE TO ENTER TO WIN TICKETS
