Unsure

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Tell me about a record that you're not sure whether you like or not?

(erm, that you've actually heard)

Comments

[koganbot]

Ashlee Simpson's "Outta My Head", which is at least as catchy as "Boyfriend" or "L.O.V.E." and I am sure that I like it - even love it, I suppose, and will put it on my year-end list, though probably top 30 not top 10 - but it distresses me anyway because:

(1) The Gwennish reggae mannerisms Ashlee uses on it are silly and funny in a good way, but they're not nearly as warm and emotional as her normal voice, so I don't find myself feeling a lot when I hear this.

(2) The lyrics have a great concept - someone else's words, opinions, criticisms, attitudes invading her mind like an infection, worming their way in at the expense of her own identity - except what I just said in description gives it way more than her own words give it (she's singing lines that are no better than "keep your opinions to yourself," though I do smile when she threatens to bite the other person's head off). I want more from Ashlee, much more - not necessarily profundity every time out, but vividness, the life of the world in her words, which in the past she's done better than any musical performer since Eminem on The Marshall Mathers LP. (I fear that the new album will reveal that she can't do it without John and Kara and Shelly any more than they can do it without her.)

(Tom, I will still try to think of a song that genuinely pulls me into both like and dislike.)