I got a BOYFRIEND. We like to FIGHT A LOT. We got a lot in common: he thinks I FUCKING ROCK.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Have we talked about the new Ashlee Simpson on poptimists yet? I've only just got round to it and I think it's BLOODY BRILLIANT. Haven't worked out where it stands w/r/t her first two albums but it's a logical next step - she's basically grown up and lightened up, she sounds very much in control of herself (whereas on Autobiography and I Am Me she was more likely to be found flailing angstily around her emotions, which was great, but this is just different).

She's got Timbaland, Chad Hugo, Kenna and Santogold on the album but it's really telling that nothing on Bittersweet World really sounds like any of them at all - the points of comparison are far more indicative of Ashlee's own taste (ie Debbie Harry and Pat Benatar time travelling to meet Gwen Stefani in her own 80s mode, or something).

Outta My Head - we all know and love this, yeah? I finally got Santogold's 'LES Artistes' last night when I realised it was basically a version of 'Outta My Head'. It sets the tone for the album in that Ashlee sounds as though she's singing through her laughter - I wouldn't call Bittersweet World playful as such, but Ashlee is definitely playing with us.

Boys - AWESOME X 1000! Total summer jam, Gwen Stefani understudy surpasses the leading name. Surely the next single if anyone involved has any sense (though looking at how Mimi and Janet are effing up their singles schedules, I don't credit anyone anywhere with any sense in this matter any more). LOL at "use your head but not that one". Erm what actually are the boys giving her though?

Rule Breaker - crunchy and funny, the song whence the lyrics in the headline are taken. Destined to be mocked by people who think Ashlee's trying to be genuinely tuff. Duh, she's still playing; when she sings "you think I'm a REBEL, cuz I keep making TROUBLE" she sounds like she's on the verge of cracking up. Laughter is infectious.

Little Miss Obsessive - one of the few glimpses of the old Ashlee. Huge soft rock ballad, I don't have much to say about it (yet) but I completely love this.

Ragdoll - this is like Rule Breaker but with less quotability and a stronger melody I think.

Bittersweet World - HEY IT'S ROXIE HART! You can really hear the influence of Ashlee's stint in Chicago on this album in certain places, most of all in this. It's not a big musical number or anything, the influence is more subtle - a slight note of vampishness, a cabaret wink here and there...one of my immediate favourites. The bit where everything but the beat drops out for the lines "there's a universal bottom line / everybody's in disguise, even you and I" is brilliant.

What I've Become - erm I don't think I remember this but I do remember it being good. I think the ticket inspectors were going round the bus while this was playing.

Hot Stuff - WHOA what is this madness? 'Hella Good'-esque beat (yeah insofar as this album has any contemporary points of comparison it's Gwen Stefani), rollercoaster melody interludes, Ashlee pouting and wisecracking for all she's worth. Makes me laugh, esp "Show off! She just wanna take her clothes off!" and "Whatcha gon' do when y'all zip it? [MASSIVE PAUSE during which you can just FEEL Ashlee rolling her eyes] Try to flip it!"

Murder - another wtf amazing track, swampy guitars and a beat which sounds like clip-clopping hooves - the ending is amazing, more Roxie Hart cabaret stuffz - I've never heard Ashlee sing so softly and sweetly.

Never Dream Alone - big piano ballad which I'm sure I'll grow to love when I pay attention to the lyrics.

The bonus tracks on the UK album seem to be 'Pieces Of Me' and 'Boyfriend' - we all know and love these, yeah? - but there are probably others doing the rounds. I seem to have acquired one called 'Invisible' which sounds like an I Am Me reject and is kind of negligible.

HUGE PASS, anyway - this has zoomed straight into the highest echelon of albums released this year (other members of that category: Erykah Badu, Mariah Carey, Booka Shade, Estelle, Trus'me, The Bug, Akiko Kiyama, The-Dream, maaaybe Sébastien Tellier and Mlle Caro & Franck Garcia and Kuniyuki Takahashi and Black Devil Disco Club).

Comments

[koganbot]

"Invisible" is a cover song of some Ohio band Jaded Era that record company prexy Ron Fair talked her into doing a couple of years ago in order to give I Am Me extra legs (was a bonus track on the "deluxe" version): didn't do very well.

You forgot "No Time For Tears": That and "What I've Become" are the two most "rock" songs on there, and (esp. "What I've Become") the two dullest; their melodies just not kicking in for me. But for second-worst "No Time For Tears" is actually pretty good and it's piratemoggy's favorite. I like the flexibility of the beat throughout this album (in comparison to the last two albums). I originally had a lot of reservations about "Ragdoll" and "Bittersweet World" and "Boys" in that they seemed generically showbiz blues from the '40s. I'd say that that's still a problem with "Bittersweet World," but basically her singing on those is so beautiful that it overcomes my objections. Well, mostly. I think that once you get beyond the first two singles (which are extremely good) the melody writing isn't up to the first two albums'. But those albums set a high standard, and in other ways this album pulls off something AMAZING in being "light-hearted" while actually delivering a lot of force and feeling - I thought she and Timbaland would be a tremendous mismatch, but in fact she's found a perfect way to use the zip and snap of the beats while finding new forms to act out old obsessions. The singing is excellent excellent excellent: there are these parts where she's slowing into what would be a drawl if she wasn't light and pretty with it, and then the "drawl" sets up these (often comic) sudden expostulations, the "I'll bite your head off" in "Outta My Head," "why does it have to be so unfair" in "Little Miss Obsessive."

"Outta My Head" does something I've never quite heard before, basically works a deliberately thin early '80s synthpop (she cites Missing Persons) into springy pop-punk reggae. (Though I've now read several reviews saying, Oh, she's discovered the Eighties, and I want to say, "Yes, I can read a press release too, but if you actually listen to the album you might notice she's drawing on a slew of other things as well.")

Oh yeah, and I called it right on I Am Me (and even on "La La" back on Autobiography): she likes to play dressup. "Burning Up" on I Am Me is an obvious precursor.

(Still not sure where I am with Bittersweet World. It's very good, an achievement, a breakthrough, convinces me that if she wants to keep going and chooses her producers and song partners well she can make good music for the rest of her life, even without major label or fan support; but also where Autobiography is an A PLUS and I Am Me is an A, I'd say this is an A MINUS. I want more from the tunes and words, more emotion. That's a relative judgment. Compared to most everyone else she's doing well.)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I thought she and Timbaland would be a tremendous mismatch, but in fact she's found a perfect way to use the zip and snap of the beats while finding new forms to act out old obsessions

Yeah I was deeply suspicious of this collab - neither of them had great past form at moving out of their particular field (Timbaland's experiments in rock = aaagh, Ashlee on a reggae beat = yeesh) - but it works really well in exactly the way you describe. I can't think of anyone who's really doing this sound AT ALL right now!

I prefer I Am Me to Autobiography - I think it's a more confident and more ambitious album; at its best, it's really towering and visceral (melody and production) in a way Autobiography isn't. Bittersweet World is hard to compare to either but I think it holds up really well. Generic showbiz blues works for Ashlee because she's never even come close to trying this style before - I guess it shows she's still restless, musically, she's not just going to churn out more angst-rock in her comfort zone - and she pulls it off. I wish I'd bothered to see her in Chicago now!

[koganbot]

Did you know that one of her original concepts for the album was to have all the songs performed in the voice of fictional character Vicky Valentine? "Boys" and "Murder" and "Rule Breaker" and "Ragdoll" all are pretty clearly Vicky Valentine songs. And "Hot Stuff" is Vicky Valentine as Super Alien or something. (That's my vote for next U.S. single. I figure that since the radio won't play her no matter what, she might as well go for the extreme; I foresee it getting club play in SF and NY and Miami.)

About two-thirds of the way through this vid Ashlee sings what I assume is a song from Chicago (I've never seen Chicago, so I don't know.)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

The first I heard about the Vicky Valentine alter ego was in an interview where Ashlee was like "oh haha that was a joke"! But I read the threads about this mysterious Victor Valentine co-writer so I'm guessing there's a bit of Vicky - whoever Ashlee's conceptualised her as - in there. I don't hear anything specific I recognise as VV though because I don't know exactly what Ashlee had in mind when she thought of her: those songs do have a distinctly different narrative voice but it kind of fits with what Ashlee herself is like now too!

It all still comes down to "she's playing with us".

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Actually I REALLY wish I'd seen Chicago (I think that was the year I was completely broke and couldn't do anything which wasn't free) - the only production of it I've seen was, er, a school one, but Roxie Hart LOOMS LARGE as an influence.

[koganbot]

But also, I wonder if Timbaland's production credits are basically for assembling the staff, or maybe it's even just an honorary credit. Or maybe he really did direct a lot. But he's got no writing credits; on the tracks where he's "producer" he's only one of three, the other two being King Logan and Jerome Harmon, who are two thirds of a production team called The Royal Court. And on the Timbo tracks it's Harmon and Logan who do all the heavy lifting on beats and keybs.

A crucial participant seems to be Jim Beanz, who does "vocal production" on all but the final track. "Vocal producer" is a specialist role I'd not realized existed, but Jim Beanz is all over Blackout and all over the new Danity Kane album; so on the basis of those three albums I'd say the guy does tremendous work.

Timbo seems to appear as the rapper "Izza Kizza" on "Murder," and whether it's he or not the rap is the worst thing on the album. And stupidly I wiped the original leaked version from my computer, which has a much better rap by Travis McCoy. Contains the line "O.J. is my favorite Simpson," and I'm wondering if the record company said "You can't do that." Is streamed here, and seems to have a download (though also some extraneous noise).

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

The vox on Blackout and ...Dollhouse are really superb! In completely different ways! The only time I've noticed "vocal production" before was on Survivor, when I think Beyoncé herself took the reins, and her entire amusing strategy was "me at the front all the time".

Oh is this like when all the big Timba tracks of 06 were really Danja? And oh THAT'S who Izza Kizza is.

(NB: "Ashlee, am I getting on your nerrrrves?" = the only Timba vocal contribution to a track I've actively enjoyed in ages! Maybe I just got used to it, the lack of it feels strange.)

[koganbot]

Well, I don't know that Izza Kizza is Timbo, it just sounds bad enough to be him.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

No, Izza Kizza is this guy (http://profile.myspace.com/izzakizza).

"Vocal production" is what Kara did on Paris and Blackout.

[koganbot]

OK, apologies to Mr. Mosley, who's merely responsible for signing him, I guess.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

I think Mr. Mosley needs to apologize to you.

[koganbot]

Well, I don't hate all of what I'm hearing on the Izza Kizza MySpace, though I think that's mainly because of the Missy Elliott track that goes "3 6 9, the goose drank wine."

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Then I guess it's too late to apologize. It's too laaaaaate...

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Missy's done a track like that as well?? Christ she really has run out of ideas.

[koganbot]

"Vocal production" is what Kara did on Paris and Blackout.

Presumably on Blackout she did vocal production on "Heaven On Earth" and "Ooh Ooh Baby." Beanz is credited (at least by Wiki) with "Gimme More," "Break The Ice," "Get Naked," "Hot As Ice," and "Perfect Lover." Interestingly, Beanz is credited with the vocal production on "Love Story" and "Open Toes" on the Kat McPhee album. Those are Kara songs, right?

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

She gets both a producer and vocal production credit on "Heaven on Earth" (which she didn't write) and just a producer credit on "Ooh Ooh Baby" (which she did).

Those are indeed Kara songs. Allmusic credits her with vocal production on the Kat McPhee album too, but it doesn't say for which songs.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

'Open Toes' is amazing!

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Funny, "No Time for Tears" started to click after you point me toward that "stole my sky before I found my ground" line...realized that that and "What I've Become" are pretty much synthier I Am Me outtakes. So second- or third-tier from that perspective, but I kind of like them as throwbacks, whereas I don't really like "Bittersweet World" or "Ragdoll," even if they're different from what she's done before. ("No Time for Tears" is another good track to wake up to -- only one of the album I can wake up comfortably to, actually, plus it goes into "Little Miss Obsessive" which has grown on me quite a bit...just needed to get it stuck in my head. Plain White Tim just sounds like a back-up singer now.)

I can move my leg up all the way

[koganbot]

Bittersweet World threads that appeared while you were away:

Ashlee utilizes deliberate cognitive dissonance

I still don't know if it's Kara or Ashlee I should fall in love with

Culture Yoghurt Roundup (Ashlee content appears near the bottom of the thread.)

Weirdest Things about the Liner Notes to "Bittersweet World" (Dave points out that there's no thank-you to Kara in the sleeve notes. I see that God is similarly neglected.)

No.

Valentine's Day ya ya ya ya

takes more than some handcuffs to stop me

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

In the US the iTunes bonus track is "Follow You Wherever You Go." My reaction to the album went thusly: Before "Follow You Wherever You Go": Oh, I shouldn't have spent nine dollars on this. After "Follow You Wherever You Go": Oh thank God I spent nine dollars.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

OMG 'Follow You Wherever You Go' is amazing!

Er is there any decent quality mp3 of this around? like over 192 bitrate?

[koganbot]

Mine is a puny 128 kbps.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Not a clue. iTunes won't let me convert it to MP3, and I don't get 192+ quality from the program I use to rip stuff.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

If you have a Mac, you can just run it through iMovie (export as AIFF and then convert to MP3).

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

Well, I have the album, and I can burn it at a higher bitrate if you want.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

That would be really awesome if you could. It's not as if there's actually any legal way for me to acquire it.

[koganbot]

By the way, I'd say that Gwen Stefani has always been an Ashlee source; the only track that's surfaced from the original rejected tracks she'd done with Steve Fox and Stan Frazier, "Just Let Me Cry," is very No Doubt and I've read is what got her her record contract with Geffen (that along with her personality). I'd say what she was doing vocally on the first two albums was melding a Gwen people-pleasing pout with a Courtney scratch-your-face-off clawing motion. Those two styles shouldn't be able to meld, but not only does she meld them, the result makes perfect sense, passion full of terror and turmoil that nonetheless is - somehow - really sweet. (Also, her voice is much richer than Gwen's, even if she's not consistently on pitch outside the studio.)

[koganbot]

My favorite version of "Little Miss Obsessive" is this one: rawest, has the most pitch problems, and the "problems" matter not at all. If you search the other eight or so live versions of this song she did during the week the record was released, you'll notice that the band change the arrangement depending on whom they're playing for: it's MTV she goes most "punk" for but where she also dresses least punk. The search would be worth making just to look at the drastically different styles she wears in each appearance, even if the song weren't delicious.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

OK I love that but GAH wrong choice of single wrong wrong wrong! and not a great unit-shifting performance either: you're right in that it doesn't detract from the song's effect, but does Ashlee hit any notes at all there?

it's an amazing song - esp the different uses of 'over' as you said! - but it's too old-Ashlee, she needs to be throwing nu-Ashlee at people, ie RELEASING 'BOYS'.

another listen to the album and I have settled on a favourite, or at least "this song is the most deeply fascinating": MURDER

[koganbot]

Oh, I think she's pretty much on-pitch until she gets to "alone in the dark," then she belts the chorus well beyond pitch, then second verse she's in range for a line and then it wanders away from her.

[koganbot]

Here's the vid again, since Viacom scotched that one:

[koganbot]

In its second week in the U.S., Bittersweet World dropped from #4 to #31. First week at #4 wasn't that impressive anyway - only 46,000 units moved - and she's probably down to about 15,000 on her second week. Compare to Taylor Swift, who sold 27,000 last week, her 80th on the chart. My guess is that Ashlee'll be lucky to even reach 200,000 total. (Autobiography sold 750,000 in its first week. And yes, the biz has changed since then, but still...)

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

I just bought this album after work today. I will probably listen to it at work tomorrow and report back. Surely you are all waiting with great anticipation.

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

NB: Due to extreme, ridiculous busyness and overall burned-outness I haven't heard a single new album this year, or even a single new song except for what's been played on US radio. Accepting any suggestions on anything to check out.

[koganbot]

Danity Kane Welcome To The Dollhouse, esp. "Bad Girl" and "Pretty Boy."

You know, Tom hasn't asked us yet what we liked during April (or if he did I missed the thread):

--Mariah Carey f. Young Jeezy "Side Effects" (I haven't really dived to deep into the album yet, but this one dived into me)
--Lil Mama "L.I.F.E."

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

'Side Effects' is amazing, undoubtedly one of the songs of her career - it's funny how Mimi's rewritten 'We Belong Together' like six times or something since it came out in a bid to recapture it, and most of those rewrites are very good, but the song which matches it in emotional intensity is this Southern-fried Storch production (!). The lyrics are especially great - I love how she plays with the scansion as the verse builds up to the chorus:

Said you were strong, protecting me
Then I find out that you were weak
Keepin' me there under your thumb
Cuz you were scared that I'd become
much more than you could handle,
shining like a chandel-
-ier that decorated every room inside the private hell we built,
and I dealt with it,
like a kid I wished
I could fly away

I love how, at the exact emotional pivot of the verse, she suddenly moves from straight-up whole, complete lines to these awesome run-ons, suddenly cramming one huge line into the structure - it feels like she's racing against time, that her emotions are suddenly pouring out unbidden. And she still finds the time to compare herself to a motherfucking CHANDELIER. And then she launches into the monster chorus on top of all of this!

The album is really amazing! I also love how 'Migrate' is a meta banger about going to the club etc, but by the time we get to the first bridge Mariah not only hasn't arrived at the club yet, but despite her evident tardiness has apparently suddenly decided that she's actually going to GO HOME TO CHANGE FIRST! Song structure reflecting LIFE there. That bridge is pretty much awesome:

Now I'm on my way home
Cuz my jeans, yeah they fit
But I might benefit
If I throw something on
To feature my hips, accentuate my ass
and STEAL THE SHOW

[koganbot]

Wow! I hadn't paid any attention to the lyrics. That chandelier line is great, and I don't mean just as the moxie of a star, but as actual good poetry: "private hell we built" would be a cliché without the specificity of "chandelier." Regular mediocre songwriting would call the Hellacious Home a marble palace and her a venerated but imprisoned statue or something. But "chandelier" is bright and vivid and unexpected, and with interesting ambiguity: Is she the chandelier or is he just afraid she'll become the chandelier? In any event, we have the shining light that's suppressed or imprisoned.

Hadn't seen any credits, didn't realize it was Storch. No wonder I like it. Great pop-crunk: menacing, melancholy, but buoyant. And her background singing at the end, the high voice, quick darts of light in the somber evening.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

'Chandelier' is fragile as well! Also, sparkly.

I love that it's this momentary burst of light amid the lyrical gloom: it's structured so that "shining like a chandelier" lifts the song out of the darkness and anguish, and the conventional thing to do would be to stay lifted, but "private hell" immediately extinguishes the chandelier.

I didn't check the credits for ages and was shocked it was Storch - I'd assumed it was some Southern producer. It doesn't sound as generic as Storch usually is.

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

OK here it is:
I wasn't really paying enough attention to listen to the lyrics for the most part, but I think this album is fantastic! I think it's just as good as her other albums, but I probably don't like them as much as Mr. Kogan. No mixed feelings at all for me - it'll be in my top 5 for sure, if not higher.

I did listen to the lyrics for "Rule Breaker" and I thought they were amazing. I'll surely be putting in much more time on this album tho.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I actually suspect that 'Rule Breaker' isn't actually a very strong SONG, and once the novelty lolfactor of the amazing lyrics wears off I won't return to it very much. I also know that this doesn't matter at all right now.

I wish I had an uncensored version :(

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

My version is censored too. I will burn the album for you some time tomorrow or Monday night.

I feel about "Hot Stuff" like you feel about "Rule Breaker". It's sheer novelty I think. "Never Dream Alone" is OMG beautiful. I was in the car when I first heard it and I was really paying attention to the lyrics and I started to tear up. I almost had to pull over.

[weasel-seeker.livejournal.com]

"Never Dream Alone" has yet to click, perhaps just because it seems so radically different from the style of the album as a whole.

"Hot Stuff", OTOH, is kind of a microcosm of how I feel about the album as a whole. A heap of fun, borderline incredible, and catchy as fuck. However, despite of all this, it doesn't quite feel like "Ashlee" and after listening to it, I miss her a little. But that's a lyrical thing more than a musical one.

That said, it's more consistent (musically) than I Am Me and if she's going to outright abandon the template of Autobiography this is an audacious and interesting direction to spin off into.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Looking up week-old thread to say that I heard "Outta My Head" in the HMV the other day and thought "You know, all the indie peeps would love this song to pieces if they thought it was by Santogold," and then... I found out it was written by Santogold. HUZZAH FOR ME??

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

HUZZAH FOR YOU!

I'm surprised the Santogold/Ashlee connection hasn't had more press, given that they both have material out which isn't exactly dissimilar, though I guess it doesn't help that Santogold keeps disowning it.

[cornwellmecu.livejournal.com]

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