Ashlee Simpson is on the phone, and she's talking — actually speaking! — about music, magazines and television, from “Seventh Heaven” to “The Ashlee Simpson Show” to “Saturday Night Live.”

Of course her music, which is rooted in pop-rock and not the gummy-pop of her sister's repertoire, is in the mix.

“I never saw myself doing the music Jessica does,” Simpson says. Her taste skews more to Maroon 5 than Radiohead, and she talks as if she has a sense of quality despite what detractors might say about her own music.

“I love Bjork, and I've always loved Fiona Apple,” Simpson said. “I also like Hole. Courtney Love is great ... crazy, but that's her thing — and I think she's an amazing guitar player.”

Perhaps Simpson, with her baby doe eyes and her bee-stung (or at least collagen-filled) lips, is better suited for magazines than music.

Ultimately, television circa 2005 is the medium where Simpson works best.

It's all about the unreal reality of MTV's “The Ashlee Simpson Show” and the culture of artists launching careers from the WB's “Seventh Heaven” via a hot music video with newly dyed black hair and a faux 'tude.

At least the flaws still shine through occasionally — thanks to the publicity free-fire zone that is live TV — although Simpson's massive flub on “Saturday Night Live” only implanted her deeper into the public consciousness and made her an even larger icon.

To some, she represents a multitalented object of envy, the woman who has it all and is only made more human by an unfortunate “oops” on live TV. To others, she's the problem with the American entertainment, the talent-free product of a celebrity-obsessed family bowing to the needs of a celebrity-obsessed culture.

Either way, Simpson isn't thinking about it too much.

“It really hasn't changed anything,” she said of October's “SNL” lip-syncing flub. “Things happen, and for me, it's in the past, and I moved on, and I have this tour coming up and, the way that I looked at it, it was just something that happened in my life.”

It's no surprise she was lip-syncing, but the aftermath — her dad playing cleanup with messy excuses and Simpson singing live at the Orange Bowl and getting booed for her efforts — was so ugly that we should have learned, again, that Simpson wasn't born to sing.

Her album, “Autobiography,” is a pop-rock hodgepodge that pays tribute to the great female singers of the '80s — badly. “Love Me for Me” isn't awful in its channeling of Pat Benatar, and its catchy hook makes for the best pseudo-rock track on the disc. “La La,” the song that bombed at the Orange Bowl, is an addictive track that belongs on “Total Request Live” with its infectious screams and dance-pop chants.

And that's it. Every other song on the disc is a waste of time and electricity. But if there's anything to be said for the album, it's that she co-wrote the entire thing with a team of songwriters.

“For me, rock is something I've always listened to — Blondie and the Pretenders and whatnot,” Simpson says. “Rock is something I've really wanted to do, because a lot of the women had a lot of power, and they always had something to say.”

So Ashlee Simpson — like Deborah Harry and Chrissie Hynde — has something to say? The Orange Bowl was indeed look-away bad, but her current tour could be must-see rich.