When it comes to ripping on specific individuals, I’m not usually one to participate, but the undeserved celebrity of Miss Ashlee Simpson has pushed me over the edge. Much like with Paris Hilton, this no-talent clown has done nothing to warrant being famous.
The fact that Ashlee performed on our campus Thursday — at huge venue Northrop Auditorium — sickens me. This MTV mall rat is probably the worst on the current list of really bad pop music stars (Nickelback and Linkin Park come very close), and she isn’t even worthy of the attention I’m giving her in this column. However, she has become a platinum album-selling sensation, so I feel like I have to reach out to those sucked into the enormous pop-hype vacuum. It’s just to imagine how Ashlee got into that vacuum in the first place.

I suppose when you have an exploitative father and already-famous sister (Jessica “Dumb” Simpson), the odds of becoming famous tend to go in your favor. But Ashlee Simpson sings like she’s deaf, dances like a crippled marmoset and knows nothing about the “punk rock anarchy” that her wardrobe and stage scenery suggest.

I wasn’t surprised when Ashlee was caught lip-synching on “Saturday Night Live,” but I was shocked to learn her popularity skyrocketed soon after the incident. Thinking I might have judged her too soon, I decided to sit through her halftime performance at the Orange Bowl a few months later. What I saw and heard made me seriously consider relocating to a deserted island.

She performed her hit single “La La,” a song with a title as creative as Carson Daly is intelligent. The misled girl also jumped around, making nauseating “I’m cute” faces. What’s more, the stage was set up with large anarchy “A” symbols and equipped with a model band sporting mohawks and trendy star-shaped tattoos. The refrain of the song, which she sung in the most off-pitch, screeching howls, went as follows: “You make me wanna la-la/In the kitchen on the floor/I’ll be a French maid/Where I’ll meet you at the door/I’m like an alley cat/Drink the milk up, I want more.” The whole stadium loudly booed her.

Well, at least there was some intense anarchy in those lyrics, eh? I wish I was making them up! Lo and behold, I confirmed every word online and even discovered Ashlee Simpson’s entire repertoire has gibberish in place of lyrics. Take, for example, the words from the title track on her album, “Autobiography.”

“Got stains on my T-shirt and I’m the biggest flirt/Right now I’m solo, but that will be changing eventually.”

Her teeny-bopper babblings alone should be enough to repel listeners, but those who pop cannot stop, as it were. If the quality of top-selling music is this bad now, won’t it continue to diminish? Ashlee Simpson is slowly killing us; everything she represents as an idol is flawed.

Unfortunately, I would guess most of the audience at her concert here Thursday night had a good time. They didn’t notice her automatic pitch-correction devices, or her uncoordinated skipping around stage or even her poseur-punk decorations. Everyone just sat back and enjoyed the novelty of Ashlee’s celebrity — that one little element that allowed MTV to kill good music as we know it.