Album Review: I Am Me, Ashlee Simpson

There's no denying it this time around: I love Ashlee Simpson. Her new album I Am Me (which drops October 18th in the United States) takes a big leap from her first album, the somewhat ill-fated Autobiography, but builds upon the same Ashlee we have come to know and love. Some may have written her off after her humiliating lip-synching/acid reflux skirmish, but if nothing else, I Am Me demonstrates that Simpson has learned from and risen above the blunder with sincerity and spirit.

Last year, Simpson rode on the tails of her reality-show fame to gain platinum status with Autobiography. Her songs, though catchy, were fluffy and frivolous. A favorite song off the album, "Better Off" featured cutesy lyrics "I spilt my coffee, it went/All over your clothes/I gotta wear mine now." "Shadow," Simpson's second single, drilled upon her relationship with superstar sister Jessica, before the crushing mishap on Saturday Night Live in late 2004.

But with a new year comes a new Ashlee. Back to her roots as a blonde, she seems to be accentuating her growth as a woman more than her poor-second-born persona. She unveiled her new look at the Teen Choice Awards this past summer, seeming at first, a little bashful. Without a reality TV medium through which she could elucidate her mistakes and choices, Ashlee took on the critical audience with her first single, "Boyfriend." The fun and flirty song made for a fitting segue between the dark-haired days of Ashlee to the mesmerizing and poised twenty-one year old she is today.

"Boyfriend," as many singles tend to be, is not a model for the rest of the album. I Am Me takes on pop music from a different angle -- perhaps a more 80s pop-rock one, and does a magnificent job. "In Another Life," is a simple and honest pop song with just the right hook: "Do you love me, oh do you love me/I'd say so/Do you need me, oh do you need me/God, I hope." The more publicized song, "L.O.V.E.," is more of a Gwen-Stefani-meets-Christina-Aguilera type of dance tune, but whatever type of song it may be, there's no way this song won't get stuck in your head.

In "Dancing Alone," which is just another of the 80s-driven pop songs on I Am Me, Simpson sends young girls the message that it's fine to save her love (in every sense of the word) for someone who's really worth it: "So here I am, looking pretty for you/They come and go/So many faces, it's no use/So I'm dancing alone ... 'Cause your love's worth waiting for."

Simpson ends the album on a slow and serious note with "Say Goodbye," as she did delicately on her first album with "Undiscovered." Although a ballad, its 80s influence is still evident. It has a fantastical and Madonna-esque quality to it -- the music video would no doubt feature a rolling fog created with dry ice. It's soft and sweet -- two qualities Ashlee has surprisingly grown to embody after taking so many hits in the past year. "So I scream, scream 'cause it hurts/Your every word/Cuts me inside and leaves me worse/There's no way back/And what if there was/You'd still be you and I'm still me," she sings, devastatingly. It's unclear whether she's singing about the SNL incident, Ryan Cabrera, or a newfound love, but maybe it's better this way.

Without the cameras following her around, we can only guess at who she may be singing to or about. "Boyfriend," which is rumored to have been written about Lindsay Lohan's ex-boyfriend Wilmer Valderrama, may be the only intimation we have into her life as Ashlee Simpson now. And that is a unmistakable sign of having stepped beyond the reality-show foundation she built herself upon.

Photos courtesy of Amazon, celebweb.org, and Egotastic.com