*Flash forward: Oh to be young and 23 again. My first blog. The "finally started to think" angle is lame but there are some pretty classic jabs in here.
I am 23 years old, and in the last year or so I have finally started to think.
I owe it all to Ashley Simpson. Some of you who know me (and those of you who don't know me) might be a little confused by this statement. It is very true that I do not own an Ashley Simpson recording, and it is also very true that I have at times been "holier than thou" while speaking to ex-girlfriends and prepubescent teens on the subject of the less-than-average pop singer. But I have a confession, a confession that I need to let loose (and no it has nothing to do with my horrible use of punctuation): I like Ashley Simpson. I don't like all of her songs, in fact, I like less than 50 percent of her songs (sorry for the math Nick and Chuck), but the ones I like I enjoy for important reasons.
The song "Pieces of Me" is not just a sonic flashback like John Mayer suggested in a past issue of Esquire. It is certainly not the lyrical content; although, if we are being honest with ourselves the song is lyrically much stronger than anything Dave Matthews has put out in the past 3 years. The reason Ashley Simpson and other pop stars like her (Avril Levine, Michelle Branch, Kelly Clarkson, and Vanessa Carlton) are so important is because they give me the false hope that I too can become a celebrity that people listen to.
I am certainly not knocking the musical talent of these various artists (that would border on elitist and possibly sound like jealousy), because with the exception of Ashley, these ladies are better songwriters and singers than I am. For those who notice I am referencing only girls don't forget that the backing bands for all these singers are dominated by men. All of these celebrity singers (don't even get me started on the Paris Hilton clan of talentless celebrities) give me hope for a world that in the end I don't need to be a part of in order to contribute to the greater good. Ashley Simpson represents everything that we hope for when we are young, but if we really start to think as I finally have, she really represents the world we don't need and shouldn't want. There is so much more beyond the world of pop music that it actually makes pop music that much deeper.
Besides, why would I want to get heckled for sucking it up on the National Anthem when I genuinely suffer from an acid reflux issue?I am 23 years old, and in the last year or so I have finally started to think.
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