Ashleeeeeeeeeee

Ashleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Simpson, if you haven't heard, was caught using backing tracks using her performance on "Saturday Night Live". Her spin: Irony. To paraphrase, the one time her voice goes out and he has to use backing tracks, she gets caught. How ironic. And she's, like, so against backing vocals. These other artists you love use backing vocals all the time. Give Ashleeeee a break. A person with that little talent has to work haaaaaard to make it in that business. And she's what, 15 years old?

The great thing about all this (and Elton John's calling out Madonna for lip-synching on an awards show recently) is that these artists that use canned stuff are being exposed to the harsh light of disapproval. Now, the question is: Do the 12-year-old white girls, the "Teeny Boppers", boppin' around from dumb thought to dumb thought, Ashleeeeeeee's core audience, care that she's a fraud? If they did, they wouldn't be listening to her, or any of her ilk, in the first place. But ripping "Teeny Boppers" is too easy and too pointless. The thing I'm really uncomfortable with is 12-year-old girls watching MTV and seeing Ashleeeeeee one minute and The Real World the next. It's one thing to emulate a dumb but mostly benign pop star; It's quite another to emulate a morally bankrupt 22-year-old with a drinking problem and deep emotional issues. For this reason, MTV is a problem with no solution. Except Jesus, of course. I always forget about Him.