August 18, 2006
Earlier in this space, I wrote about Jessica Simpson’s new single, “A Public Affair,” and what exactly it means that the music-listening public’s reaction to it has been so incredibly lukewarm. In retrospect, it was a surprisingly complex topic, and believe it or not, I continued thinking about it for days. Was my original hypothesis (that Americans don’t like when celebrities dabble in too many different fields) off the mark? Was there something else at play that I failed to recognize? Some sort of pop culture trend that’s managed to elude me? God forbid.
I wasn’t able to get it off my mind until a few days later when I remembered that I promised you, dear reader, a review of a very special version of the song in question, a version that was to be personalized for yours truly and purchased from Simpson’s website. I had no idea what to expect, obviously, because a money-making scheme such as this one is far from de rigueur, and the press release announcing the promotion was vague, offering only small bits of information, all of which could be summed up with one brief, hilarious sentiment: For $1.99, you could have Jessica Simpson customize her brand new single in such a way that you’re supposed to believe she’s speaking directly to you.
Comments
Mallory wrote:
Mike--
Very entertaining. I stumbled across your blog while searching for another well-written fashion-news-fix on the Bravo site and let me just say... Thanks. You made the cut, and are now hailed in my obsessive weekly routine, right along with Rucker, Danny V., Tim, Nick, and the rest of the PR A-Team.
I think the moment Jessica Simpson became less of a blonde-bombshell and more of a sorry-what-did-she-just-say? case was somewhere between "Is this chicken... or tuna?" and me turning a corner too quickly at Madame Tussaud's in Times Square to find her waxed likeness sex-ifying a Swiffer Sweeper. I will never be able to look at dirty floors again without that horrifying, lifelike image and the memory of the searing pain of the IQ points lost when I first heard that utterance..."Nick! Is this chicken or tuna? It says CHICKEN of the sea!"
At any rate, I think you're right. Our ADD culture can't handle multi-tasking celebrities. Especially not Ms. Simpson's demographic, teens with the attention spans of caffeinated fruit flies whose idea of multitasking is text messaging while maneuvering around a 10,000 song library in their little Nanos. It's naturally going to be confusing if every time they glance at a TV screen she's selling something different (be it herself, her album, your name, or zit cream). Maybe more than an establishment-within-an-industry issue, she's just not selling what her target audience is buying anymore.
... I'm sure I would have more witty, intelligent things to say, but a song I don't like just came across my iPod and my phone is going off-- damn text messages. Thanks to your daring adventure in personalized songs, however, you can be sure the song coming up next will not be Jessica crooning to me about the evening's affairs, public or private.
Thanks for taking one for the general-public team. And, again, thanks for the fix.
posted on August 30, 2006 at 10:23 PM