Ashlee Simpson — I Am Me

There's one thing that starlet-singer-songwriters love to write about: themselves. That's why Ashlee Simpson follows up her debut, Autobiography, with I Am Me, another collection of pop-rock songwriting that's supposed to offer a personal portrait of the artist as a young woman. That way, listeners can connect with our now-blond heroine as she matures and goes through heartbreak until she becomes a hazard to herself: "Who will be the one to save me from myself?"' she asks on "Catch Me When I Fall." These unremarkable verse-bridge-chorus tunes are all so simultaneously familiar and forgettable — power ballads like "Beautifully Broken" reveal pieces of Ashlee we've already heard before, while "L.O.V.E" and "Burnin Up" shamelessly mimic Gwen Stefani's reggae-inflected '80s pop. Must growing pains be so painful to listen to?

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