Ashlee Simpson's second album sold a million copies in America and still got called a failure. That is the strange double life of I Am Me, which arrived on October 18, 2005, twenty-one years ago, and went straight to No. 1 on the US chart. The record was a commercial hit by any normal measure, but the reviews read like an obituary.
The stakes after Saturday Night Live
Simpson was the American pop singer whose first album, Autobiography, had made her a star. A year before I Am Me, she had been booed off Saturday Night Live after a backing track failed, and the humiliation followed her everywhere. So the stakes for the second record were brutal: she had to prove she was a real musician, not a punchline.
She did not hide from the disaster. Two songs on I Am Me are about that Saturday Night Live performance. 'Beautifully Broken' turns the embarrassment into something almost defiant, searching for beauty in a very public failure. 'Catch Me When I Fall' is a piano ballad about weakness, sadness and being alone. Simpson called the album 'dark meets light', and that is exactly the split running through it.
Recording fast with John Shanks
The album was recorded fast, between May and August 2005, with producer John Shanks. Simpson said she started earlier than planned because she was bored after touring. She also said she felt less pressure than she had making Autobiography. That looseness shows in the sound: rock and pop mixed together, more aggressive than before, with a nod to 1980s music. Simpson also said she wanted to bring a feeling of the 17th century into the music, one of her favorite eras. That ambition sits oddly with the album's aggressive rock-pop sound, but it hints at the range she was reaching for.
The first single was supposed to be 'L.O.V.E.' and the album was going to be called In Another Life. Both changed. 'Boyfriend' came first, a response to rumours that Simpson had stolen someone's boyfriend, and it climbed to No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100. 'L.O.V.E.' followed in December and reached No. 22. Two top-25 singles from a record the critics buried.
The meaning behind the title
The title I Am Me was Simpson's own explanation: she had been through ups and downs but stayed true to herself. It sounds simple, but after the Saturday Night Live disaster it was a statement. The album's hidden CD booklet message about accepting imperfection pushes the same idea. She was not asking for forgiveness; she was insisting she had never needed it.
By December 15, 2005, the record had shipped a million copies and earned a platinum certification. But sales slowed, and by April 2008 the total stood at 987,000 copies actually sold. Critics were not kind: the average score on Metacritic was 43 out of 100. Rolling Stone called it a collection of soulless melodies, and Blender labelled it a sophomore slump. Not every critic dismissed the record. BBC called it "confident but searching," praising a more mature and dense sound than some of her peers. AllMusic was less impressed, giving it two stars and saying the songs were forgettable and the production cold and distant.
The gap between the chart position and the reviews is the whole story. Ashlee Simpson made a No. 1 album about surviving a public humiliation, then watched the same industry that had mocked her refuse to listen. I Am Me did not change the conversation. It just proved she could outsell almost everyone while the conversation went on without her.
Ashlee Simpson made a No. 1 album about surviving a public humiliation, then watched the same industry that had mocked her refuse to listen.