Jessica Simpson – Do You Know

Columbia Nashville 2008

Rating: 2/10

In a pop world dominated by prefabricated singers, plastic songs, or artificial appearances, Jessica Simpson has somehow always fallen by the wayside. It’s hard for me to think of a more vanilla artist than Simpson, and it’s a testament to her sheer blandness that the rest of America seems to have agreed with me, relegating her to the general pop background. When an artist is better known for their ignorance of tuna, you can be sure they are fairly irrelevant.

And so this entirely undistinguishable career of Christian pop and faux-gospel now brings us to Simpson’s country experiment, Do You Know. Surprisingly there is no question mark to this album, as in Do You Know?, no question as to whether Simpson’s Carrie Underwood-impression succeeds or fails. One listen is really all it takes; opener booty-call anthem “Come On Over” is about as generic as you can get in a genre that is nearly as fake as Simpson’s previous arena, cheerfully bouncing along on a twangy guitar line and proclaiming “I need you now, I need you bad / I need you baby lookin’ just like that.” So it was these seductive longings that kept Tony Romo away from his teammates last season.

“Remember That” is your typical country-girl empowerment anthem in the vein of Underwood’s “Before He Cheats,” but lacking the fire of that admittedly guilty pleasure. The Simpson family has never produced any extraordinary singers of songwriters (just ask Ashlee), and Jessica’s voice is mostly operating within one mode throughout Do You Know, from yearning note-stretching balladry on “You’re My Sunday” to uh, more note-stretching country angst or declarations of love on “Still Don’t Love Me,” or “Still Beautiful,” or pretty much any choice. The album’s obvious highlight is the closing title track featuring Dolly Parton. When the two duet, it’s almost painful to note the differences between the wannabe and the queen. Did I know that this record wouldn’t be anything special? Sadly, yes.