Autobiography promotion and publicity

Ashlee Simpson's 2004 album Autobiography and its singles have received a considerable degree of promotion in the United States—where it has enjoyed the most success—and also in some other countries. Much of the attention Simpson and her music received in 2004 focused on contrasting her with her sister, Jessica Simpson, and making her more rock-oriented image primary—article titles dubbed her "The Rock Sister" and "The Sister Who Rocks". Additionally, Simpson's personal involvement in the writing of her "autobiographical" songs contributed to a perception that she is somewhat more real than many other popular American singers, with more genuine sentiment reflected in her lyrics. Simpson's reality show, The Ashlee Simpson Show, displayed these aspects of her image clearly, although some have suggested that the degree of corporate backing for a debut artist—including the unusually high degree of promotion that comes with having the making of an album as the subject of a television show—indicates that her success was "manufactured" and that her father and manager, Joe Simpson, uses reality television to achieve success that might not be possible otherwise.

Even before The Ashlee Simpson Show first aired on June 16, however, the first single, "Pieces of Me", was began picking up significant radio play in May 2004, and it was noted in an article in the Los Angeles Times that it was the most rapidly added song on radio up to that point in the year. [1] Simpson also began making notable television performances of "Pieces of Me", such as at Summer Music Mania, a concert taped on May 20 and aired on June 1. Also in late May, she sang on The Tonight Show, and in the days leading up to her album's release, she sang on The Late Show with David Letterman and Good Morning America. On July 20, the day of Autobiography's U.S. release, she appeared on MTV's music video countdown show Total Request Live—a focal point of teenage popular culture. Subsequently, she appeared on On Air with Ryan Seacrest on July 27 and performed at the pre-show for the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards on August 29.

Promotion for Autobiography and "Pieces of Me" came later in Europe, primarily beginning in September 2004. At this time, Simpson made a number of television appearances there: she appeared on the German and U.K. versions of Total Request Live, and in the U.K. she also performed "Pieces of Me" on Top of the Pops (September 17), Top of the Pops Saturday (September 25), CD:UK, and Popworld.

In the U.S., "Pieces of Me" was followed by a second single, "Shadow", in September, and this was accompanied by another round of television appearances. On September 20, Simpson appeared again on Total Request Live; although she did not sing "Shadow" as scheduled because she was not feeling well, she gave an interview and introduced the "Shadow" music video—it had already debuted on the show and was at number two on the countdown that day. She was also on Live with Regis and Kelly on September 22, giving an interview and then performing "Shadow"; on the same day, she was on The Tonight Show again, also performing "Shadow". "Shadow" was also the album's second single in Australia.

Perhaps the most notable of Simpson's 2004 televised performances came when she appeared on Saturday Night Live (an American sketch comedy show, broadcast from New York City) as a musical guest on the night of October 23/24, and was scheduled to perform "Pieces of Me" and then "Autobiography" (which was at the time still planned as the third single). She was unable to perform the second of these songs due to an embarrassing error with a vocal backing track, which she claimed she needed because her voice was weak that night due to acid reflux (a condition which had also featured on the first season of The Ashlee Simpson Show). Despite her illness, Simpson received some poor publicity from this incident—some accused her of lip synching and criticized or poked fun at her, and videos of the incident were circulated on the Internet—but she subsequently gave a successful performance of "Autobiography" at the Radio Music Awards on October 25.

Promotion for "La La", the third single, began in the U.S. in November 2004. Simpson appeared on Total Request Live on November 18 to sing it, and during an interview with Carson Daly she said of "La La" in comparison to her previous two singles: "It's nice because ... "Pieces of Me" was ... an up and happy kind of song, and "Shadow" was more serious, and now I get to have fun and ... jump around and be crazy, so I feel like this song's probably the closest to my personality." The music video for "La La" debuted on television in an episode of MTV's Making the Video on November 23, although it had been shown on the Internet a day earlier.

During a concert that was broadcast live on the Internet by AOL Music Live on the evening of December 6, Simpson performed (in order) "Autobiography", "Nothing New", "Love Me for Me", "Shadow", "Surrender", "Undiscovered", "Pieces of Me", and (as an encore) "La La"—with a coy Christmas song, "Santa Baby", leading into it. According to a Geffen press release, this show "had the biggest 1 week audience ever for AOL with 1.6 million plays." [2] Simpson also performed "La La" (with "Santa Baby" as a lead-in), as well as "Pieces of Me", on Jingle Ball Rock, a television special featuring performances by a number of popular artists; it was taped on December 3 and aired on December 17. Additionally, an episode of The Tonight Show in which Simpson performed "La La" aired a few hours later. Simpson performed "Autobiography", "Pieces of Me" and "La La" on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve 2005, in addition to hosting the West Coast portion of the show. At the Orange Bowl halftime show on January 4, 2005, she gave a fairly elaborate performance of "La La", including dancers and fireworks, but after she finishing singing, pronounced booing was heard from some in the audience—perhaps a lingering effect of Simpson's failed SNL performance and the criticism it provoked.

In the United Kingdom, it was decided that "La La" would be the second single instead of "Shadow", and therefore "La La" began its run in the U.K. at about the same time as it did in the U.S. Simpson performed "La La" on Top of the Pops (January 7), CD:UK (January 8), and Today with Des and Mel (January 12), with the Des and Mel performance being preceded by an interview; performances on Top of the Pops Saturday (January 15) and Popworld (January 16) followed. A CD single for "La La" was released in the U.K. on January 24, 2005. Simpson is further promoting the album with her first U.S. headlining tour; it began on February 16 and is scheduled to conclude on April 20. [3] (See List of 2005 concerts.)