No, Robert Smith did not work on Ashlee Simpson’s still-untitled November album, but Timbaland, the Neptunes, Kenna and Travis McCoy from Gym Class Heroes did. “That was never true,” Simpson says of the rumored Cure collaboration. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, that is so not true and so embarrassing. I am a huge fan, but would never expect to write with Robert Smith from the Cure. I mean, that would be a dream, but nothing that I would ever say. I was dying when I read that. I was like, ‘No! Hes gonna think Im crazy.” Other folks who didn’t wind up on the “fun, dance-y record” with a “club and Eighties feel”: Jenny Lewis (plans for a singer-songwriter-feeling record were scrapped early on) and Simpson beau Pete Wentz (”We both keep our music separate from each other,” she says).
Simpson says the beat-heavy tracks cover happy and darker moments of her emotional landscape, and that lines like “you aint got no beef” shouldn’t be taken too literally. “I think everything is personal in your own way. And for me, its fun to listen to a record and not fully know exactly who theyre talking about or what theyre talking about or what point it was in their life. You gotta keep people guessing. I listened to a Fiona Apple record and I had no idea what she was talking about.”


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