Music Video and Television Performances
Performances of "La La" featured twice in the first season of The Ashlee Simpson Show, Simpson's reality show, which aired in the U.S. on MTV from mid-June to early August 2004: she performed the song during her first live show in episode six, and again at the end of episode seven.
The music video for "La La", directed by Joseph Kahn, was filmed over two days, November 11–12, 2004. It debuted on AOL's "First View" on November 22 and on MTV's Making the Video on November 23; the making of the video was also featured in episode three of the second season of The Ashlee Simpson Show, which aired in February 2005. Following the video's premiere, "La La" debuted at number ten on the TRL countdown on December 1, 2004; it subsequently reached number six, its peak, on its third day on the countdown. It remained on the countdown for nine days.
The video takes place in a suburban setting and was filmed in Huntington Beach, California. Simpson is seen singing the song, dancing on top of a car, in front of a donut shop, and laying on a couch playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 on Xbox, all during daylight. The video continues with a raucous late-night party around a swimming pool, which gets broken up by the police, and then Simpson and the crowd head to a laundromat, where the wild partying continues. Simpson's two best friends, Lauren and Stephanie, appear alongside her in the video. Simpson compared the video to the 1982 movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. On The Ashlee Simpson Show, during the filming of the video there is a scene in which Simpson licks a couch cushion (while rolling around on it for sexual imagery), but, as she explains, it was taken out of the video because it was "a little much".
Simpson promoted the song with a number of television performances in December 2004 and January 2005 (see list below), with several UK performances in January. One of her U.S. performances, at the Orange Bowl football game halftime show in early January (her first time performing in a stadium), was memorable for the harsh reception the song received from the audience, with "a discernible chorus of boos" after she finished singing, according to the Associated Press. Simpson was the last of three performances during the halftime show, and she later said that there were technical problems and that she couldn't hear herself properly, making the performance more difficult for her. The cause of the booing she received has been variously attributed to a backlash against her because of her SNL incident the previous October, to the poor quality of her singing, and to the fact that the crowd was generally not in the same age bracket as her usual fans. Simpson herself said "maybe they were booing at me, maybe they were booing at the halftime show 'cause the whole thing sucked," and also said that it may have been because of the team she was supporting; "I can't make everybody happy", she said. Simpson also had to change the lyrics to "La La" because of concern that they were too sexual for the show; for instance, a reference to "lemonade" replaced "French maid".
In April 2005, New Zealand's children TV Show "What Now?" held a weekly music video poll with the song "La La" being one of the three candidates. The song was competing against "1,2 Step" by Ciara and Missy Elliott and "Let Me Love You" by Mario. "La La" won the poll narrowly beating Mario who was second by a few votes. "1,2 Step" came third.
On November 1, 2005, when Simpson was a guest on MuchMusic's MuchOnDemand in Canada, "La La" received the most votes from viewers out of three of Simpson's videos and was played. Simpson correctly guessed that "La La" would win.
Read more about this topic: La La (song)
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