Ashlee Simpson nailed the state of her art 45 minutes into her Tuesday show at the San Jose State Event Center. Fittingly, the revelation came in the lyric of a cover song, as the pop princess belted out the lyrics to Hole's "Celebrity Skin."

"Oh, make me over/ I'm all I wanna be," she coaxed an arena of screaming teenage girls. "A walking study/ In demonology."

Pop's reigning black sheep has, in fact, made herself over and indeed been demonized for doing what every other pop and rap star of the past decade has done: using a backing track to enhance a live show. Ashlee's crime in being caught with her vocal pants down on "Saturday Night Live" wasn't that she lip-synched; it was that she got caught. So did we.

These days, everyone knows (even if they won't admit it) that many music icons fudge their "live" performances to some degree. If we like the artist, we ignore this transgression against old-school notions of "keeping it real." If we don't like the artist ... well.

Simpson's gaffe didn't so much point out her hypocrisy as it highlighted ours: When Eminem lip-synched, badly, on "SNL" the week after Ashlee, most pundits let it slide -- because Eminem's "real," you see, and Ashlee is not.

What is Ashlee? Jessica Simpson's kid sister was a star before she did much of anything, thanks to an MTV reality show chronicling the bald manufacture of her image and debut album. Ratings soared; viewers giggled and cheered as 19-year-old Ashlee signed that record deal, dyed her hair and attempted to co-write songs. Television is fun!

Then came Simpson's "SNL" lip-synching debacle, followed by a disastrous appearance at the Orange Bowl. And we cheerily chewed her up, spat her out and prepped for the next pop phenomenon. Well, here's some news, good or bad: Ashlee isn't going anywhere. And if Tuesday's sold-out show was any indication, neither are her fans (some of whom defiantly turned up in homemade "lip- synch" T-shirts -- now that's solidarity).

Backed by a five-piece band, wearing black pinstriped jeans and a black- and-neon-yellow T-shirt (she altered this ensemble slightly throughout the set), the not-so-disgraced Simpson sister opened with her album's title track, "Autobiography." Like many of her pop-angst anthems, the song offers a contrived history, in which Ashlee suffers mightily from parental neglect and the lonesomeness of being born a rebel. Unfortunately, a collage of childhood images on an overhead screen -- depicting a beaming, blond kid blossoming in the bosom of her family -- short-circuited her outsider status a bit. No matter. We know who Ashlee really is. We've seen her TV show. We're all in this together.

Ashlee's music isn't terrible. It isn't much of anything. Each song is relentlessly midtempo, relentlessly hooky and as forgettable as an advertising jingle. Using choreography best described as kick-and-giggle (Ashlee alternated these two gestures for the entirety of her hour-long set), she even managed to sound upbeat, on the power ballad "Shadow," while lamenting the "nightmare" of having a successful big sister.

A brief acoustic interlude featuring songs like "Love Makes the World Go Round" and "Giving It All Away" showed that Ashlee's gravelly bellow is better suited to an electric environment. A medley of cover songs -- the Pretenders' "Brass in Pocket," Blondie's "Call Me" and Madonna's "Burning Up" -- melded three disparate genres into an ebullient blur. After closing with the hit "La La," Ashlee returned in a flouncy white dress for an encore of "Pieces of Me," complete with clips from her reality show.

In truth, Ashlee is as real as it gets. She mirrors the state of pop music to perfection, and if that manufactured reality tastes sour to some, the youngest edge of the MTV demographic loves it. She's no lip-synching scapegoat to them. She's all they wanna be.