Right, I wrote this for a different purpose than this blog, but since it's a journalistic piece, I thought I may as well add it to the other pieces on here. So, here we are...Lily Allen's It's Not Me, It's You.
A new Lily Allen album you say? Is it catchy as hell? Check. Is it abrasive as hell? Just take a cursory glance at the title, thanks. Is it a modern classic? Well, let’s not get carried away.
With Lily, you kind of know exactly what to expect, even if she has only released one album thus far. There’s going to be some moments of real emotion and there’s going to be many more moments of pure brutality against bloke kind. You only have to wait until the third track before the first moment of wince-worthy lyrics from Miss Allen. ‘Not Fair’ is about a relationship that is perfect. So far, so boring. Unfortunately for Lily, and fortunately for us, he’s a bit shit in the bedroom. And with that, another Lily Allen classic is born. Its cutting lyrics are offset with a bizarre country and western jaunt. The beat is entirely necessary, as without it lyrics like “I lie here in the wet patch in the middle of the bed feeling pretty hard done by, I spent ages giving head”, would just be plain cruel.
The variation in instrumentation throughout this album is quite inspired, crossing between delicate piano (I Could Say), shameless Take That aping (Who’d Have Known), Klaxons-esque synth hooks (Back to the Start) and pretty god-awful accordion (Never Gonna Hap
pen). ‘Hit and miss’ is one way to describe the backing music, much like Lily’s dabble in TV presenting, but boring it most certainly is not. I was just so relieved not to hear the usual Mark Ronson brass that blights everything he’s ever touched before. To tell the truth, the music is merely a passenger. Lyrically the album is a progression on ‘Alright, Still’; still biting, still painfully honest, still comic, but still only alright. Brilliantly crafted lyrics about mass drug taking in a society that is in denial (Everyone’s At It), scathing attacks on ‘the biz’ from the inside (The Fear) and the uplifting liberation after coming out of a bad relationship (I Could Say) are let down with a nosedive that seems to come around about the same point that Ronson decided to speed up the vocals on Fuck You, creating one of the most absurd moments of shit he’s been responsible for since the Kaiser’s last album. Chinese is a pitiful attempt at social realism from Lily, who yearns for the ordinary life of “beans on toast a nice cup of tea”. For someone with a gift for immature straight talking, I don’t want to listen to the ordinary, unless it’s funny.
Unfortunately, this is where the back end of ‘…It’s You’ goes. Ridiculous as it seems, bearing in mind the two and a half year wait for the album, it seems a little bit rushed. A worrying point to note is that if Miss Allen ever does find the right man, her music will undeniably suffer. Her best moments are born from hatred and anger; without the right emotions, it all ends up with beans on toast. Maybe that’s what she’d prefer.
A new Lily Allen album you say? Is it catchy as hell? Check. Is it abrasive as hell? Just take a cursory glance at the title, thanks. Is it a modern classic? Well, let’s not get carried away.
With Lily, you kind of know exactly what to expect, even if she has only released one album thus far. There’s going to be some moments of real emotion and there’s going to be many more moments of pure brutality against bloke kind. You only have to wait until the third track before the first moment of wince-worthy lyrics from Miss Allen. ‘Not Fair’ is about a relationship that is perfect. So far, so boring. Unfortunately for Lily, and fortunately for us, he’s a bit shit in the bedroom. And with that, another Lily Allen classic is born. Its cutting lyrics are offset with a bizarre country and western jaunt. The beat is entirely necessary, as without it lyrics like “I lie here in the wet patch in the middle of the bed feeling pretty hard done by, I spent ages giving head”, would just be plain cruel.
The variation in instrumentation throughout this album is quite inspired, crossing between delicate piano (I Could Say), shameless Take That aping (Who’d Have Known), Klaxons-esque synth hooks (Back to the Start) and pretty god-awful accordion (Never Gonna Hap
pen). ‘Hit and miss’ is one way to describe the backing music, much like Lily’s dabble in TV presenting, but boring it most certainly is not. I was just so relieved not to hear the usual Mark Ronson brass that blights everything he’s ever touched before. To tell the truth, the music is merely a passenger. Lyrically the album is a progression on ‘Alright, Still’; still biting, still painfully honest, still comic, but still only alright. Brilliantly crafted lyrics about mass drug taking in a society that is in denial (Everyone’s At It), scathing attacks on ‘the biz’ from the inside (The Fear) and the uplifting liberation after coming out of a bad relationship (I Could Say) are let down with a nosedive that seems to come around about the same point that Ronson decided to speed up the vocals on Fuck You, creating one of the most absurd moments of shit he’s been responsible for since the Kaiser’s last album. Chinese is a pitiful attempt at social realism from Lily, who yearns for the ordinary life of “beans on toast a nice cup of tea”. For someone with a gift for immature straight talking, I don’t want to listen to the ordinary, unless it’s funny.Unfortunately, this is where the back end of ‘…It’s You’ goes. Ridiculous as it seems, bearing in mind the two and a half year wait for the album, it seems a little bit rushed. A worrying point to note is that if Miss Allen ever does find the right man, her music will undeniably suffer. Her best moments are born from hatred and anger; without the right emotions, it all ends up with beans on toast. Maybe that’s what she’d prefer.
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