Thank God, Lily Allen’s here to give her opinion on stuff! What a relief! The whole damn world is falling apart and I was just saying, “What we need right now is the child of a celebrity to give her opinion on stuff and tell us how to fix things.”
The opening track ‘Everyone’s At It’ (essentially the same melody as single ‘The Fear’ except with a bit of a reggae rhythm going on) is about how we’re all hypocrites and are actually on drugs and the politicians should just admit that they’re all on cocaine and then that would be the start of sorting out the whole drugs thing. It includes the lyrics: “Your daughter’s depressed let’s get her on Prozac/But what you don’t know is SHE’S ALREADY ON CRACK!” Good lord, that’s terrible. I don’t have a child but this hypothetical crack daughter sounds like a bit of handful. Anyway, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Such politicising is also all over the single ‘The Fear’ which is about how having stuff and being thin isn’t everything. Then later she gets all philosophical about whether God would be pleased about all the war, financial disasters, and racism (if it’s the Biblical God, I imagine that yes, yes he’d be very pleased indeed, he was always fecking about with moneylenders and fomenting racial wars).
But it’s not just the politics. Lily’s love songs are just as blunt and un-nuanced, with “candid” details about sleeping on wet patches (on ‘Not Fair’ a banjo led rant about a mean old boyfriend) and abstinence (on ‘Never Going To Happen’, a reggae based pop song about the object of her affections) that seem a bit overly self-conscious.
And yet, despite coping with what is essentially a lyrical-disability, this record is absolutely awesome. The arrangements have got the French electro pop sheen of Air with loads of glissandoing harpsichord songs, swelling keyboard pads and brass sections. Furthermore the melodies are lovely and Lily’s voice still sounds as easy and unforced as it ever did (even if the accent is as fake as diamante).
So who needs a sophisticated take on current events or a poetic attitude to love, when your music’s so damn good? Indeed, sometimes her blunt, head-butting lyrics make complete sense, like on ‘Fuck You’, in which she sings to all the bigots, racists and misogynists “Fuck you, fuck you, very, very much!” You tell em Lily! Now, about that governmental advisory position...

Key Track: ‘Fuck You’