385) Lily Allen - West End Girl

When Lily Allen first arrived in 2006 I was thirty five and although I didn’t mind her number one single Smile I certainly didn’t listen to the album as I was too old, I thought.

One of the greats to me in music is Mick Jones and when I heard he was teaming up with her for a cover of one of his songs Straight to Hell (does that make it a cover?), I had to hear. Lily takes the lead but Mick is there on vocals and it doesn’t have the brooding intensity of the original but is excellent, I also read that Joe Strummer was her godfather so Lily was up there in my estimations.

Her second album, I listened, and The Fear and Fuck You are just, simply, great pop songs.  She ventured off into acting, podcasts and on reading up on this an OnlyFans of her feet, Lily may have lovely feet, I don’t know, but all feet are hideous and should be covered, but hey, each to their own. I would see something about her occasionally but assumed music was part of her past.

Then suddenly West End Girl was announced, seemingly recorded in ten days and we have the disintegration of her marriage to actor David Harbour, although she has admitted it’s not a literal diary but if I was married to Lily I would not want this album out there as she is not holding back.

She rattles through fourteen tracks here in forty five minutes and we can see things going wrong on the opening title track as she has bought the house in New York before she gets a lead in a play in London and he is not exactly supportive, it’s a swinging track and is a good start but the one sided two minute phone conversation at the end is too long. Ruminating the auto tune is not for me but as she gets more desperate with the “what a fucking line,” again and again before going into the chorus the song grows on me.

Sleepwalking read the lyrics as you listen, brutal, and her voice is just right, vulnerable and direct, the best so far.

Tennis and Madeline we can take together the piano throughout Tennis is great and her vocal is sweet before she delivers in spoken word “Who’s Madeline?” before a Spanish acoustic guitar takes us into Madeline, where she’s not afraid to not hold back and explain how he broke the rules and Relapse the auto tune is again a bit too much but her honesty is there for all to see.

Pussy Palace (explicit, to the point and full of hooks), 4Chan Stan and Nonmonogamummy she is now fully aware of what she is dealing with, 4 Chan my personal favourite of the three.

Dallas Maybe she tries a dating app, not to her liking and Beg For Me is the best chorus on the record, her vocal has passion compared to the downtrodden chorus and Fruityloop she seems to realise it was always ending this way

Many don’t like her, I do, if this has helped her then good.  People say in the streaming days that the album is dead as we are only interested in single tracks. Lily Allen has proved that the format still has much to give. 

8/10

GIVE IT A STREAM: Beg For Me