"I might not write a very good second album. The thing to do is not take yourself so seriously. The moment when you sort of start to believe all that stuff is when you get in trouble." That's Lily Allen talking to this website in November 2006. At that point, her MySpace clarion of a debut, Alright, Still, was four months into what would become a 17-month stint on the UK's album chart. With her bluntly nonchalant, blog-like songwriting about dudes with small dicks, breezy beats worthy of a terrible Ska-lright, Still joke, and link-happy marketing campaign from the web up, Allen offered the music industry a way forward if not fiscally, at least artistically. She was the New Pop Star-- slight voice, bawdy, prom dress 'n' trainers, self-sufficient. The Anti-Idol. "Refreshing" followed her; "candid" was her friend. And, more than anything, Lily Allen was funny, excelling in the droll British humor of someone who had sold drugs in Ibiza at age 15 and realized the absurdity of a 15-year-old selling drugs in Ibiza.
So it seems odd for this chart guerrilla to fall into so many trad-pop trappings on sophomore album It's Not Me, It's You. There's the sound: Alright, Still's hissy, homey samples are booted for decidedly more streamlined and schizophrenic backdrops. The voice: Allen's conversational and unpredictable flow is replaced with broad, upfront lines. The words: Since she's the story day after day now, the singer's journalistic wisecracks have turned inward-- and this time Lily's taking on biggies like religion, family strife, and drug abuse. The publicity: photo shoots for every wheezing print mag left, including brooding black and whites for Interview and Blender. She's taking herself a bit more seriously, in other words. It's troublesome.
But there is such a thing as good trouble. The push-pull between Lily's sober side and the side that slurred about how she'd "still fuck" 82-year-old Tony Bennett at an awards show last year can make for some appealing and slippery social commentary. Take first single "The Fear", part admission, part brag, part apocalyptic vision. "I want to be rich and I want lots of money/ I don't care about clever, I don't care about funny," she starts, "I want loads of clothes and fuckloads of diamonds/ I heard people die while they're trying to find them." For almost any other artist, the lines would be barbed, sarcastic, and, ultimately, uppity and bland indictments. But not for the loudmouth who recently told Spin about how she hopes to marry a multi-millionaire and admitted to The New York Times that she spent $143,000 on clothes and jewelry in 2008 alone. She's part of the problem and is plagued by an overwhelming sense of collapse; she has her cake, throws it around the restored dining room and then feels a tinge of panic while observing the mess. This is perceptive pop for a consumer culture OD'ing on consumer culture and Houdini investments. "I don't know what's right and what's real anymore," she confesses, sounding like the world's loneliest Real World alum.
When she turns her nose up at easy targets-- W., faith, hypocritical druggies-- this typically beyond-her-years 23-year-old can seem naïve. Futuristic Justice-meets-Care Bears synths flit by as Allen condemns cracked-out teens and their prescription parents on "Everyone's At It", but such revelations come off about as insightful as one of those "but Dad, I learned it from you" PSA's. Righty-baiting "Fuck You" utilizes "Sesame Street" piano plinks to serve its too-goofy hook-- and makes it clear just how easily Allen's winsome brattiness can turn into grating novelty. In her Spin cover story, she talked about her penchant for older men, complaining how 25-year-olds "think they know everything and they're just fucking idiots." Given songs like "Fuck You"-- and considering her usually savvy self-awareness-- the quote is particularly unfortunate.
Aside from a couple Alright, Still-type kiss-offs-- the quotable country lark "Not Fair" about an underwhelming bedmate and oom-pah circus lark "Never Gonna Happen"-- Sincere Lily takes grip on the rest of the LP. Family-minded tracks "Back to the Start" and "He Wasn't There" attempt (and fail) to hide rote therapy maxims behind maddening electro and faux-jazz, respectively. Britney/Kylie/Nelly producer Greg Kurstin works like a radio-ready Jon Brion, tossing out disparate styles with ease, but the stunt arrangements sometimes sound entirely divorced from Lily's accompanying sentiments. But form meets function well on two mid-tempo love songs, "I Could Say" and especially "Who'd Have Known". An airy, angst-less rewrite of Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone", "I Could Say" is snarkless and lovely-- Kid Icarus theme music via bulletproof Europop. "Who'd Have Known" is prime Lily 2.0, growing up without the heavy-handed, 2D "maturity"; it's a knowing ode to early love and all the uncertainty, excitement and irrationality that goes along with it.
"I don't have anything that I'm really passionate about. Maybe I just haven't found what it is yet. But it's not music, which is a shame, because it would be good if it was." That's Lily Allen talking to the New York Times last week. After the quick-hit success of her offhand debut, such a blasé attitude toward international success would be understandable, if a bit nuts. But, given the more considered It's Not Me, It's You, the quote comes off more like hedging; there will always be someone for vultures to photograph, but she's wise enough to know it might not always be her. Even if the new album can be cheaply on-the-nose and opportunistic at times, it's hard to root against Lily Allen. Her plight-- bare, self-conscious, petty, fearful-- is familiar. You see me; I see you.
