Her signature contemporary pop twinned with stark and witty lyrics has cultivated an entire sub-genre since the mid-00s. The current ‘Y2K’ revival on social media, spearheaded by people barely born during that time, is dominated by spoken word pop once dominated by Allen. There are countless pop girls wanting to replicate what she can do so effortlessly. As eloquently and simply put by singer and admirer PinkPantheress, “Lily Allen made sounding like yourself feel cool.”
The allure of Allen is that she has always been candidly truthful, and fittingly, there is absolutely no holding back on Allen’s first album in seven years. West End Girl seems to detail the breakdown of her marriage to Stranger Things actor David Harbour, gory details and all.
Opening with the title track, “West End Girl” is where the story begins. A 14 song tale, it walks through every grievance, revelation and epiphany possible, piecing together the unfurling heartbreak, it's a rarity in the streaming age – an album intending (nay, screaming) to be listened to in tracklist order.
Swirling into “Ruminating”, it tells of the spiralling around the unanswered questions brought on by Instagram doom-scrolling, overthinking, and doubts. “Sleepwalking” shows the beginning of the unravelling with the softly spoken lyric, “You won’t love me / You won’t leave me” laying out the internal confusion. “Tennis” is the moment Allen reads the texts from a mysterious “Madeline”, before rolling into the track introducing her and Allen’s imagined interaction over the infidelity.
There is a drip of defiance in the form of “Pussy Palace” with the bold lyric, “I didn’t know this was a Pussy Palace” referring to Allen’s marital home. On “Dallas Major”, Allen’s dating bio comes to life. “I’m here for validation and I probably should explain / That my marriage has been open since my husband went astray.” That, as well as the track “Nonmonogamummy”, excellently showcase the all-too-universal feeling of despair and disappointment with modern dating apps.
Written over an intense 10 days in Los Angeles, West End Girl is a quite literal outpouring of emotion, in every intricate detail – an outlet for the grieving of the relationship. The album details not just a break-up, but a shift in how relationships and human connection work in modern times. West End Girl is not only an example of pop brilliance, but also incredibly vulnerable, raw and honest, true to Allen’s form. Simply, the pop pioneer has created the break-up album for the modern generation.
