Categories : Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 3 / 5 Reviewer: Andrew Mitchell |
Potty-mouthed, larger than life, campy pop divas are recapturing the spotlight and none fills the shoes better than saucy Brit, Lily Allen. On her sophomore release, It’s Not Me, It’s You, Allen, in a profanity laced cockney chirp, tackles issues ranging from political disillusionment and parental abandonment to sexually inadequate boyfriends. Sounds heavy? Hardly. Ironically, it’s one of the most comical, light hearted releases so far this year.
Allen tosses musical styles around with the flip of a coin and if there’s a synthesized novelty effect at her disposal, she uses it. The more serious or controversial the message, the more outrageous the treatment. To a corny country and western strain on ‘Not Fair,’ Allen grumbles about her boyfriend’s inability to make her scream in bed. On ‘Fuck You,’ she uses Minnie Mouse trills and gleeful pop percussion to rip apart the right wing, pro-war, anti-gay political establishment. And on ‘Never Gonna Happen,’ she throws in an accordion and a polka beat to explain why she wants to dump her boyfriend but retain him for casual sex. It’s the kind of jaw dropping “look at me” boldness that conjures up the youthful exuberance of Madonna and her ilk – tough, ballsy chicks who strive to elicit extreme reactions by adopting characteristics usually attributed to men.
But Allen is smart enough to dial it back. Such a callous, cold-hearted approach, despite being tongue in cheek, would inevitably be off putting and she chooses to balance it off with a number of tracks that illustrate a softer, serious side. ‘Who’d Have Known’ explores in a winsome manner the giddy joy of a budding relationship where there’s “just the right amount of awkward.” And in the European-disco offering, ‘Everyone’s At It,’ she takes a biting stab at the chemical dependency epidemic and tackles it with an approach that shows understanding and genuine concern.
It’s Not Me, It’s You doesn’t exactly wear well with repeated listenings, but it’s offbeat and knows its purpose. Allen captures in a wide-eyed fashion the essence of a working class girl who is as easily awed as she is pissed off. And it’s done in the kind of crass irreverence that can only be pulled off when you’re a forgivable 23 years old. But like that party last weekend, the one that was just too much fun, it’s easily forgotten.
