Sadly, promises aren't always kept. What Lily Allen gave us two years back wasn't particularly noteworthy, but it was still promising. We could forgive her the faults because she was young and inexperienced. Even now at twenty-three, we can't really expect a wealth of insight and intrigue from her. But the hype's gotta go somewhere, and considering how dismissive she is of her own value (and an interest in even continuing the charade of songstress), maybe she needs to take some time off to reflect. Alright, Still didn't deliver the goods, but we still saw the spark, and it had its share of fine moments to make the uneven creation palatable. But the fact that, of late, her press quotes garner more attention than her music should have warned us that maybe her droll candidness was one of the few things she actually had to offer.
It's not fair to blame her for being overly naïve, but there's a place for innocence in music that she's not filling. It's Not Me, It's You isn't a big statement record by any means, but she does tackle enough unrelated topics to suggest that she's aspiring for more gravity than is usually afforded a young pop darling. I don't know if she seeks the offstage spotlight, but she's two (hundred) bad choices from becoming another Amy Winehouse. But being a tabloid fixture doesn't negate talent, and she has a nice enough voice and worked among a modestly successful staff of soundmakers, but maturation was greatly needed to fill in the void between the glib and the bland. In other words, for every zinger she summoned in the studio, a groaner was right around the corner.
If Allen indulges in too many acknowledgements to the fast life, you can't scorn her for her love of a good time. But transforming these experiences into seriocomic meditations don't exist; at times, she's just as vapid as the trash we Americans are inexplicably obsessed with. During first single, “The Fear,” she sardonically describes life as getting out of control, as if she's fed up with materialism and one-too-many-flashbulbs in her grill, but they're artless ruminations. No matter how tongue-in-cheek she's trying to be with, “But it doesn't matter 'cause I'm packing plastic/And that's what makes my life so fucking fantastic,” there's no wry response to this self-conscious pose-and-strut mimicry. If she's speaking as the narrator (which may be true considering some of her off-hand comments fervently recorded by the gossip rags), she only seems more hopeless to be taking note of it and offering nothing than a flashy pop song to give self-effacing credence to such rumors. Otherwise, she just sounds like any number of spoiled celebutantes “wanting” help so long as they can sleep in on the check-in morning after partying at some club until 5 am.
Her curiosity about the ugliness of such scenes (and the drug culture in general) is blunted by 9th grade prose. At one point during “Everyone's At It,” she actually asks, “Now how can we start to tackle the problem if you don't put your hands up and admit you're on it?” Could it be forgiven in favor of an infectious melody? Not when the track's liquid synths rest against the monolithic ones the Killers fell in love with. Competing against each other might have bolstered each other, but without a seamless transition, they're a pair of limp hooks instead of one memorable one. The shiny grooves don't improve elsewhere. “Never Gonna Happen”'s verses are detached Europop chill but the song erupts at the refrain into a circus siren with ABBA as ringleader. Even the mostly respectable freedom-of-a-breakup track, “I Could Say,” begins like a ballad-in-the-wings before bursting with club-friendly glitter; at least it finds Allen being sincere.
“Not Fair” rides on a galloping country-western pastiche (halfway between John Ford and Rawhide) sparkled with slick big city wealth. A saloon piano later appears on “22,” but serving as the bridge between the pouncing pop segments makes it stand out for all the wrong reasons. But these Wild West inspirations are wasted on what Allen's up to; the former finds her moping about her wonderful young guy who lacks stamina in bed and the latter mourns the poor aging woman sick of one night stands, desperate for a steady. Complications that ring of modern day superficiality reacts poorly to the dusty twang no matter how much its leavened by a squishy production scrub.
I'll always support a song that bends Bush over a proverbial knee, but the lyricism of “Fuck You” is unimaginative. “So you say it's not okay to be gay/Well I think you're just evil/You're just some racist who can't tie my laces/Your point of view is medieval.” Cheers to the sentiment, but that's all the insight offered? Still, it's worth it just to hear the hilarious chorus that features a sweetly peppy delivery of, “Fuck you! Fuck you very very much.” The second run through of that refrain expands, allowing for repeats of the kiss-off in an even squeakier voice, somewhere between Alvin and a Powerpuff Girl. Kiddie keys plink out the melody in a way that forces it into the novelty bin; after all, it's certainly not a children's song. That such a bizarre misstep winds up as one of the album's most memorable moments simply because of its too-ridiculous-to-believe audaciousness is depressing.
“Who'd Have Known” is better, with Zero 7-style airiness curdling into bubbly pop when she picks up her voice from the floor. Her typical snarkiness even evaporates to make room for youthful optimism. She needn't always wear the costume of the lovelorn maiden but it's a more appropriate mood to evoke than creased sarcasm—the music needs more bite to sell a tart smirk. And “Back to the Start” is deliriously goofy fun so long as you don't bother listening close; think Garbage's happier pop on speed. It helps that the choruses fly by so breathlessly that you can't understand all of what she's singing. Unfortunately the slowed-down bridge is painful: “This is not just a song/I intend to put these words into action/I hope that it sums up the way that I feel to your satisfaction.”
The lowpoint belongs to “Him,” which again takes a meaty topic worthy of discussion (God witnessing what has become of mankind) but is executed with zero insight and even less subtlety. Among the hideously limp lines are, “Do you think his favorite type of human is Caucasian?/Do you reckon he's ever been done for tax evasion?” and, “I don't imagine he's ever been suicidal/His favorite band is Creedence Clearwater Revival.” Ouch.
If Allen is indeed “defining the times” (as more than one has suggested), I suppose it's fitting. In a culture obsessed with celebrity gossip mags, reality TV and “bummed-out rich kids” cable dramas, Allen's rote lyricism and producer Greg Kurstin's overprocessed electropop fit the mold. But you know she's not one of them, at least not in spirit. Just as she's a few bad choices from the Britney cellar, she's also a few good ones from ingénue integrity. Talking about recording this album, she said: “Greg builds the chords up and I just sing along and make up the words.” Yeah, I think I see the problem with this process. No matter the admissions of naïvety, I'm convinced she can, too.
"It's Not Me, It's You" is on sale February 10, 2009 from Capitol.
