I suppose I managed to beat the hype to Lily Allen. One night a couple years back, I was digging through vinyl at some hole in the wall record store on Pico Boulevard, and some savvy trendsetting employee was playing some black market bootleg with her on it, before her debut album was anywhere to be found. I had him write her name down on a post-it for me, and as I hunted down tracks one by one over the following week or so, I became more and more sure that I had a real find on my hands. If only Antiquiet was around then.
I caught her live show on one of her first trips through the states, and everything checked out there as well. Alright, Still got a lot of play that summer around my house. A similar album by a guy named Jamie T called Panic Prevention picked up where that one left off early last year, but ever since I’ve been waiting for Lily Allen’s sophomore effort, hoping it would show the growth you’d expect from someone who’s got some real talent. That follow-up, entitled It’s Not Me, It’s You, hit shelves today. And it delivers.
The disc’s first two tracks had previously slipped out via MySpace (along with an amazing cover of Britney Spears’ Womanizer). I have to admit that the latter of the two, lead single The Fear, is an even more effective ditty on the uncensored album, with some very well-delivered four letter words. The former, Everyone’s At It, would have been (and may be someday) just as hot on the radio, begging to be remixed into a hundred different extended club bangers with a chorus that wears out hard.
There are a few songs- namely 22 and Who’d Have Known- that show a more advanced level of pop song construction. It reassures us that Lily hasn’t been sitting on her laurels or Googling herself (excessively, anyway) in the downtime since her debut. She’s been on the job, honing her craft.
It’s Not You, It’s Me closes with one of the most characteristically Lily tracks to come to be. He Wasn’t There is playful, combative, bitter and sweet all at once. And it’s that perfect balance of fun and fight- that somehow aggressive innocence- that makes it hard to not dig Lily Allen.
It’s Not Me, It’s You
February 10, 2009
Capitol
1. Everyone’s At It
2. The Fear
3. Not Fair
4. 22
5. I Could Say
6. Back To The Start
7. Never Gonna Happen
8. Fuck You
9. Who’d Have Known
10. Chinese
11. Him
12. He Wasn’t There
