The feisty and fearless Lily Allen dishes on drugs, bad sex and ex-boyfriends on her latest electro-pop offering.
Lily Allen is sassy, assertive, whip smart and unpredictable. She’s also one of the most highly acclaimed singers to emerge from Britain in the past few years. The 23-year-old pop star has remained in the public eye — not only for the artistry of her debut album, Alright, Still (2006), but also for her uncensored opinions on everything from Madonna (“The most overrated person in pop history”) to Courtney Love (“One night with her made me realize why Kurt [Cobain] killed himself”) to Victoria Beckham (“Too skinny...no talent”).
Allen insists that she doesn’t court controversy. “It’s just how I see things,” she purrs innocently when asked why she is so stubbornly honest. “It’s not always the truth — I just say what I believe is the truth,” she clarifies.
While her blunt opinions cause her career minders some grief, they aren’t nearly as provocative as some of her lyrics. On her new album, It’s Not Me, It’s You, Allen laments her post-coital displeasure on the track “The Fear”: “Now I lie here in the wet patch in the middle of the bed / I’m feeling pretty damn hard done by / I’ve spent ages giving head.” How will her (probably former) lover react to such brutal frankness? “The songs that are about people performing badly in bed are based on ex-boyfriends who are too egotistical to consider that the lyrics are actually about them, so I suppose I’m lucky in that sense,” Allen says with a laugh.
That isn’t the only song in which she’s courting controversy. In fact, Allen’s own record company has categorized every song as having “explicit” lyrics. Take the single “Everyone’s At It”: While some listeners might misinterpret it as a pro-drug song — even though it’s a commentary on the pervasiveness of drugs today — Allen says she’s not going to defend or explain her work. “If people want to make their own conclusions, they can — and they will,” she says. “If those people are clever enough to listen to it properly and have a balanced, measured opinion on it, that would be great; if they don’t, that’s their problem.”
If people want to make their own conclusions, they can — and they willCritics and fans alike rave about Allen’s catchy and clever songs, yet she admits to having struggled with the writing on It’s Not Me, It’s You. “If things don’t come easily, or if I’m not immediately good at something, I get irritated and give up,” she confesses. “That’s why I left so many schools when I was younger. But now, when I feel like what I’m doing isn’t good enough, I can’t quit because it’s my job.”
To get over her writer’s block, Allen left the studio to accumulate what she calls “songwriting ammunition.” Some of that “ammunition” is chronicled on her now-infamous MySpace page, which propelled her from an unknown to a genuine phenom with a recording contract in 2006. These same experiences also provide fodder for the British tabloids, which rapaciously write about her life (like her miscarriage last year and the ensuing breakup with boyfriend Ed Simons of The Chemical Brothers), her partying excesses (tumbling out of London nightclubs after a few too many drinks) and those verbal catfights (often via the press) with other celebrities. Now that she’s a more seasoned star, does Allen regret any of her public meltdowns or catty comments?
Lily chats about fame on the next page ...
