The Lily Allen of her highly anticipated new album It’s Not Me, It’s You is not the insolent, nearly vulgar Lily featured in every tabloid from Los Angeles to London. That Lily starts feuds just to have something to do, cries on MySpace about being fat and romances men 20 years her senior. The Lily featured on this CD, while still unrestrained, is introspective and inquisitive.
No one is safe from Allen’s wrath: she implores George W. Bush to “look inside [his] tiny mind” on “Fuck You” and declares Creedence Clearwater Revival God’s favorite band on “Him.” “22,” like Amy Winehouse’s brilliant “Fuck Me Pumps,” tears apart gold-digging cougars, and Allen discusses drug use on the synth-heavy “Everyone’s At It.” The best songs on the album are its first single, “The Fear,” in which she attacks her public persona as a tabloid fixture, and “Never Gonna Happen,” her biting dismissal of an ex-lover.
For an album with such heavy subject matter, this album is bright and utterly danceable, requiring multiple listens just to catch the songs’ nuances. As a songwriter, Lennon/McCartney she’s not, but Lily Allen succeeds at being her usual cheeky self with flying colors.
3/4 stars