Album Review: Lily Allen, West End Girl

After a seven-year break from music, one might have expected Lily Allen to ease back into songwriting. Then again, this is Lily Allen we’re talking about. There is, therefore, no question whatsoever of easing back into anything.

Au contraire, the ‘Fuck You’ singer sets about metaphorically kicking the door down on what is her fifth studio album, by all accounts an autofiction-tinged rampage through the unravelling of her marriage to the American actor, David Harbour.

The opening title track begins as a dreamy, theatrical number telling the story of Allen’s move to New York with her husband shortly after their wedding. All good, you might think! But the seeds of doubt are sown when she gets an offer of a lead role in a play in London and he seems put out by the news.

‘Rumination’ – which follows – is full of confused emotions as she reports on a long-distance conversation. “Why can’t you wait for me to come home?,” she pleads, “This conversation’s too big for a phone call / Ruminating, ruminating, I’ve been up all night / Did you kiss her on the lips and look into her eyes?/ Did you have fun now that it’s done?”

The inherent tension – how do you respond to a call like that? – is captured in the track’s heavy use of autotune and dissonant synths.

Overall, West End Girl – the album – is a cross between the smart, upbeat pop which made Allen famous and a musical theatre-influenced concept album on, well, a marriage not so much falling apart as crashing and burning.

She retains the ability to tell a story without sacrificing the pop sheen for which she is renowned. ‘Sleepwalking’ is as dreamy as the title suggests, while exploring the idea of being trapped and manipulated in a relationship. The melody is vintage, the voice modern. “I know you’ve made me your Madonna,” she observes, “I wanna be your whore / Baby, it would be my honour?/ Please, sir, can I have some more?”

In ‘Tennis’, she finds a text on her husband’s phone from a woman named Madeline and demands to know who she is.

The next song, titled ‘Madeline’, is a ‘Jolene’-esque account of confronting her husband’s mistress.

‘Pussy Palace’ sees the narrator kicking her husband out of their shared home and dropping off his things at a separate apartment, where she is – and doubtless listeners will be – gobsmacked as she describes various items of sex paraphernalia. It isn’t just the outraged lyrics that make ‘Pussy Palace’ the highlight of the album: it boasts an earworm chorus and memorable verses over crashing drums, the lot set to a danceable beat and delivered via a marvellous, synth-led production.

Throughout, Lily swings between a variety of genre influences. ‘Nonmonogamummy’ – there’s a newly coined one for the Oxford dictionary – is an electronic, dancehall track. And ‘Just Enough’ is a string-driven ballad reminiscent of old Hollywood soundtracks. But her roots in pop anchor the album.

West End Girl may at times have all the romance of a car crash, but it is, nonetheless, Lily Allen – in all her blazing glory. And damn, it really is glorious stuff, reconfirming Allen’s unique and brilliant talent. An essential listen.

8/10