Dubbed the “female Mike Skinner” by her PR machine and journo sheep gullible enough to swallow any corporate bullshit thrown their way, Keith Allen’s sprog is currently occupying the number one spot in the UK singles chart with the chav-tastic ‘Smile’.
Her rise to fame owes a lot to an online gorilla marketing campaign which saw her label flooding message boards and orchestrating free tracks and weekly blogs on MySpace.
Allen has also taken it upon herself to become the new queen of tabloid trash talking, accusing high profile acts such as the scantily clad burlesque pop group Pussycat Dolls of being bad role models for young women.
This, of course, from a woman who could quite easily be seen as glorifying bullying, theft and spiking drinks in her music videos.
Not to mention her latest admission that she would celebrate the success of ‘Smile’ by taking cocaine. Oh, the irony has not been lost on anyone.
They say:
Contactmusic: “There are enough moments on this album to keep even the most cynical pop tart occupied.”
Rockbeatstone: “Lily Allen is far from the witty flanneur she thinks she is.”
The Village Voice: “The best summer album I’ve heard this year.”
We say:
Alright Still is the equivalent of driving through London town on an oppressively hot summer’s day, a nagging ex-girlfriend in the backseat breathing down your neck and the car radio blurting out quasi mockney ska pop.
For most men, experiencing all the combined symptoms of gonorrhoea would be a more pleasurable way of passing the time.
However, there are a few flashes of brilliance only a fool would disregard. ‘LDN’ is an infectious serving of social commentary about how everything appears rosy on the surface “but if you look twice you can see it’s all lies” built around a bouncy, Caribbean hook and sarcastic optimism. James Joyce it ain’t, but it’ll do.
Then there’s the similar themed ‘Everything’s Just Wonderful’, in which Allen mixes working class yearning with economic forced content over a ‘60s influenced girly pop rhythm.
The album’s production, meanwhile, is truly outstanding, supplementing Allen’s pixie cum hung over fruit seller vocals with bursts of cool saxophone here and trombone there.
But no amount of fancy wrapping paper can hide the fact that Allen comes across as very unlikeable. Which is pretty remarkable given it’s her album.
‘Shame for You’, for example, digs its heels into a troublesome ex-lover with threats of a gang attack (“I’ll have to introduce my brothers/Think that they could teach you a lesson or two”), while ‘Not Big’ (yep, you guessed it) is a belittling female revenge anthem in which she takes on the form of the acid veined creature from Alien, but without the charm. This is one lady you’ll be relieved to see the back of.
Like this? Try these:
The Specials – Specials
Lady Sovereign – Blah Blah
Nelly Furtado – Loose
RELEASED
17th July 2006
LABEL
Regal/ Parlophone
POSTED...
Thu 13 Jul 2006 at 8:28am
