A West Philly Girl Tries to Love West End Girl
In my 20s, Lily Allen made pop music relatable. West End Girl is supposed to be doing the same thing for my 40s; I'm trying to figure out why it isn't (and why nobody's talking about the actual music)
It was 2007, and I had been pretending to hate pop music my entire life.
The pop stars I’d grown up with were glossy magazines come to life. They were aspirational — sleek, sanitized, untouchable. We didn’t have a claim to them the way we do with pop stars today.
What did we have in common with former Disney stars with concave bellies and dance routines as impeccable as their perfect pitch?1 The best we could do was try to get matching whale tails and eating disorders, but that was as far as our proto-parasocial feelings could possibly take us.
I was having none of it. Not only was I an obese teenager2, but I was filled with internalized misogyny to boot. I wasn’t yet ready to admit that I’d been giving more weight (heh) to “boy music” for so long. That I’d been defaulting to men with guitars as the de facto evolved art form. Girls listened to pop (the smart ones only ironically), so it was as culturally significant as playing with Barbies3 as far as I was concerned.
Then, Lily Allen came along.
She ushered in an era of relatability the likes of which girls like me had never known.
I caved.
God, I Love Lily Allen
It was 2007, and Lily Allen’s debut Alright, Still had made its way across the ocean.4 It came at just the right time.
I was 23 years old. I had moved to Philadelphia the year before. I was, for the first time, exposed to a world where men pursued women, and not the other way around. They were mediocre, and they were everywhere. Relentlessly interrupting conversations. Shouting obscenities across traffic. Refusing to take “I have a[n obviously fake] boyfriend” for an answer.
I was too young to know that I didn’t have to be polite when I said no.
A few college girlfriends who hadn’t been scared off by big city rent came down to visit from New York. They taught me to throw back drinks of suspicious provenance onto the floor when guys sent them over. “Always tell them you want a shot,” they said. “That way you’re spilling less.” It was our fault the dive bar floors were so filthy, but at least we were safe.
Lily Allen was practically our mascot.
Can’t knock ‘em out.
Can’t walk away.
Try desperately to think of the politest way to say:
”Just get out my face,
Just leave me alone,
And no you can’t have my number,
’Cause I lost my phone.”
It’s an actual crime that there’s no official music video for this song.
This was long before Instagram, ages before TikTok. Stan culture and “accessible” celebrity didn’t exist yet. Sure, we had MySpace and friends in bands, but suddenly we had a cultural embodiment of our messy youth, our poor decisions.
Unlike the far more tortured (and let’s face it, more talented) Amy Winehouse, who entered the American consciousness right around the same time, Lily Allen was just a regular, messy girl with regular messy problems. Never mind that she was a nepo baby with every advantage and we had as little hope of emulating her as we did Britney or Christina. Never mind that at all. She felt real. She felt like a friend years before all the other stars started coming down to earth.
I excavated a chat from 2008 that sums it all up:
Friend: “I got drunk and lied to him. I said ‘I’ve lost my keys and I can’t wake my mum. Can I stay on your sofa?’ He went to brush his teeth. I took my clothes off and jumped in his bed. It’s the only way I can ever get together with people.” — Lily Allen on her seduction technique.5 So anyway, I think I may be Lily Allen.
Me: Dude, that’s what I do.
Friend: I have told men I had cookies before to get them back to my apartment.
Me: Yeah, I use baked goods sometimes. Just leave a trail of them.
Friend: I slept with [guy] once because [roommate] had thin mints.
Me: God, I love Lily Allen.
Ceci n’est pas une critique d’album
West End Girl caught us all by surprise.
Announced last Monday, out last Friday, and dubbed “brat for divorcees” by Saturday, Lily Allen’s TMI tour de force is officially the most sensationalized album of the year.
The trouble is, nobody is talking about the actual music.
I feel silly rehashing a story that’s already had most of the life squeezed out of it, but for those of you who aren’t chronically online, here’s a recap.
Lily Allen’s new album chronicles her split from Stranger Things actor David Harbour. West End Girl serves as a public diary of her move to New York to be with him, her return to London to play on the West End, the breakdown of their open relationship in the wake of his cheating and sex addiction, her own mental health and drug problems, and every possible piece of dirty laundry in between.
Messy? Oh, yes. Still relatable? I’m not entirely certain.
It’s salacious and impossible to tear yourself away, that’s for sure. Since the release, Lily has received universal acclaim — not just for the record, but for her bravery in releasing it at all.
It is perhaps the single most lyrics-forward album of the 21st century: 10% music writing and 90% tea.
I’m still trying to decide how I feel about it. I told you this wasn’t an album review.
I listen to new records very quickly after release, so I can sort of close my eyes and imagine aaaaall those days ago before we as a society decided that Lily Allen was the millennial Princess Di.
This is probably where I should tell you that in the great Music vs. Lyrics debate, I land so squarely in the music camp that I don’t even notice lyrics unless they’re especially good or especially bad. But of course I did notice them on West End Girl. It is perhaps the single most lyrics-forward album of the 21st century: 10% music writing and 90% tea.
As a steadfast full album listener6 and sucker for concept albums in particular, I can appreciate the choices she’s made here. Even if you’re not resonating with the music, it hardly matters — skipping a song on West End Girl would be like fast-forwarding through an entire episode of the White Lotus.
I mean, who the fuck is Madeline, actually? Even though “Madeline” is a bit of a sonic slog after the charming “Tennis” (which actually sounds like a natural extension of her first and best two albums, honky tonk piano and all), I sure as shit wasn’t going to miss hearing “the other woman’s” side of the story.
Still — is the story enough to carry an album?
In an interview with British Vogue last week, Lily Allen discussed three songs that changed her life. After nods to Jarvis Cocker and Mike Skinner, she names “The Fear” as her last pick, a song she wrote herself. It also happens to be my favorite of her songs on my favorite of her albums. “When I wrote that song, I felt like an accomplished songwriter for the first time.”
“When I wrote [The Fear] I felt like an accomplished songwriter for the first time.” -Lily Allen
Lily Allen was never a stranger to confessional pop. But when I look back on her magnum opus, It’s Not Me, It’s You, the strength of that record, and of “The Fear” in particular, was in how expertly it balanced poetic confessionalism with catchy and emotionally resonant songwriting. She (over)shared just enough to keep us interested, but not so much that we couldn’t project ourselves into the protagonist’s role. And of course the music itself was uniquely, recognizably hers — nostalgic sunshine pop with touches of reggae and grime.
Maybe my problem with Lily Allen’s new music is that I expected to be able to relate to it the way I did to her old music.
The music on West End Girl isn’t bad. Not by a long shot. In fact, the more I listen, the more I enjoy it, and the more I find it worming itself inside my head.
Ignoring the lyrics entirely, there are some genuinely gorgeous moments. “Pussy Palace” stands out even without the scandalous theme: the twinkling, ethereal harmonies on the chorus are perfectly layered, and the unexpected calypso is haunting. “Fruityloop” is an inspired wink to her younger self: yes, lyrically with the repeated “it’s not me, it’s you” line, but it also simply sounds like a more mature, more fragile version of who she was in 2009.7
I expected to have a sense of recognition here too, like we’re experiencing the foibles of early middle age together. Instead, she’s that shiny, untouchable pop star now, and I’m watching her on reality TV.
But it relies too heavily on the drama, and all of us are gobbling it up.
Because I used to feel like I was growing up alongside her, I expected to have a sense of recognition here too, like we’re experiencing the foibles of early middle age together. Instead, she’s that shiny, untouchable pop star now, and I’m watching her on reality TV.
I know, I know. Everyone’s talking about how this is the poignant and relatable record. I don’t know about you, but I saw myself in the lyrics about getting Chinese takeout and watching TV in bed, not about my rich husband jetting off to Montauk and buying his affair partner expensive handbags.
So, I’m being greedy. I want the same balance I used to have: relatability and a catchy melody.
Let’s go back to 2007 again, just for a minute.
Friend: Question:
Is Lily Allen a genius?Me: She is not a genius.
But.
She is very clever.
She still is. But I don’t think I can keep pretending I have anything in common with her.
It turns out I’m nothing more than a West Philly Girl.
Pre-autotune!
In the ‘90s, no less — yes, I will accept a medal of bravery.
Which, as it turns out, is actually pretty fucking culturally significant.
If anyone under the age of 30 is reading, global release days didn’t become a thing until 2015, believe it or not.
I can find no evidence of Lily Allen having ever said this. I don’t think my friend made it up, but also please don’t believe this free-floating quote that I’m unable to fact check.
Truly, it feels ridiculous that I even have to point this out, but the fact is that most people prioritize songs these days, not records.
Listen to it after “Who’d Have Known” and get back to me.
You’ve brilliantly articulated something I haven’t seen addressed elsewhere i.e. surely this can’t be more relatable than her early records. I understand it’s getting a lot of love from people who have been repeatedly disappointed by men but I struggle to get on board with the specificities of rich people problems (even if the underpinning themes are more universal).
Perhaps I’m closed-minded though. I’ve never managed to get past the combination of nepotism and white reggae
This is actually what music writing should be! People who love music have an emotional response to what they hear which is not necessarily tied to how accomplished it is. I haven’t listened to the new Lily Allen (or any since the first, which incidentally I loved) but I am now intrigued. For someone who I feel still has their finger on the pulse and is a contemporary of Lily Allen, I would highly recommend Kate Nash. I saw her live in 2023 and she blew me away. Her last album, 9 Sad Symphonies, is one of my favourites of last year.