"Afterwards, Allen stepped away from music, concentrating instead on what you'd have to call a diverse portfolio of interests, including acting, podcasting, launching her own sex toy and selling photographs of her feet to fetishists on OnlyFans. The artwork for West End Girl. Photograph: BMG Music/Murray Chalmers PR/PA But pop has a habit of developing in a cyclical way. When Olivia Rodrigo brought Allen on stage at Glastonbury in 2022, it highlighted how deep her impact on the younger artist's songwriting ran:"
"you could trace a direct line between Allen's splenetic, sweary Smile and Rodrigo's similarly forthright brand of breakup anthems. And Rodrigo is merely one among a succession of younger female artists claiming Allen's influence: Billie Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli xcx, PinkPantheress. If Lola Young had a fiver for every time she was compared to Allen, she would never need to work again."
"So West End Girl arrives in a very different and more welcoming climate to its predecessor. But although you can hear a Charli xcx influence on the fizzing, trebly synths and Auto-Tune overdose of Ruminating, and a whisper of PinkPantheress about the two-step garage-fuelled Relapse, West End Girl really doesn't seem like an album made for opportune reasons. It feels more like an act of unstoppable personal exorcism."
West End Girl arrives seven years after Lily Allen's previous album and follows a period in which she stepped away from music to pursue acting, podcasting, product ventures and OnlyFans. The album appears in a pop climate more receptive to Allen's influence, evidenced by artists such as Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX and PinkPantheress citing her impact. Musically, the record incorporates contemporary elements like trebly synths, Auto-Tune and two-step garage rhythms while retaining Allen's candid, confrontational lyricism. Lyrically, the album dissects the collapse of Allen's second marriage with vivid, grubby detail, delivering a sense of personal exorcism rather than opportunistic trend-chasing.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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