Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You

It took some time but it's here! haha.
I was very, very young when acts like 5ive, Samantha Mumba and STEPS ruled the UK charts and when I mean young I mean that I was five in 1999 plus the fact that I live halfway across the world from the country in question. So for the past two years, I've been giving myself a crash course in Brit pop from the 90's all the way up to now and it's only this year that I got sort-of up to date with what the hits at the moment sound like. Late 2008 and 2009 introduced me to Gabriella Cilmi, Coldplay, the reformed Take That and countless other pop acts today.

It's true, from what I've seen Brit pop has slowly shifted in several directions. Some people like Leona Lewis went with US trends, R&B and Dance while others like The Ting Tings and Lily Allen herself chose to redefine Brit pop and make it the way it is now, fun, tongue-in-cheek and quirky songs with lots of spunk and that little bit of British obnoxiousness(at least that's what I get from you guys! Don't take it the wrong way! haha...).

I've never listened to a Lily Allen album before this, to be completely honest so I have no idea what her previous album had. Of course I've heard the singles from her first album but for some reason I never bothered to listen to the rest of it. I even listened to the first single from this album and I wasn't that convinced the first time, so I had no intention to listen to this. Still, it was all I saw around the blogs so I thought I'd at least give it a shot, right?

So I did.

The first thing I noticed about this album as a whole is it's irony. The music part is very happy synth-pop and Lily's voice is nice and light and you expect nice, happy lyrics but when you listen to the lyrics themselves, (I don't usually judge the lyrics but this seems right!), they're just plain strange. Actually from what I'm getting if Popjustice made an album themselves the lyrics would sound something like this.

I like the songs themselves, the melodies and the instrumentals and everything else though, they're nice.

Everyone's At It and Not Fair sound similar to me, and they're at the same place in terms of me liking them, haha. The Fear is a cute little synth-pop song with very in-your-face lyrics with death and stuff like that but I actually really like it now. 22 has slightly more percussion and beats in it and I just love the melody, brilliance. I say the same thing for I Could Say as well, I like the fact that she's singing at the start then slowly the drums and the beats come in, it reminds me of a less electro-pop With Every Heartbeat. hmm.

Never Gonna Happen has it's quirks and I like it. Very Gabriella Cilmi/Amy Winehouse-ish with that very pop chorus, cool! haha. F*** You, amidst it's title, is very spunky and it reminds me of something straight out of the 50's/60's, minus the lyrics. Him is another cute song, it's like something you'd hear in a movie about the country, brilliant melody. I like one of the bonus tracks, Fag Hag. It's R&B-ish at the start but then it reminds me of a more subdued Ting Tings song.

So, to sum up the album:
Best Track: I Could Say
Better Tracks: The Fear, 22, Never Gonna Happen, Him, Fag Hag, F*** You
Least Favorite Track: Not a very big fan of He Wasn't Here
THE RATING: 4/5