Jealousy, pain, and humour; Lily Allen’s return to the studio after seven years away is a brutal recounting of the collapse of a marriage.
No wonder Lily has ‘no hard feelings’ after her divorce from David Harbour; she’s left it all in this break-up album to end all break-up albums.
West End Girl is said to be ‘inspired’ by personal experiences in her life and is autofictional – but it’s unlikely her ex-husband will walk away from this release unscathed in the public eye.
Payments for sex, cheating, lies, vasectomies, sex addiction, and ‘Madeline’, Lily unleashed five years of hurt in one deeply narrative album.
Starting with the title track, she leads us into a dreamy state, wide-eyed and loved-up as she buys a house with this man who pushes for the white picket-fence life.
However, that fairytale quickly begins to fall away, resulting in one of the most brutal album openers ever, with almost half the track taken up by a call in which her husband asks to sleep with other women.
West End Girl details the collapse of her marriage (Picture: Murray Chalmers PR/PA Wire)
Lily then whisks us away to London with the next song, Ruminating, calling on a dance beat and vocal distortion to paint a vivid picture of someone tossing and turning.
It’s unlikely anyone will pay much attention to the melodies with how utterly soulbaring the lyrics are, but Lily isn’t giving us a one-trick pop pony here.
She weaves dance, funk, and even Spanish guitar throughout the album, showing off how she has developed as an artist in the time she’s been away.
In one way, it’s a shame her musical comeback will be so shrouded in her very public breakup, as it’s unlikely any particular tracks with break free of the album as a whole.
But Lily isn’t new to this game. If you’re going to make an album which will be plagued by your personal life, make it as pointed and savage as this.
‘You won’t love me/ You won’t leave me/ You don’t touch me/ Still so needy,’ she sings on Sleepwalking, stating there’s been no romance since the wedding.
Twisting the knife in, she describes being gaslit into believing the problems were all her before launching into Tennis, where she discovers there is another woman.
Then comes a song that left my jaw on the floor, Madeline.
‘We had an arrangement/ Be discreet, and don’t be blatant/ There had to be payment/ It had to be with strangers/ But you’re not a stranger, Madeline.’
West End Girl is ‘autofictional’, drawing from her personal life (Picture: Dave Benett/Getty Images for Perfect Magazine)
