Welcome back, Lily Allen.
I mean no shade when I say this, but is it 2025 or 2007? Listening to a Lily Allen album on repeat makes me feel like I’m in high school again. It’s been over a decade since I stopped listening to her music. It wasn’t a deliberate or conscious choice. Rather, a combination of factors rendered her irrelevant in my listening landscape.
Since then, she released only one album: “No Shame,” in 2018. I had no idea it even came out and (until now) I couldn’t tell you anything about it. Prior to that, it was the release of the disappointingly reductive and off-putting “Sheezus” in 2014 that made me lose interest.
The five year gap between the release of her sophomore set, “It’s Not Me It’s You” (2009) and “Sheezus” was a perilous choice for a budding pop star. Perhaps she never wanted to be one, but waiting five years, especially during a time period that marked rapid changes in consumption and tastes, was certainly detrimental to her relevance.
By the time she returned with “Sheezus,” she was approaching a decade in music, but with only two albums under her belt. Her comeback needed to be strong – fresh, different, innovative. But it wasn’t; it was received as regressive and even immature as she parodied and mocked other female pop stars in the “Hard Out Here” music video. It was essentially a retread of P!nk’s similarly cringe-in-retrospective “Stupid Girls,” but from an artist with much less clout, and with some perceptibly racist choices. Not to mention she was, at the time, nearly 30 and newly a mother of two. She was rightfully dragged for the tone deaf and immature stunt. While I didn’t find the dragging necessary personally, I lost interest and never looked back.
She’s since expressed regrets over her artistic choices during that era, and revealed she suffered from postnatal depression and battled addiction. So, she deserves a bit of grace.
Once again, though, she disappeared after the release of “Sheezus,” and in those 11 years, she has only released that one album (which also followed a divorce; from her first husband) – until now that is, ending her hiatus with 2025’s “West End Girl.” The title is in reference to her newfound theater career on London’s West End (for which she received a “Best Actress” nomination at London’s equivalent of the Tonys, the Olivier Awards), but also is likely a nod to the fact that the album itself feels like listening to a dramatic theatrical work.
The album opens with its title track, “West End Girl.” Listening to it the first time was emotionally akin to the first time I heard Beyoncé’s “Pray You Catch Me” followed by “Hold Up.” Musically, the song’s spiraling quality sounds like it’s the opening sequence to a TV series, and the narrative style of the lyrics sound like a musical monologue. At the end of the track, her phone buzzes and us listeners find ourselves on one side of a very awkward phone call that leads into track two. Seemingly thrusting us back in time on “Ruminating,” shit really hits the fan.
“Then you came out with this line, so crucial: ‘If it has to happen baby, do you want to know?’ … I don’t know, but what a line, what a fucking line.”
Every song on the album is like a different scene in a play, a tragedy documenting the dissolution of Allen’s marriage to “Stranger Things” actor David Harbour.
In the song “Tennis,” the setting is their home– at the dinner table. He shows her his phone and snatches it back, but she reads his texts anyway, discovering his infidelity with a woman named “Madeline.” Echoing the “Becky” reveal of Beyoncé’s “LEMONADE,” Allen takes it a step further, outright asking, “Who the fuck is Madeline?” before launching a flamenco-style assault of a song titled “Madeline.”
Here, she contacts the mistress, and the pair exchange words. Both characters are voiced by Allen, who puts on an American accent to really commit to the bit. It’s a haunting track that goes into excruciatingly honest detail. Of course, it could be embellished and somewhat fictionalized, but with how specific it all is… it doesn’t seem to be fictitious.
Tracks like “Relapse,” which follows “Madeline” and “Sleepwalking” which follows “Ruminating,” both offer what seems to be a deliberate choice in sequencing: a moment of juxtaposition and self-reflection, coming after and simulataneously before launching into yet another traumatic scene in the “West End Girl” play.
The set’s standout is “Pussy Palace,” a first person narrative bringing the listener into yet another scene where she visits, as the title suggests, his sex dungeon in New York. Recounting her findings in meticulous detail, Allen describes her discoveries: “Duane Reade bag with the handles tied/ Sex toys, butt plugs, lube inside/ Hundreds of Trojans, you’re so fucking broken,” before wondering aloud, “How’d I get caught up in your double life?”
Following that scene, she serves up her signature comedy on tracks like “4chan Stan” and “Nonmonogamummy” (perhaps a coping mechanism), before falling back into sadness on the subdued and demoralized ballad “Just Enough.”
Seemingly accepting her fate and perhaps addressing rumors, on “Dallas Major,” Allen details her experience using a pseudonym on Tinder to find dates. “Does that sound like fun to you? ‘Cause I hate it here,” she sings.
The emotional rollercoaster continues on “Beg For Me,” a hard-hitting, hip-hop inspired track that expertly samples the 2003 dancehall hit, “Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh)” by two-hit-wonder Lumidee. Flipping that song into a sort of heartbreaking plea for reconciliation, respect and appreciation was honestly a stroke of genius.
The album closes with a pair of tracks that once again offer emotional juxtaposition. “Let You W/In” is an honest expose of her feelings near the end of their relationship. “I’m sick of carrying, suffering for your sins/ I’ve already let you in, so why should I let you in?/ You’ve taken everything,” Allen sings, to close the track, refusing to play the victim, refusing to make excuses for him any longer.
“Finally I see, it’s not me, it’s you,” she sings with quiet acceptance on the story’s resolution, “Fruityloop.” That lyric cleverly recalls the title of her sophomore album, as she goes on to say that she’s “Just a little girl, looking for a daddy/ Thought that we could break the cycle.” While seemingly taking ownership of the fact she has some growing to do, she closes the set by singing, “There was nothing I could do, you’re stuck inside your fruityloop.” With that, it seems that both parties have an inner child that needs healing.
It’s unfortunate that for so many artists, their best work often comes after the most tragic experiences. That pain motivates them to create as a means of distraction and therapy, seeking catharsis, release and connection with listeners. There is a desire to know that, even when you’re feeling alone, you are not alone in your feelings. When we’re happy, we tend to revel in those moments; artists less often need an outlet for their happiness; because it is not as all-encompassing as their sadness.
No doubt, “West End Girl” is Lily Allen’s most impressive body of work. However, once the dust settles and she heals from this trauma, I hope she is able to continue creating from every place of her experience; not just the sadness. “West End Girl” proves her prowess as a storyteller. Surely she has plenty more stories, from her past and present, that are worth telling. As they say on the stage, the show must go, and while it’s only been a week, soon enough fans will be begging for an encore… hopefully it won’t come after another seven year wait.
