I like this album a lot, but it's been troubling me. Honestly, I haven't always been a massive fan of Lily Allen, probably just from a lack of actually listening to her music, but I bought her 2009 It's Not Me, It's You album a few months ago when I saw it for £3 in Morrisons, and genuinely thought it was great. I received Sheezus for my birthday a few weeks ago because I liked her recent singles. However, before I had the chance to listen to it, I saw Lily on 'Alan Carr's Chatty Man' promoting the album, and she said that it's just a 'dumb pop song' with no political meaning. This confused me. I hate it when singer/songwriters do this, saying something typical like they 'Don't take themselves/their work too seriously'. I feel like it completely undermined the album before I could even make up my own mind about it.
See, I listen to music for primarily two reasons (do others do this too?):
1) Escapism
2) Can relate to it/it "speaks to me" (cheesy)/empathy/connection
I class Lily as a mixture of both, but some of her songs like 'Hard out Here' where she addresses sexism in the music industry, 'The Fear', and 'Everyone's At It', relate to contemporary societal issues, and therefore I see her as a Voice of Honesty amongst many songs in the charts that are infused with pretty much the same old predictable message. This is why I like her music. So, when she says something like that, I feel like the songs, like HOH which has such great potential for empowerment, mean nothing. I don't know about you, but I can't deal with this sort of contradiction. Unless it's something I do completely for 'escapism', then I struggle to (mentally) invest in something that apparently has no substance. Especially as a literature student who (often unconsciously and in spite of efforts not to!) analyses EVERYTHING as if it has some sort of polilitcal or ulterior motive.
Needless to say, after just a few times listening to Sheezus, so many songs are undeniably catchy.
I especially like (click to listen):
- URL Badman (addressing nasty bloggers! :o)
- Hard Out Here
- Air Balloon
- Sheezus
- Our Time
- As Long As I Got You
I think maybe, just MAYBE I take music a bit too seriously :P Perhaps I should just stop analysing and ENJOY.
Danielle.x
