No Shame
Lily Allen has always been one of pop’s most absorbingly forthright stars. But the singer herself now criticizes her third album, 2014’s *Sheezus*, for lacking that honesty, telling Vulture.com that she was “writing music for people’s expectations rather than for me.” Follow-up *No Shame* redresses the balance by reflecting on her recently revealed divorce, parenthood, and the celebrity lifestyle with startling candour. Cloaked in dancehall-mottled pop and emotive balladry, her lyrics remain pin-sharp, evoking the scrutiny and isolation of fame: “If you go on record, saying that you know me/Then why am I so lonely?/’Cause nobody f\*cking phones me” (“Come On Then”). Lily’s clearly experienced difficult times, but they’ve helped inspire her most revealing album yet—and she still finds galvanizing energy in new love (“Pushing Up Daisies”) and the fight against the patriarchy (“Cake”).
Pilloried in the press for her every misfortune, Lily Allen scrutinizes her public persona on an album that dilutes staggering sincerity with uninspired beats.
Zeal & Ardor forges an exhilarating new sound on second LP Stranger Fruit; Lykke Li turns inward on the hit-or-miss So Sad So Sexy; and bedroom pop gets a hi-fi makeover on Snail Mail’s full-length debut, Lush. These, plus Angélique Kidjo and Lily Allen in this week’s notable new releases.
Lily Allen has gone back to basics and made an ambient, self-critical album – and it’s her most powerful one yet.
Lily Allen’s last album Sheezus wasn’t terrible, but she’s recently admitted she “made a record for the record company” and felt she “couldn’t sell it”.
Over a decade after her debut hit "Smile," the UK singer is s still a uniquely honest voice in pop.
Allen never overdramatises the already-dramatic – divorce, children, a stalker, media intrusion – rather she tackles it in an offhand and always bluntly honest manner
Discover No Shame by Lily Allen released in 2018. Find album reviews, track lists, credits, awards and more at AllMusic.
British pop star Lily Allen is approaching songwriting from a different angle with No Shame. In an interview with Vulture last month, Allen...
In ways similar to Kate Nash, fellow Londoner Lily Allen woos us with her spry indie pop and cheeky brashness, often teetering on the edge between rock and pop, and just as often appealing to both audiences.
“I try to keep an open mind, I feel like I’m under attack all of the time / I’m compromised, my head can’t always hold itself so
Lily Allen owns her darkness on her fourth album 'No Shame' - even if that self-reflection does come dressed in some chipper sounds.
Occasionally it's the highs that inspire us to write songs, but even more often it's the lows, the anxieties, the deep valleys of our journey that produce...
The singer’s broken marriage is laid bare in an album that offers spikiness, regret and vulnerability via uniformly first-rate pop
Broken marriage vividly dissected under the microscope on the singer's fourth album. Review by Thomas H Green.