Cards on the table, I am a Lily Allen extremist. Ever since ‘The Fear’ was first downloaded onto my pink iPod Nano sometime circa 2009, I have been evangelical about Allen’s specific brand of angelic, explicit, We Live In A Society pop music. She is so singular in her artistry; so influential as to have established the very concept of ‘singing in a London accent’ across the globe.
Dozens and dozens of capital-based, major record label-backed singer-songwriters have risen from her trail: instructed by execs to have MINIMUM one swear per stanza, a long ‘a’ vowel for every second beat, a random reggae interpolation per bridge. But none have come to reach the level of British mainstream tabloid fame as Allen: probably for the best, considering the newly-coined concept of mental health and all.
And so, Allen returns to music after seven years (following 2018’s Mercury Prize nominated No Shame, a beautifully frank divorce album), with this, a beautifully frank divorce album (that will get nominated for the Mercury Prize).West End Girl finds Allen post-marriage to David Harbour — of being a man for Netflix — and mid-random theatre career (two and four stars from The Guardian, per role). Written and recorded in a week, it law-abidingly-loosely regales the depressing state of their marriage and later open marriage. As ‘Sleepwalking’ puts it so succinctly: “you won’t love me / you won’t leave me.”
‘West End Girl’
Elevator music with a Disney-fied edge. On ‘West End Girl’, you hear the sounds of birdsong and Lily Allen, recounting in exclusively simple sentences the rapid development of her relationship. Relocating to New York, moving into a disgustingly expensive brownstone, getting cast as the lead in 2:22 A Ghost Story, being negged by Harbour over this success. The music crescendoes and then, suddenly, gives way to an interpolated FaceTime call… the dreaded buzz of a phone vibrating on silent. ‘West End Girl’ is like an episode synopsis, for the episode of ‘Lily Allen and David Harbour’s marriage and pending divorce.’
‘Ruminating’
Charli XCX comes for us all in the end. You can’t really release pop music in 2025 without encountering Charli XCX comparisons, perhaps because most pop music in 2025 really does sound like Charli XCX. It’s Lily Allen’s turn to surrender to the dancefloor headiness of banging bass and vocoder vocals on ‘Ruminating,’ the musically darkest track of the entire album. Is she crying in that outro? Probably.
‘Sleepwalking’
A lullaby on your husband fucking other women with the best bridge of the album: god bless the orchestral build to that deadpan zinger, “I could preserve all of your fantasies / if only you could act them all out with me.” Allen has transcended wink-wink nudge-nudge onWest End Girl, notably devoid of any metaphor or obfuscation whatsoever: but still, she manages to convey a certain twisted humour in the utter bluntness of it all.
‘Tennis’
Arguably, the peak of the album. No other song of hers better displays the VERY funny disconnect between Allen’s spoken and singing voice. Her spoken word, naturally quite monotone, very arch and much less sweet, is utilised perfectly on ‘Tennis’. As fairytale orchestrals come to a halt and Allen’s voice arrives sharp and dry, a query for the ages emerges: “Who the fuck is Madeline?”
‘Madeline’
Allen, the antithesis of being American, is being American on ‘Madeline’. More spoken word, as on ‘West End Girl’ and ‘Tennis’, but this time it’s weaponised therapy speak for the unethically non-monogamous: we hear Madeline absolving herself of guilt as she assures Allen she’s always on dial if she “just needs to vent or anything… love and light”. You can really see the Times2 cultural commentators lapping this up, spurning out thinkpieces on what it MEANS to be British: ‘our’ disdain for anything sincere and loving, ‘their’ tendency towards New Age-inflected earnestness.
‘Relapse’
‘Relapse’ features maybe one of the most affecting lyrics on West End Girl, beautifully encompassing that Lily Allen talent for conveying a thousand emotions in a few syllables, “I tried to be your modern wife / but the child in me protests.” Allen has long chronicled the developmental challenges of being born to Keith Allen, the latest addition to the canon being ‘Relapse.’
‘Pussy Palace’
An immortal and horrendously vivid portrait of the very West Village apartment that Architectural Digest so lovingly produced a 10-minute video tour of (the titular ‘Pussy Palace’). ‘Pussy Palace’ is engineered to be scandalous: perhaps the real legacy of West End Girl will be the image of butt plugs peeking through the plastic of a pharmacy bag.
‘4chan Stan’
A title that makes you fear she’ll steep too far into internet jargon as to lose her coolness; that she may use ever-so-slightly outdated online words in ever-so-slightly the wrong context. Fear not, for this is the woman who wrote ‘URL Badman’ in 2014, a razor sharp observation-pop of mid-2010s hipster keyboard warriors with degrees in critiquing women’s art: “I put the world to rights / so when I’m a big boy / I’m gonna write for Vice.”
‘Nonmonogamommy’
‘Nonmonogamummy’ peaks with its title. Allen’s ‘Feminonomenon’, the song pays homage to the year 2006, when Allen was known for her ‘cod reggae’ sampling. There’s also a lyric that calls to mind Keir Starmer’s abysmal immigration speech from May—unfortunate!
‘Just Enough’
A soothing ballad that is maybe the first pop song to be so frank on the subject of face lifts: how long do they hold? How many and how frequently do you have to face lift to stop worrying about the face dropping? ‘Just Enough’ is mired in low self esteem, and heartbreaking in its sincerity.
‘Dallas Major’
A rumination on the state of dating apps for 40-year-old mothers of teenagers pretending to be fine with their husband’s extra-marital sex life. It’s slinky and sad, with the repeated refrain of “I hate it here”: what could that mean?
‘Beg For Me’
A grower, not the most lyrically striking or emotionally vulnerable or any of the other main praises this album has been hailed, but pleasing to listen to nonetheless. Oddly reminiscent of the 2021 Little Mix and Anne Marie collaboration “Kiss My (Uh Oh)”, which is not a criticism.
‘Let You W/In’
There’s quite an easy listening vibe to ‘Let You W/In’, kind of Jessie Ware pre-What’s Your Pleasure?, if she sang about vasectomies over gentle strings. ‘Let You W/In’ justifies the album’s entire existence in plain words (what other words?) with the lyric: “I can walk out with my dignity, if I lay my truth on the table”. Why make such private moments so public? For the magnificence of the last word.
‘Fruityloop’
‘Fruityloop’ is a Freudian send-off to an album about trying and failing to love and be loved, featuring a lyrical callback to 2009’s It’s Not Me, It’s You, which is genuinely affecting for the particularly parasocial amongst us. It is both forgiving and self-deprecating, and closes the album with an enduring summation of most break-ups: “You’re a mess, I’m a bitch.” Wonderful!
“Lily Allen” by Guus Krol is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.