The singer learned early how to navigate pop feminism and the public’s insatiable appetites. Her new album bumps up against the limits of both
H
eaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned. Though it probably wouldn’t have occurred to the 17th-century playwright who wrote those words, scorned women write absolute bangers, too.
We have been reminded as much this week by Lily Allen’s new album, West End Girl, an explicit dissection of the singer’s recent divorce from the actor David Harbour, amid already swirling rumours of his infidelity. Allen here is high priestess of W1, sucking on a Lost Mary vape as she weaves us a tragedy of loss, betrayal and butt plugs.
It’s too easy, though, to categorise West End Girl as pure revenge. The reality is more vulnerable: less Princess Diana in her little black dress, more a 14-track therapy session, full of references to mummy and daddy issues (“I’ll be your nonmonogamummy”). Its seeming openness is both amazing marketing and easy fodder for Allen’s strongest critics. Why, they will ask, must she work through her neuroses on such a public stage?
