Culture
68If looks could kill: Ross Lynch and Sydney Jane Meyer in serial killer biopic My Friend DahmerLily in the pink
Lily Allen’s new album might be therapeutic for her, but we all feel the benefit
We all know that as musicians get
successful, their well of experiential
inspiration starts to dry up: no one ever
wrote a good song about the difficulties
of finding a reliable pool boy. But if Lily
Allen ever feared she’d be short of material
ater her 2006 debut album, Alright, Still,
which sold 2.5m copies, hurtled her into
the nation’s consciousness and has kept
her there more or less ever since, then her
newest album, No Shame, finds her with
subject mater to spare.
She’s had kids, got divorced, and even
had to deal with a break-in by a stalker,
but Allen’s git, as it has always been, is
not for blustering, gothic narratives but
exploring the curiously quotidian. And so
there’s “Apples”, a painfully spare account
of the breakdown of her marriage, or
“Three”, in which she imagines how her
young daughter would have felt at the
time (it also contains the world’s first lyrical
usage of “papier-mâché fish”). Kitchen sink
never sounded so sweet.
But despite the domestic strife that
occupies her conscience, Allen is still
a major musical player, as she proves by
calling upon both old hands, like Mark
Ronson who produces two tracks, and
Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, who
writes and co-produces another, and also
new collaborators to ensure her sound
stays fresh. Her catchy comeback single
“Trigger Bang” featured Giggs, and airynumber “Higher”, co-writen with her
boyfriend grime MC Meridian Dan (he of
“German Whip”), is another highlight.
More than anything, though, the
appeal of No Shame is Allen’s own
personality, which pushes through the
album with unashamed, uncompromising
verve (though her voice is also
underrated — her flutery top notes are
as prety as Joni Mitchell’s). It might not
make her the easiest person to live with,
as she’d probably be the first to admit,
but it makes her a valuable presence
in today’s music pantheon and this
a welcome return.
—
No Shame is out on 8 June (Polydor)Fine young cannibal
My Friend Dahmer is a clever, unsettling film about the teenage years of one of the most
prolific serial killers in history