IIt's been seven years since Lily Allen last released an album. No Shame was nominated for a Mercury Prize and received better reviews than 2014's Sheezus – especially from Allen herself – but it was also her lowest-selling album to date. You could take this as evidence that pop music has moved on. In the UK, 2018 was a year dominated by suave boy/girl pop from the likes of George Ezra, Jess Glynne and Ed Sheeran; Ellen seemed to embody a messier, more talkative era. Ellen then gave up music to focus on what she described as diverse interests, including acting, podcasting, launching her own sex toys and selling photos of her feet to fetishists on OnlyFans.
Artwork from West End Girls. Photography: BMG Music/Murray Chalmers PR/PA
But fashion has a habit of developing in cycles. When Olivia Rodrigo brought Ellen to the Glastonbury stage in 2022, it underscored just how profound an influence she had on the young artist's songwriting: You could find an immediate link between Ellen's grumpy, dirty smile and Rodrigo's equally forthright breakup anthems. Rodrigo is just one of a string of young female artists who claim to be influenced by Ellen: Billie Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, the Pink Panther. If Lola Young had five dollars for every time she was compared to Allen, she would never have to work again.
As such, West End Girls arrives with a very different and more welcoming vibe than its predecessor. But while you can hear Charli xcx's influence on Ruminate's hiss, high-pitched synths and Auto-Tune excess, and Pink Panthers' whispers on the two-step garage-driven Relapse, West End Girl really doesn't look like an album made for the right reasons. It felt more like an unstoppable personal exorcism. It seems to expose the breakdown of Allen's second marriage so unsparingly, with such attention to graphic, sordid detail, that you have to assume the lyrics were vetted by lawyers. (She told British Vogue that the album references “things I've been through in my marriage, but that's not to say it's all gospel.”)
While you can't tell where poetic license is being applied, its narrative arc traces the acceptance of certain guidelines for an open marriage (“He's got an arrangement, to be discreet, not to be overt,” Allen sings in “Madeline,” “Must be paid, got to be with a stranger”) but then the relationship explodes when it's discovered that the husband isn't following the rules. In a clash with other women, Ellen (or her character) goes to an apartment thinking her husband is practicing martial arts, but there she finds “sex toys, butt plugs, lube” and “a shoebox full of handwritten letters from lovelorn women.” At the Dallas Major, she joined a dating app under a pseudonym but kept repeating the phrase “I hate it.” It reaches an extremely unpleasant conclusion: “Here's the thing – you're a mess, I'm a bitch… you gotta fix it all.” It's both gripping and shocking. Sometimes, you find yourself wondering whether, despite the lyrics being impeccably written and full of acerbic wisdom, it's a good idea to air the dirty laundry.
Obviously, the lyrics will grab most of the attention. In an age where every pop song is carefully combed through for inferences about an artist's personal life, Allen dramatically ups the ante: Of course, Taylor Swift's complaint that another star once called her a “boring Barbie” seems like a minor matter by comparison. But there's more to “West Side Girls” than cathartic revelations. The songs span a variety of styles: the title track is an orchestrated Latin pop; “Beg for Me” draws on Lumidee's 2003 R&B hit “Never Leave You”; and “Nonmonogamummy” fuses electronic music with dancehall-influenced guest vocals from London MC specialist Moss.
What ties these songs together, besides the stories they tell, is the stunning beauty of the tunes, which seem to evoke romantic fairy-tale endings more than the anger and misfortune conveyed by the lyrics. “West End Girls” seems to reserve its sweetest melodies for its bleakest moments. 4chan Stan possesses a sense of wistful cuteness that belies the basement-dweller titles it references across the web; “Pussy Palace”—a song with lyrics about butt plugs and more—is quite possibly the most addictive, charming song here: It's as if Allen is challenging you not to rewind, even if you don't want to hear its sordid tale more than once.
It's hard not to wonder whether West End Girls will get the recognition it deserves for its boldness and songwriting quality: it'll be a great pop album, no matter the subject matter. Perhaps some listeners will find it too personal to accept. Or maybe fans who grew up with Allen, now 40, will find something deeply relatable in this tale of modern relationships. Underneath all the gory details, it seems to suggest that open arrangements can be easily abused by men, and that believing that you transcend outdated notions of fidelity – as Allen calls a “modern wife” at one point – is no guarantee that you won't get your heart broken. We will see. To be sure, West End Girl is a divorce album like no other.
This week Alexis listened.
Daniel Avery – Her Smiling Ghost ft Julie Dawson
Accompanied by NewDad singer Dawson, the British dance producer explores what he calls “gazing and ethereal corners within my skull” to blissful effect.