As with most people, I was curious to see how Lily Allen’s candid, slice-of-life, songwriting translates to life in our 40s – and frankly I’m not sure it does.
Sadly, the album lost me early with the odd phone conversation/spoken word interlude on opening/title track West End Girl. Positioned just as I started getting into the track, it was too long and felt out of place this early.
The album did manage to claw its way back from here but the uphill struggle could have been saved by burying that track deeper into the mix. Sleepwalking is a highlight with the switches between the light pop-ballad chorus, the aggressive, industrialised bridge and the distinctive Lily Allen vocals on the verses. West End Girl does hit its stride for a bit at this point. I enjoyed Tennis and the vocal layers on this track work beautifully, both musically and in the way they convey the emotion of something intruding and then taking over your thoughts.
Unfortunately, by the last third of the album I’m fatigued, which is a shame because Dallas Major is actually a great example of the frank, open storytelling Lily Allen is so known for and possibly one of the best tracks on the album. The Lumidee sample in Beg for Me is also something I’m here for, but by this point I’m yearning for the album to go in another direction, for a little more depth . It’s difficult not to make the obvious comparisons between West End Girl and Lemonade, and while Lily and Bey are very different artists, there’s something about the emotional complexities which make Lemonade fabulous that are just not present here.
Generally, it’s an album that struggles to stand out. The fierce, ‘fuck you very much’ Lily seems a ghost in the background of this latest release. I’m usually here for a good dose of pettiness but West End Girl is too petty and too messy (and not in a cute Lola Young way). It feels more a cathartic release for Lily, a way of processing her husband’s infidelity more than something that’s a cohesive commercial record – and if that’s what it is, I hope she got what she needed. Overall, there’s not any huge misses, it just should have been a 6 song EP (which could have been epic), rather than a lukewarm 14 track full album release.