To be a bit stunned by Lily Allen’s new album

Aww that's great! I'm seeing her next weekend.

@Crushed23 I was there last night too.

A mix of the music & story telling.

So strong to see her coming out of a very traumatic period in her life producing something creatively new & unique to help her process the experience.

I wish I'd have done this when I got sh4t on by my ex but it didn't cross my mind, missed my chance there to monetise the pain & take control of the narrative.

Well done Lily. Loved it.

Coming back to this thread to tell you I saw Lily last night in Manchester and the whole thing was PERFECTION. She performs the album from start to finish and it’s like a one-woman theatre show with outfit and set changes. Shoutout to the Manchester fans who were amazing too - clearly all been listening to the album non-stop the last few months like me. 😅

Already decided I’ll be seeing her again in September when she comes to my city.

Haven’t RTFT because the batshit derailing was offputting.

HOWEVER.

Came on to say that although I think she’s a bit of a dick (the best artists are tbh), I love the new album and I’m going to be seeing her perform it live this summer. 👍

Favourite songs are Beg For Me and Pussy Palace.

@Charlize43

im not bothered about any of that, i just know what id prefer to listen to. On paper Adele might be more talented in the sense that can sing better in a more conventional way, but good singers are pretty common. Something interesting and quirky and unique like Lilly’s latest album is far rarer.

They should be. They’re written by a huge team of the best song writers money can buy.

Again that just your own subjective opinion.

Interestingly LA often has 5 writers on her songs including herself, whereas A has just 2, including herself. You need to look at the writing credits to assess how much they contribute/are supported.

Adele, I think was BRIT School (like Amy), whereas LA's career was supported by her famous parents (her first songs were written by her dad, her first manager was a friend of her dad, etc).

LA probably wouldn't have passed the audition to be accepted into the BRIT School, because she can't really sing - she does a kind of speaking warble thing. As I said earlier, without her background and family connections she probably wouldn't have been famous. She is a Nepo baby, after all.

Would Nicole Kidman's daughter, Sunday Rose Kidman Urban be on a Paris catwalk if it wasn't for her famous parents? Probably not because she's just a very ordinary looking girl. LA is similar musically.

@Charlize43

i don’t think record sales are a particularly good marker of talent. Lilly’s lyrics are far superior to Adele’s.

You think record sales are a measure of talent?!

Each to their own tastes, but record sales would disprove that.

@Charlize43

she is more talented than Adele. Adele just belts it out as loud as she can. Boring.

Authentic is not a word you'd associate with LA. Of course it is all orchestrated. She's from a very well connected showbiz family and her mother is a very successful producer - how else do you think that as a pop hasbeen LA was given the opportunity to perform on stage or even at one time had her own tv chat show (despite being voted one of the most annoying celebrities in a public poll at the time)?

I never really liked her mockney act. She was always about narcissism and money. Just another silly rich girl who wanted to be famous and was probably advised by her parents that life on the celebrity bandwagon was cushy and could be lucrative.

She doesn't have the talent of Amy or Adele and I doubt without her parents opening doors she would have ever made it.

I don't dislike her. I just find her boring - mainly because she comes across as attention seeking and a phoney. Silly Lily as a lot of people call her, saying dumb, attention seeking things.

Horrible to other women in the music industry at the time - her spats were the only way she could get column inches.

I don’t think she was authentic. I think she was a wally.

you think it was a curated act centred around increasing money and fame

i think she was an immature insecure young person who had immature insecure young people’s methods of hiding it. Much like when my kids fake an American accent.

And I think you’re wildly naive to believe she was authentic when she was faking her accent etc.

No. She was not in control of her image (or maybe better language would be: she did not have a “controlled image”- curated and controlled by herself or anyone else)

Like most of us, she appeared to live her life just doing what she wanted, as a young woman finding her way.

There was clearly no plan to be a feminist icon, and I find it bizarre that anyone thinks, considering the absolute hot mess her image was and has been at many points, that there was any controlled plan.

and no she didn’t have a full on management in the way curated boy bands do. she had a shitty, underfunded and unequal record deal. She wasn’t BTS.

I wonder whose idea the fake working class accent was?

She’s not in control AND she was not being carefully managed?

That was not happening when she was younger.
She absolutely presented as someone who had done some thinking about feminism (but that in no way makes someone a feminist icon or someone we can learn from) she was a 40 year old woman at that point.
She became famous 20 years ago.if you read her book she had a standard, exploitative record deal in the times of boy bands etc. she was not in control, or backed by some massive PR campaign/image

She was ALWAYS talking about the objectification of women in the music industry.
Until she started taking ozempic and getting cosmetic surgery and the objectification benefited her

She was ALWAYS talking about how differently men are treated when they have an opinion etc.

She absolutely was positioning herself as a feminist.

And her image was very carefully managed from the beginning. That’s what record companies do.

That doesn’t mean she was getting or had the sort of support planning and image control you seem to think she had.

it sort of blows my mind that you thought a 16 year old singer deliberately set herself up to portray an a feminist icon. She likely didn’t even know what that was.

And I was a poor kid who lapped up the performance she did of a young woman struggling to make it because I thought she was writing all her own stuff about all her own obstacles.

As I say. I was young and naive.

She was a rich kid with powerful family friends in every aspect of the entertainment industry.

It amazing the level of marketing and image planning you’re assuming from a 16 year old who got a record deal in 2005.

it seems infinitely more plausible that she was just a bit of a wally. Why would someone so young, with so little support in life, have such a sophisticated detailed PR plan?

She wasn’t supposed to be your model feminist. She was a young woman (which addiction problems) navigating an unusual and lonely life. you’re seeing a level of manipulation that I have viewed as her just being like anyone else growing up and learning.

I love your answer!

I did like her when I was much younger.
I was naive to how privileged she was and then appalled by her cosplaying at being working class when I became more aware.

When I was young and naive I thought of her a feminist. Now I know better.

I think she’s insincere. Everything about her is a PR move and every aspect of her life is orchestrated with the public in mind.

She has been vile towards other women and treated the father of her children with absolute contempt.

She had no remorse towards Nicole Appleton when she relished in selling her story about sleeping with her husband.

She’s the antithesis of feminism. She’s just part of the corporate (patriarchal) machine. Selling “feminism” to women.