Lily Allen Issue #30

Alright, Still (Regal/Parlophone)

By Jeremy Ohmes
Published: December 1st, 2006 | 12:00am

Lily Allen has 85,146 friends and counting. Since posting her demos in late 2005, this London-based MySpace success story must have hired a full-time friend-adder to keep up with the traffic on her page — one that’s chock-full of bratty blog rants, jokey videos, and candid photos set against a backdrop of flickering, pastel polka dots. In fact, it parallels her music quite well: a cheeky, potty-mouthed take on wrecked relationships and sordid London life bouncing on a bed of second-wave ska and pop melodies. 

With an obvious debt to early-’80s Two Tone bands like the Specials and the Selecter, who took the seedy details of politics, nightlife, and one-night stands and surrounded them with skank-worthy horns, beats, and harmonies, Lily Allen’s major-label debut, Alright, Still, similarly blends the off-putting and the poppy. On “Knock ‘Em Out,” Allen sings and “raps” a catalog of excuses to a sleazy guy who wants her digits. Over a jazzy piano line, punchy horns, and a 2step beat, she snickers, “Nah I’ve gotta go coz my house is on fire / Ummm, I’ve got herpes, err no I’ve got syphilis.” And “LDN” paints a none-too-flattering picture of everyday British life on a skipping, Harry Belafonte–esque sample: “Everything seems to look as it should / But I wonder what goes on behind doors / A fella looking dapper, and he’s sittin’ with a slapper / Then I see it’s a pimp and his crack whore.” 

Alright, Still isn’t revolutionary, and, for the most part, the story is better than the substance, but for a quick, smart-alecky, featherbrained fling, Lily Allen is your bird.