Lily Allen: It's not me, it's... poo.

Poor Lily Allen. Fresh faced and relatively unknown, she pranced into the media spotlight in 2006 as the cool rude girl with a famous dad. I bet she'd never have bothered if she knew she'd have to face all those horrible media attacks, a war with Perez Hilton and a mental breakdown.
Nevertheless, drama makes good music. Usually. But what the fuck is this?! Lily released the awesome (but overplayed) 'The Fear' which will no doubt go away for about six months and reached number one.
But the rest of the album? Pants! 'The Fear' is just about as much of a justified attack on society/media as Lily can manage. The opening track 'Everyone's at It' is a dig at casual drug use in society. Admittedly she kind of has a point when she gets onto topics like the abuse of prescription drugs, but other than that her argument seems all over the place.



I'm not sure what Allen's playing at. Her image is almost completely based on being the wacked-out party girl who doesn't give a shit but still manages to be cool. But for some reason unbeknown to us she decides to screw this and start giving a shit. Oh, and it's not only about drugs, people. She gives a shit about WAR, too! Lily appears to know as much about the American involvement in wherever as I do.. ie zilch. But this doesn't stop her from writing a song about how much she hates George Bush. 'Fuck You' is her little dig at Bush. Er, Lily? He's NOT IN POWER ANYMORE. Oh well, it's not like you spent too long on this song anyway. Worst line of the album lies in the chorus of this track; 'We hate what we do and we hate your whole crew'.



Lily's most successful songwriting is in songs about relationships. 'Write what you know' is what they say, isn't it? Well perhaps Lily should stick to that rule. My favorite track of the album is probably 'It's Not Fair' - it's about a guy who's lovely by day but crap in bed so she's unsure of what to do.



I like her songs which tell a story. Another strong song is 'Who'd Have Known?', but unfortunately this is a complete Take That ripoff. Listen to the chorus and then listen to Take That's 'Shine' and you'll see what I mean.

Ok, so it's not all bad. I have really come to love some songs on her album like '22' and 'Him', but overall it's a thoroughly disappointing album. Seeing as it's taken her two years to come up with an album since the fantastic 'Alright Still', you'd think Allen would have had plenty to think up better lyrics than 'Fuck you very very much', but if you didn't have such high expectations as me then you'll probably think this albums alright. It's probably worth downloading the following songs;

'22'

'Him'

'Not Fair'

'Never Gonna Happen'
'Who'd Have Known'

Overall, I'd give it an ANTI 4/10.

I do not believe in the new year any more..

Sorry it's been a while boys and girls. I'll try and make these more regular...


So in the spirit of the new year, I took a look at the pitiful issue of NME my mother bestowed upon me. The cover preaches 'NEW BANDS OF 2009!', accompanied by a picture of smiling Florence Welch, of Florence and the Machine, surprise surprise. The NME have been brown nosing FATM for a few months in anticipation for her 'big break', which came in the form of her first big single 'Dog Days'. Is anyone else a bit bored of her yet? I know when this blog first began, about a year ago, it was full of praises for this then fresh-faced new artist. But I've gradually become bored of her. I get this with many artists - when they're shoved down my throat constantly I just tend to dislike them.

Another person I'd like to complain about is Little Boots. This girl has to be almost as highly preached as Florence - well known for her Youtube covers on piano and synth. Yet after all this hype, if you take a look at her stuff it's really not that great. She's a pretty girl with an average voice who can play piano. Well, fucking round of applause, someone get this girl an NME award and a place on their 'cool' list. The song every one's been ranting about is her mediocre pop record 'Medal', which can be found here;



Oh okay, this song is admittedly pretty good. The verse pisses me the hell off and I hate the cowboy-style noise but the chorus and bridge are both pretty awesome. The layers of the song are intriguing and it's got a nice melody, I suppose. But surely this girl doesn't deserve the amount of hype she gets. The majority of her covers sound like Diana Vickers. Here's her butchering Lightspeed Champion;








There's one more little lady I'd like you to meet, tipped for 2009. La Roux is hotly tipped for 2009 by anyone who doesn't live under a rock. She sounds almost exactly like Little Boots only slightly more promising, although the same repetitive synth is present. Also, La Roux's music all sounds pretty much the same, although she's very radio-friendly.



Before I go crazy from slagging off all these woman, we can move away from the girls and look at the bands.

White Lies have already broken the mainstream, and I have to say they're looking pretty good. Although they do quite often sound like, as a friend of mine put it, 'an edgy version of the Editors', White Lies bring some good rock to the table in times of Kings of Leon being overplayed and Katie Perry giving music a bad name.

Other great names include Empire of the Sun; the MGMT rip-offs from Australia. Seriously, could you make it any more obvious?! It's just a bit boring. Frankmusik, who's been around for ages so I don't understand why he's suddenly famous is also 'hotly tipped'. The Virgins interest me a little more and I recommend you go and check them out. Personally, I think you should look at the following for 2009:
Frank Turner - Been knocking around for ages, about to get his big break.
We Have Band - Inspiring new band, their name's been around for ages too.
The Joy Formidable - Crazily catchy new music.
Pull in Emergency - Smiths-inspired band with beautiful vocals.
Nick Harrison - Nice guy with a few good singles out.
Elephants - Sounds like JoFo, Los Campesinos!, Pull in Emergency...
Tommy Sparks - Really really good! This year's FrYars.