Comments on: Lily Allen – 22

By: Iain

Iain — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:36:21 +0000

First time in this whole thing that I’ve wanted to take Lily’s side, there.

By: John

John — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 02:19:20 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL9-esIM2CY

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:08:58 +0000

I just noticed a connection to “Once in a Lifetime” and ran with it, really. (And what people may think of that song’s brilliance doesn’t have much bearing on what they think of Byrne now; for the most part he’s settled into his middle-class comfort character’s shoes.) Anyway, I was basically just trolling there, and Erika’s response was, I hope, just winkingly playing into trollbait.

Still, there is something about gender going on here, I just don’t know what it is. It’s not really a class thing (which may have been the UK trump card when she was pretending to be an “urchin” or whatever; I never heard that myself), and it’s definitely not a genre thing.

By: Chuck Eddy

Chuck Eddy — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:48:00 +0000

A bunch of comments (mostly about comments):

1. I don’t get what the people who think Lily’s “still not saying anything” think she’s supposed to be saying instead.

2. The person I used to be married to, reviewing Liz Phair’s “Fuck and Run” in the fanzine Radio On in the early ’90s, criticised it for seeming too moralistic.

3. I’ll concede there are no doubt young women and under 30s and 22-year-olds (not to mention non-young men and over 30s and 44-year-olds) who share certain worries with the character in this song. But I’m still bugged by the line about “It’s sad but true how society says her life is already over,” since (as others have more or less pointed out above) “society” says no such thing, in this day and age of all days and ages. Lily might as well have said “dominant culture,” for God’s sake. (But right, that doesn’t mean some random individual might not believe society says that, to pass the buck over to society if nothing else. And just ’cause the character believes it doesn’t mean Lily does.)

4. We don’t “all” know from the tabloids what Lily Allen has been going though, since some of us don’t read the tabloids.

5. I don’t get Dave’s complaint about “How come when David Byrne does it (couching existential dread in the face of banality in record-skipping cliches) it’s brilliant?” Who the heck thinks David Byrne is brilliant anymore? Lily Allen does better in critics’ polls now than Byrne does. (I was setting Byrne up as a strawman against Boston at least uh 22 years ago, but at least then he was still placing high in Pazz & Jop.)

6. I think it’s funny how Eduardo thinks “If Lily Allen were a man, she would not get acclaimed as a clever writer,” but Erika (on Frank’s blog page) says the reason David Byrne supposedly gets a free ride that Allen doesn’t is “because he’s a BOY.” I’m not convinced either theory is right, though. (Randy Newman and Axl Rose are both the same gender, but critics used to be way more willing to read a distance into Newman’s lyrics about race than Axl’s. The difference, as far as I could tell back then, was one of class or genre. And that may well have changed since then, and maybe Axl didn’t deserve to have people read irony or detachment into his lyrics about race. But I’m not sure whether that is remotely comparable to the issues being raised here, or not.)

By: edwardo

edwardo — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:57:22 +0000

I think Kat is onto something here – I don’t mind bad lyrics, but Lily has such a tendency to jar, and to someone predisposed to uncharitable assumptions about her, it really can seem like she stuffs things in because she thinks they are VERY CLEVER (rhyming “tesco” with “al fresco”) or EDGY IN SOME WAY (lots of “Alfie”, “Fuck You”, that horrid one where she rhymes “New Labour” with “neighbour”) without any concern of whether it works with the melody, which can often torpedo her genuine gift for earworming. Unless you’re in the Courtney Love/Neil Tennant echelon of skilled lyricists, you should first seek to do no harm. But Lily does harm, and I agree with Jonathan’s blurb that her characterisations are shallow, and here it’s annoying that she manages to wring a little bit of an interesting narrative and then just goes back to being glib before you can blink. If Lily Allen were a man, she would not get acclaimed as a clever writer. Her stylistic tics get in the way of her really getting to the heart of the points she’s trying to make. I know lyrics are supposed to be read in different ways, but sometimes I get the feeling that people are reading things into Lily’s scrawlings that aren’t there – she’s not as clever as you want her to be! As I said in my “Not Fair” blurb, she’s not even wittier than Mike Skinner these days.

To me, the only times she’s ever succeeded fully melodically are “Knock ‘Em Out”, and also her cover of “Don’t Get Me Wrong”, neither of which suffered from her petty crimes against scansion and general good sense. “The Fear” was close but suffered from the “talking about/saying NOTHING” problem she can’t fight her way out of. I can really imagine liking “22″ but there are too many clunkers getting in the way of the slight but appealing melody.

By: Alex

Alex — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 23:27:10 +0000

“but it is easy to believe, at 26, that you’ve missed your shot at whatever it is you could have been, and now you’re out of choices. Because — and that’s the point — at 22 you could have been anything, but at 26 you now are something.”

^^^
This. Erika, is as always, so fucking on point. Except these days it’s not even 26. I’m turning 22 in one month exactly, having just graduated college, and this existential malaise is vaguely present in most people I know. ‘The Fear’ of growing older and the future and closing doors and what it all means is very real, and very universal, I think, even if how it manifests itself in Lily/her portrayed character doesn’t necessarily scan for everyone.

By: daavid

daavid — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 21:14:47 +0000

It seems like an odd choice for a single, not bad (except for the lyrics, which are a bit embarrassing) but not nearly as good “Chinese” or even “Everyone’s At It” either.

By: Kat

Kat — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 15:34:00 +0000

Right, I’ve had another listen. Weirdly, on an enjoyment level I prefer the banal cliches in the chorus because they scan better and don’t really interfere with the melody (not because they compliment it but because there’s hardly anything there to do the interfering!). The verse lyrics just seem really clumsy and obtrusive though – ’she gets one night stands’ is probably the worst culprit here. I dunno if that jarring effect is intentional, but in this case it’s made me aware of a crap lyric I might have otherwise ignored (I am v forgiving of banal lyrics if they blend into the song well). This problem crops up all over It’s Not Me It’s You – ‘Everyone’s At It’ could be a brilliant piece of snark-pop but it’s spoiled by massive stand-out clangers like ‘but kids are in danger!’. Fvck’s sake dude, this isn’t Torchwood.

The lyrics to ‘The Fear’ on the other hand (which I love) are just right: ‘i heard people die while they’re trying to find ‘em’ fits in so well with the tune that it steers clear of any potentially dodgy ground. Plus the general theme of bewildered paranoia matches the murky synth bibble brilliantly. Alas ‘22′ has more of a Suggs B-side vibe which is not really the ideal background for any sort of social commentary.

By: Matias H

Matias H — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 12:21:33 +0000

It’s sort of funny that she’s the new Chanel girl.

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z67/designscene/designscenealbum/LilyAllenforChanelBagsbyKarlLage-3.jpg

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z67/designscene/designscenealbum/LilyAllenforChanelBagsbyKarlLage-4.jpg

Looks great.

By: Kat

Kat — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 09:29:45 +0000

Argh my last couple of sentences about the career didn’t really get across what I was trying to say (was typing in a hurry as had to leave the office and get to Poptimism!). I will have another listen to the song and try and pick a better example of how Lily’s selling herself short & could do much better – that was the only line I could remember that I didn’t like.