Lily Allen: No Shame
“I feel like I’m under attack all of the time,” Lily Allen intones on “Come on Then,” the opening track on her latest album No Shame. The song, a slow-burning pop crooner, continues, “I’m a bad mother/ I’m a bad wife/ You saw it on the socials/ You read it online.” These statements set up the rest of the tracks, which detail Allen’s heartbreaking, life-altering divorce and reveal a musician who talks a big game, but is still vulnerable underneath it all. She’s joined by Giggs, who lent a reggae tone to single “Trigger Bang” and Burna Boy, who’s featured on “Your Choice.” This is Allen’s first album in four years, since 2014’s Sheezus —a record that sometimes lacked emotional heft. That’s not an issue here, especially on numbers like “Three,” a piano ballad that puts Allen in the shoes of her young child as she leaves for tour. It’s a deeply evocative way to imagine the adverse effect fame can have on your loved ones. She echoes a similar theme on “Family Man,” an introspective tune where Allen references herself as the titular character with little time to be present at home. The collection ends with “Cake,” a bouncing number that feels like throwback Allen. “If I could go back/ see myself as a child,” she croons, “I’d say stick to your guns girl, in fact go get that rifle.” It’s a striking punctuation mark on a set filled with moments of self-doubt. Here, Allen seems to decide it’s better to stand strong. “So what if it’s one in a hundred,” she concludes. “Who’s to say you are not that one?”