Lily Allen – “It’s Not Me, It’s You”

6/10

Lily Allen is reasonably cute and sings quality pop songs but is also slightly terrifying due to how bitter and vindictive she comes off in songs such as “Smile” and in her blog posts.

That being said, Allen seems to have mellowed out a little in the past couple years. The songs on her new album, “It’s Not Me, It’s You,” still mainly focus on failed relationships, but her lyrics portray a more mature, less vengeful woman who’s more inclined to examine the reasons her relationships fail rather than poisoning her significant other with laxatives.

On “Back to The Start” she even identifies herself as the problem.

The songs on “It’s Not Me…” all follow a distinct formula. The production by Greg Kurstin is universally buoyant and comprised of danceable drum beats, pounding keyboards and all the appropriate sound effects. The hooks are catchy, exuberant and typically snotty.

Probably the best examples are lead single “The Fear” with it’s declarative, “here-I-am” lyrics and another song, the title of which I couldn’t mention in this newspaper.

Still, even when Allen experiments with different genres including shuffling country on “Not Fair,” the album is surprisingly one-note thanks in part to Allen’s lyrics never straying from the familiar themes of celebrity and inadequate boys.

It’s hard not to like Allen though, as she always packs a bite. The songs on “It’s Not Me, It’s You” are consistently smarter-than-average pop even if few standout amongst the rest.