Music Times writers share an office area of roughly 45 sq. ft, which makes having face-to-face conversations totally impossible. Junk Mail is these millenials attempt to discuss and review the week's hottest album releases... without needing to look at each other.
This week: Joey DeGroot, Caitlin Carter and Carolyn Menyes email back and forth about Lily Allen's Sheezus.
Carolyn Menyes: I guess I'll start this off by saying I'm just really glad Lily Allen is back making music. I really missed her bubblegum sensibility -- ever since her debut album in 2006, she's had a really distinct sound, and it's one I dig. While that peppy electro thing is here on Sheezus, I'm really missing the lyrical wit and bite she used to have.
Is it just me or is Sheezus a little empty lyrically? Yeah, there's "Hard Out Here," which is great, and I love the vulnerability she shows on the title track (we can get more into that in a bit). But, this is mostly love and party songs, it seems, which is not what I want from Allen... I like it when she *says something*.
Joey DeGroot: I haven't heard any of Lily Allen's other albums, so I can't really comment on the drop in quality of her lyrics, but I totally agree about the thematic emptiness. I loved it when she would get into some sharp feminism like "Hard Out Here," but a lot of the other lyrics are far more inconsequential and even whiney, like when she's railing against Internet critics in "URL Badman". Lily, if you don't want anyone to judge your music, stop showing it to people. Forgetting the lyrics, though, I enjoyed the music and production way more than I should have, but I wish someone else was singing over them, like Robyn.
Caitlin Carter: I felt like a lot of Sheezus was lyrically spent on her trying to clear up misconceptions -- a very "let me set the record straight" album. Songs such as "Silver Spoon," "Sheezus" and "Life For Me" felt almost desperate, but at the same time, I get her frustration. That's her life, so that's what she's going to write about.
Another thing I noticed is how contemporary this album is. It's full of references to current pop icons and the latest technology. I can't decide whether that's a good thing or not. On one hand, the album serves as a snapshot into a moment in time: 2014, but on the other hand, it dates the record, so it won't be relevant 30 years from now. I guess it's safe to say that I have mixed feelings on this album.
CM: I have those mixed feelings, too. It's hard to not to, but I also feel like she had so much to live up to for Sheezus. As for your points, Caitlin and Joey, I feel like the one true song that is both laughable now and later is "URL Badman." Just don't feed the trolls, Lily. It's also super dated (as is "Life For Me") and kind of makes me think of that *NSYNC song "Digital Get Down" in it's cringe-inducing Internet culture-ness.
Maybe I was too quick to say Lily Allen had nothing to say on Sheezus, but it's just inconsistent. One minute, she's lamenting her highly publicized miscarriage in "Take My Place" and the next second she's so insanely happy with her life and her love in "As Long As I Got You." It's an insane emotional roller coaster. I had no time to recover, and I'm still not over how bumpy that tracking was a while later.
JD: Well, we can probably forgive Lily Allen for her imbalanced emotions since she's about to get her period, apparently. I honestly don't really mind the inconsistent lyrical content as long as the music is good, which it is for the most part. I'm the type of listener who obsesses over chord progressions, and nothing here comes off as predictable or cliched. Even "URL Badman" has a great backing track to it, maybe even my favorite on the album, but I just can't stand it when musicians diss music writers (maybe I'm a little biased). However, there are a couple of tracks here that seem to rip-off (not exactly plagiarize) better known songs, like "As Long As I Got You," which sounds a whole lot like "Movin' On Up" by Primal Scream. I know Carolyn noticed another one, but I'll let her get to that.
CC: I agree, musically the album was varied and unpredictable. The one production choice I really couldn't get behind, however, was "As Long As I Got You." Maybe I'm not used to an English singer's accent over accordian-driven line-dancing music, but it really didn't work for me.
CM: Lily's done the country/English pop star thing before on "Not Fair." It's not the best blend ever, but then again, Avicii's "Wake Me Up!" was a top 10 hit, so, you know, changing of the tides. Even if the lyrics are uneven, you guys are right, the actual music here is pretty great. It sounds like a Lily Allen album, which is nice, but it also brings her forward a bit into 2014. It has that bubblegum sensibility that I always look for from Lily Allen, but it's just edgy enough to make it not sound like Radio Disney. I don't know who is behind the entire Lily Allen sound but to me it's so distinct... it's something I always love coming back to, so that's refreshing.
And as for your point, Joey, the chorus in "Silver Spoon" is basically just Maroon 5's "One More Night." I hate that song, so this one rubs me the wrong way, too. (Though I will admit, it's an earworm. DAMN YOU ADAM LEVINE!) I don't know if that and "As Long As I've Got You" are purposeful or an "accident." Lily Allen has done this before, namely with "Nan, You're A Window Shopper." But that was a straight play on 50 Cent's "Window Shopper," so it's a little different.
JD: Just one more thing she ripped-off: one of the melodies for "L8 CMMR" ("you can't have him...") is quite clearly taken from "Genius of Love" by the Tom Tom Club. But hey, if you're going to steal from anybody, you might as well steal from the best.
Like I said earlier, and I think we said something similar during our Jason Derulo review, the weakest part of Lily Allen's music to me is Lily Allen. Again, I haven't heard her previous albums, but here she sounds like the type of person who loves to rant on Facebook and say things like "people love talkin' smack, why don't you say it to MY FACE?!" Of course, this could just be her musical persona, but if it is, I don't know why she would choose that persona.
CC: I really haven't been following her career like you have Carolyn, but I do think she comes off a bit defensive. It's a fun but forgettable album for me.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
CC: Overall, the sounds on the album are interesting but the lyrics are hyper 2014 and a little too defensive for my taste. She seems cautious knowing this was her comeback album, and it shows.
JD: Lily Allen is the ultimate Internet-age pop star, sharing too much about herself and then scrambling to defend herself when it gets out of hand (a lot like Drake and Kanye, or Deerhunter's Bradford Cox). Sheezus has some surprisingly excellent music and production, but Allen's lyrics and personality are the biggest problems here. She needs to take a deep breath and reconsider how to present herself in her music, or how dated her lyrics will sound in the future.
CM: I think maybe we're being a little too harsh on Lily Allen. I mean, yeah, she gets in Twitter spats pretty frequently and that comes through in a lot of the lyrics to Sheezus... but that's always sort of been her thing. She does the bubblegummy pop music with a bit of sass. I guess this is my week to be the big fan of the Junk Mail artist, I've liked Lily Allen for quite some time.
While Sheezus is the weakest of her three LPs, I think of it a lot like Katy Perry's Prism. The concept was there, at some point, but it fell apart either due to extenuating happiness or whatever the record label actually wanted her to put out. The music itself is standard Allen. I don't think that is so dated as maybe some of her references... but overall, this is a mixed bag, not the coming of "Sheezus."
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