Alright, Still

by

Lily Allen

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After the hyped release of "Smile", Lily Allen emerges in the music scene with an album to be remembered as one of the best debuts ever in British pop music.

"Alright Still" features some of the songs Lily has uploaded in her MySpace page, giving her the credit of being one the first mainstream acts to make use of social networking.

In a 37 minute album, the singer mixes pop, indie, ska, reggae and hip hop in songs with great potential to become singles.

Besides catchy and bitchy "Smile", highlights in "Alright Still" include the MySpace hit "LDN", whose lyrics and video are dedicated to London, "Alfie" lyrically funny and genious (inspired in her real little brother Alfie), the informal bizarre "Knock 'Em Out", which features lyrics that were used as the title of the album.

Lyrically Lily proves to be a contemporary poet, mixing meaningful messages with stupid jokes and informal slangs.

In the movie SAW, the serial killer Jigsaw calls one of his victims, "Angry and apathetic, but mostly just pathetic." That description would fall pretty aptly on Lilly Allen, or at least on the character she's portraying in this album.

I don't know much about the lass, who initially caught my attention with an effortless, liquid rendition of "LDN" at the '08 Prince's Trust concert, except that she's the offspring of a very well-heeled British actor. Thus, her decidedly punkish, working-class persona, complete with Cockney accent, may be a complete fake. I've no clue. I can only go on what I hear, and from a strictly musical standpoint what I hear is pretty good.

Allen has a lovely, just a bloody lovely voice, not merely pleasing but equipped with a subtly modulating resonance of the type Britney Spears probably dreams about between spells in the looney bin. She also has a wickedly subversive sense of humor, showcased on such songs as "Knock `em Out" and "Not Big", and a great observational eye, making most of the songs either laugh out loud funny or good for a nod and a thoughtful chuckle. The production is thoroughly professional, so much so the whole album seems to sparkle with some kind of machined gloss, and nearly every beat and tune ridiculously catchy.

Where the album disappoints is under the hood. Allen says a lot, but when you scrape away the icing she doesn't have much to say. She hates bureacrats, old people (her most ill-tempered rants go to her own grandmother, who has blasphemed against the punk code by growing old, a horror Allen seems to regard as a character fault...let's see how you feel in another 30 years, Lil), commercialism, and nearly all of her ex-boyfriends. Her main desire in life seems to be club-hopping, but she devotes several songs to gripes about obnoxious doormen, hostile-jealous girl rivals, and ugly guys that hit on her, so you have to wonder why she bothers. Everything on the album is catchy and clever, but all the effort seems a bit wasted when the content is so random and psychologically shallow. I kept waiting for a real punk-type rant, replete with guitar-smashing and burning British flags, but it never came. This is real belly-to-asphalt, working-class-on-the-dole, narrow-horizon type stuff, and my final impression was of a thoroughbred race horse hooked up to a everyday milkwagon: lots of talent spent in the wrong direction. Lilly Allen has a gorgeous voice and a skewering wit, and her next time at bat I hope she swings at more substantive stuff than sexually unsatisfying boyfriends and coupon-clipping grandmas. 3.5/5