British pop star Lily Allen has carved her niche in the new wave of pop music that has come out of the UK in recent years. Allen's music creatively personifies her free-spirited attitude, her wild personal life and the issues people face growing up.
Her latest album is no different. The songs of It's Not Me, It's You address many real-world issues, some fairly obvious, some not. These include, but are certainly not limited to: drug abuse, ageism, relationship issues and politics. It keeps the listener engaged by bringing together many different genres of music: pop, punk rock, electronica, folk - even a little polka.
The album serves as Allen's follow-up to her 2006 album Alright, Still, in which Allen brought to the world hits such as Smile"" and ""LDN.""
The album begins with the song ""Everyone's At It"" rising to a crescendo, slowly drawing in the listener. This represents the song's - and the album's - theme of how people cave to peer pressure.
Allen's first single off the album, ""The Fear,"" begins with a sullen intro, and then builds into a spacey expansion of electronica, representing how the singer gets lost in her own world, succumbing to material desires and fears of her physical appearance. Allen sings, ""I don't know what's right and what's real anymore / And I don't know how I'm meant to feel anymore.""
Songs on the album such as ""The Fear"" and ""I Could Say"" sound similar to the earlier works of one of Allen's British contemporaries, the group Keane. Allen's use of soulful, mellow electronica are similar to the placid tunes of Keane's studio album Hopes and Fears, with her own fire and spunk added in.
In ""22
