Lily Allen: No Love Songs

LONDON, ENGLAND — When I meet Lily Allen, she looks like she's on her way to a funeral. Or at least, she could be. Black sweater, black shorts, black nylons, black Ugg boots, black nail polish... even smokey black charcoal smudged around her eyes.

She looks like a woman scorned. Is she in mourning? Or have the past few years since the release of her first album, Alright, Still, etched this 23-year-old face with the burden of adulthood faster than she would have liked? She's grown up since releasing the catchy summer hit "Smile" in 2006 — and by "grown up," I mean she's become a cynic.

There are so many highly polarized issues explored and referenced in It's Not Me, It's You, set to drop Feb. 10, that you'd think she's fed up with this mortal coil. She riffs on racism ("Fuck You"), ageism ("22"), the dark side of celebrity and consumer culture ("The Fear"), drug dependency ("Everyone's At It"), the enduring rubbishness of men ("Never Gonna Happen") and even 9/11 ("Him").

So what gives, Lily Allen?

"I think it's a different thing [from Alright, Still]," she begins to explain, fighting a frown. "Not that I'm calling myself an artist, but it's like I'm a different painter... I suppose I wanted it to be much more relaxed than the last one in the sense that I didn't want it to be, you know, I wanted to write with lots of different people and it all to be kind of, you know, find the best, the kind of more single-y songs and put them on the record instead of working with one person.

"I think on the last record I felt that every song was kind of poppy, and I always said I would be happy if any one of those songs was released as a single. This one, I don't feel that way. I feel like there are songs on it that are relevant and make sense to be on the album, but are not the sort of, you know, in-your-face pop song.

"I don't think that's what I sort of do, is an offering to people or a manifesto. I don't want to change people's minds. It's just purely my observations, and people can take away what they want from that what they will."

Sure, it's heavy stuff. But Allen's heavy lyrics aren't weighed down with depressing chord progressions and decrescendos. You can actually hear her smile as she belts out the expletive on "Fuck You." It's sung sweetly and has an upbeat pop melody worthy of daytime radio. Allen is facetious and has her tongue firmly in cheek, and it's this intentional level of irony that she brings to her music that reassures me that she's not one step from slicing her wrists.

She expounds upon this with insight into her songwriting process:

"Me and Greg [Kurstin, of the band The Bird And The Bee, who has also collaborated with Ladyhawke, Kylie Minogue and The Flaming Lips], we sit around a piano and we work on chords... and something will sound really, really silly! And the only thing that will make that song sound OK is to talk about something really serious.

"So you have to have the contrast. [We] figure out how to make that music work without making people want to vomit or without making me want to vomit. I just think, if you hear a really happy-sounding song, you don't write really happy-sounding lyrics over the top of it. Otherwise, you might as well be writing a song for a children's program. It's intentional. It's just whatever makes it sound right."

It's Not You, It's Me is like Pink's latest album in a way. But Pink waxes philosophical and romantic about her own self-important relevance, whereas Allen removes herself from the equation.

"It's just the way that I do it," she continues, brushing off any credit-taking. "I've tried it in other ways.

"My publishers used to get really annoyed because my music wouldn't get picked up for things like Grey's Anatomy. And I think that's because my songs are so specific, lyrically, and you can't just put those things on top of other things.

"So I've tried to be more vague with my writing. But it just ends up sounding really cliche. What are you meant to write about? Love?"

At this point, Allen breaks into a giggle as she mock-sings in a saccharine voice, "Oh, I love you and I just wanna kiss you.

"I'd love to be able to do it, I just don't know how," she explains. "No, it's not a conscious choice, and it's almost annoying that that's how I write.

"It bugs me because it sounds like nursery rhymes to me."

Speaking of all things children and nursery, Allen's public feud with British girl band Girls Aloud (a pop group manufactured from Simon Fuller's television talent show Popstars: The Rivals in 2002) and their lead singer Cheryl Cole has been widely reported and fought out in the tabloids, with each using the press to attack the other.

"Cheryl if you're reading this, I may not be as pretty as you but at least I write and SING my own songs without the aid of autotune,"  Allen once posted on her MySpace blog. "I must say taking your clothes off, doing sexy dancing and marrying a rich footballer must be very gratifying, your mother must be so proud, stupid bitch."

Cole then went on TV and called Allen a "chick with a dick."

That could be another reason for Allen to be a cynic. But to everyone's pleasant surprise, Allen actually keeps Girls Aloud's music in good favour.

"Girls Aloud, I really like. It's nice, it's pop music. What I find great is that they're always talking about how they're taking risks with the songs. And every time I hear one of their songs for the first time on the radio, I go, 'Well, that's not very good. That's a bit rubbish.'

"But then you listen to it 10 times and suddenly it's brilliant. And that's the risky thing with them. Because you think, 'That's a bit quirky and weird, that song,' but actually when you listen to it, and you've heard it enough times, that's actually catchy and cool. It's just a different kind of pop song."

There's hope for the misanthropic pop princess yet.