Lily Allen

Alright, Still

Capitol

originally published March 14, 2007

Genre effects our experience of music so much that it's an inextricable part of a band's sound. We classify and judge styles of music so as to make quick assessments of the new: this sounds like techno, I hate techno, etc. But imagine if you heard the White Stripes and thought "blues band," and assessed "blues bands are stupid," or "this blues band can't play for shit" and dismissed the group.

This is Lily Allen's problem, because when you first hear her, she sounds like a white English girl badly singing Caribbean music. But her songs aren't actually reggae or calypso, they just use those sounds to complement her voice in pop songs, and this works amazingly well, especially once the album's secret weapon is in place: the massive, booming drums, which push back against the lightness of all that sun-baked flutter.

Plus, the songs are good, chronicling and critiquing bad boys and bad girls in a way that's made some boys uncomfortable (always a good sign). Allen's voice lilts or jabs, as in "LDN," where the verses depict an urban hellscape while she trills up on the chorus: "Summer's in the sky oh why oh why / would I want to be anywhere else?" It's all pop in an outdated way, and in this it's like the Scissor Sisters, who could do a great cover of the Vaudevillian boogie of "Alfie," about her shiftless little brother. Like Allen herself, Alright, Still asks you to take it on its own terms. You should.

Michael Barthel

Lily Allen is playing at the Loft in Atlanta on Monday, Mar. 19.