Tuesday, Dec. 08, 2009

"The Fear" by Lily Allen

The world has an understandably low tolerance for cultural criticism in pop songs, but Lily Allen's salvo at conspicuous consumption and celebrity gossip zoomed up the charts without comment, largely because Allen is so good at walking the line between critique and confession. In her flat, unembellished style (she can go whole songs without testing the borders of an octave), Allen sings brutal lines like "I want loads of clothes and f___loads of diamonds/ I heard people die while they are trying to find them" in a way that makes it impossible to know whether she's calling out listeners or herself. The fact that you can dance to "The Fear" only adds to the mystery.