Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.
If you knew Lily Allen only from the British tabloids, it’d be easy to mistake her for just another vapid celebrity. Abandoning the reggae lilt of her debut in favor of a luminous pop sound, this terrific second album sets the record straight. An acid-tongued moralist disguised as a careless pleasure seeker, she casts a scathing eye on substance abuse in “Everyone’s at It” and gleefully skewers bigots in “Fuck You,” occasionally pausing for a surprisingly tender love song. Amazingly, Allen rarely comes off as heavy handed. Her exuberance makes these blunt diatribes feel like good fun.
