Lily Allen

For all her sharp-tongued slip-ups, drunken shenanigans and futile feuding, Lily Allen sounds quite grown-up here. She balances tunes about boys (some are bumblers in the boudoir, others are clueless) with commentary on drug use, ageism, God, a president and her father. She turns her life in the spotlight into pensive electro-pop pieces like "Everyone's At It," "The Fear" and "I Could Say." Still, her deadpan sarcasm is always lurking, her sweet cockney croons making phrases like "f*ck you" sound dulcet; it may seem juvenile to some, but for a matured Allen, it's all a part of her charm.

Lily Allen isn't just a pop star. She's a genre. Allen's fizzy, fiercely attitudinal 2007 debut,
Alright, Still, sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide, made the 23-year-old Londoner
one of Britain's tabloid fixtures and spawned an industry of Lily wanna-be's — seemingly
every month, the U.K. record business disgorges a new songstress with a MySpace page full
of post-feminist provocations set to perky tunes. Meanwhile, Allen-ism has migra... More >