It’s Not Me it’s You: Lily Allen’s ‘West End Girl’ Album Review
Music, Celebrity, Art and Culture Charlotte Lewis Music, Celebrity, Art and Culture Charlotte Lewis

It’s Not Me it’s You: Lily Allen’s ‘West End Girl’ Album Review

Mainstream British artist, Lily Allen has been thrust into the media limelight with her divorce from sci-fi series Stranger Things actor David Harbour, of which she shines a harsh light on in her second album “West End Girl”. Allen, married to Harbour for four years, wrote and recorded the entire album in ten days, delivering a real-time account of the breakdown of their relationship. 

Describing herself as a “modern wife” in ‘Relapse’, Allen gives a first-hand detailing of the toll her marriage took on her, and the guilt she felt trying to be a role model for her daughters amid her weary choice to agree to an open relationship. ‘Relapse’ is an album-defining track and an honest account of Allen’s unsteady relationship with alcohol, having been sober since 2019. 

Read More
Feminism, Food Fights and Ferality in Charli XCX’s ‘brat’ (2024) and Věra Chytilová’s ‘Daisies’ (1966)
Charlotte Lewis Charlotte Lewis

Feminism, Food Fights and Ferality in Charli XCX’s ‘brat’ (2024) and Věra Chytilová’s ‘Daisies’ (1966)

In 1966, Czech director Věra Chytilová released Daisies, a radical film about two young women who, upon declaring the world corrupt, decide they may as well be corrupt too. By 1968, it was censored by the Czechoslovak government — ironically proving Chytilová’s point: the world had indeed gone bad, and patriarchy was at the heart of it.

Read More